Chapter 12 - The Room at the End of the Hall
The facility was surrounded by federal agents before Sienna arrived.
Room 217 was empty.
The bed was still warm.
A nurse was crying.
"He left twenty minutes ago."
"With whom?"
"I don't know."
Security footage showed two men escorting Thomas Carter through a service exit.
He wasn't resisting.
He appeared to know them.
Sienna watched the footage three times.
Then noticed something.
Her father looked directly at the camera before leaving.
He touched his chest.
Then his left wrist.
Then raised two fingers.
A childhood signal.
When Sienna was little, her father had created silly codes for treasure hunts.
Chest.
Wrist.
Two.
Heart.
Time.
Two.
Heart time two.
No.
Two hearts.
Sienna remembered.
"Second heartbeat."
Kira frowned.
"What?"
"My father used to call backup plans second heartbeats."
They searched the room.
Nothing.
Then Sienna looked beneath the mattress.
A keycard.
VANTAGE ARCHIVE B.
Sienna had never heard of Archive B.
Neither had Kira.
The keycard opened a basement elevator inside Vantage headquarters.
The elevator descended three levels below the publicly registered building plans.
The doors opened.
Rows of physical records stretched into darkness.
Kira whispered, "How does a company president not know this exists?"
Sienna didn't answer.
At the center of the archive was a steel table.
On it sat a laptop.
The screen activated automatically.
Thomas Carter appeared.
Recorded video.
"Sienna, if you're seeing this, they moved me."
He looked healthier in the recording.
"I need you to understand something before you decide who your enemies are."
A photograph appeared.
Margaret Carter.
Charles Richardson.
David Halden.
And another woman.
Sienna didn't recognize her.
"Project Meridian was not a financial operation."
Thomas continued.
"It was a continuity system."
"For what?" Sienna whispered.
"For ownership."
Documents flashed across the screen.
Companies.
Banks.
Properties.
Patents.
Political foundations.
Shipping routes.
Billions in assets.
Thomas looked directly into the camera.
"Margaret built a mechanism that could survive deaths, bankruptcies, wars and investigations."
Kira stared.
"A shadow holding network."
Thomas continued.
"Vantage is only its public face."
Then another photograph appeared.
Julian Richardson.
Sienna's stomach tightened.
The date beneath it was seventeen years old.
Julian was eighteen.
May you like
Thomas said:
"Julian has been connected to Meridian much longer than he told you."
