Chapter 4 - The Room Behind the Organ
Claire did not return home.
Cross drove them to a disused postal warehouse where Voss’s restraints were removed and his injuries examined. None were serious, but the lieutenant had lost his ceremonial jacket during the escape.
Cross found him an old maintenance coat.
“We cannot stay together,” Cross said. “Mercer will track every government vehicle and every person connected to Nathan.”
Claire opened the red folder across a packing table.
“You were Nathan’s closest friend. Why didn’t he tell you everything?”
“Because he believed my communications were compromised.”
“Were they?”
Cross looked at the dark windows.
“Yes.”
Lily sat on an overturned mail crate, reading the Lighthouse Mouse storybook.
Every few pages, she found a word underlined in pencil.
Light.
North.
Seven.
Bell.
Home.
Claire copied them onto a piece of paper.
Voss studied the sequence.
“It could be a code.”
“It is,” Lily said. “Dad and I made it.”
The adults looked at her.
“When he was away, he sent me postcards. If he underlined words, I had to turn them into directions.”
“How?” Claire asked.
Lily pointed to the drawings in the book.
“The lighthouse means start from home. The mouse always moves north first. The number tells you how many letters.”
They followed the pattern.
The words formed a sentence.
RING THE SEVENTH BELL BEFORE MIDNIGHT.
St. Orison had only one bell tower, but Claire remembered the handbells displayed beside the church organ. Nathan had played one during a Christmas service years earlier.
Cross checked his watch.
“We need to approach separately.”
Claire shook her head.
“Lily stays with me.”
“It may be dangerous.”
“She is already a target because she has the keys. I am not leaving her where Mercer can reach her.”
Lily closed the book.
“I want to hear Dad’s message.”
At eleven forty-eight that night, St. Orison Church stood dark behind its iron fence.
The funeral coffin remained in the courtyard under military guard. After Claire’s disappearance, the service had been postponed. Mercer had told the press she was suffering from shock.
Two television vans waited across the street.
Claire and Lily entered through the cemetery tunnel while Cross and Voss approached from the northern wall.
The church interior smelled of candle wax and cold stone.
Moonlight passed through the stained-glass windows, laying colored patterns across the pews.
The organ towered above the altar.
Seven handbells rested inside a glass cabinet beside it.
Lily found the seventh bell.
Claire lifted it and rang it once.
The sound was soft.
A panel behind the organ opened.
Inside was a narrow room containing a desk, an audio console, and a wall covered with photographs.
Nathan had built an evidence chamber beneath the church.
Claire entered slowly.
Pictures showed military depots, private aircraft, border checkpoints, and men exchanging documents outside government buildings.
Mercer appeared in many of them.
So did Captain Cross.
Cross saw Claire looking.
“I was following Nathan’s orders.”
“Or Nathan was following yours.”
Before he could respond, the audio console switched on.
Nathan’s face appeared on a small screen.
The recording had been made in this room.
“Claire,” he said, “if you reached the organ room, then Julian and Owen both kept their promises.”
Cross lowered his head.
Nathan continued.
“You are going to see evidence that will make you doubt people you once trusted. Some of that doubt will be justified.”
His image flickered.
“Operation Lantern was not created to deliver supplies. It was created to hide a transportation network already operating inside the military.”
Claire examined the photographs.
“What were they transporting?” Voss whispered.
Nathan answered as though he had heard the question.
“People.”
Lily moved closer to her mother.
“Witnesses, informants, missing officials, and anyone whose identity needed to disappear. Some were rescued. Others were sold to private intelligence groups.”
Claire felt ill.
“I discovered the network because I recognized a name on a supposedly empty passenger list.”
The screen displayed a document.
One name was highlighted.
Eleanor Hale.
Claire stared.
“That was Nathan’s mother.”
Cross looked at her.
“I thought she died when he was sixteen.”
“That is what he was told.”
Nathan’s recording continued.
“My mother may still be alive. Mercer knows where she was taken.”
A noise sounded outside the hidden room.
A slow creak from the church aisle.
Cross switched off his flashlight.
Everyone remained still.
A shadow passed beneath the organ.
Then a man’s voice called from the darkness.
“Claire, your husband did not understand what he discovered.”
Colonel Mercer stepped into view.
He was alone.
At least he appeared to be.
Claire closed the evidence folder.
“You arranged his death.”
“I arranged nothing.”
“You signed the transfer order before the convoy disappeared.”
Mercer’s face remained calm.
“Because Nathan asked me to.”
Claire hesitated.
Mercer looked toward the screen.
“He knew the convoy would be attacked. He planned to use the false transfer order to make the network believe he was dead.”
Cross drew his weapon.
“Do not move.”
Mercer ignored him.
“Your husband survived the convoy.”
Lily gasped.
Claire could not speak.
Mercer reached into his coat.
Cross raised the weapon.
Mercer slowly removed a photograph and placed it on the floor.
It showed Nathan standing inside an unfamiliar house.
The date printed in the corner was two days after the convoy disappeared.
“He was alive,” Claire whispered.
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Mercer’s expression changed.
“That is the question that cost three people their lives tonight.”
A red laser appeared on Cross’s chest.
Then another settled on Voss.
Mercer had not come alone.
The hidden room door slammed shut behind them.
May you like
Mercer looked at Claire.
“Give me the keys, and I will tell Lily where her father was taken.”
