Chapter 1071
She stood and walked over with a bottle of water. “Here. Drink.”
Alistair took it and drained it in one gulp. “This is harder than defusing C4. Wood is illogical. It has grain. It splits.”
“It’s organic,” Skye said. “Like people. You have to be patient with it.”
Gabriel walked in holding a phone. He stopped, looked at the door, then at Alistair.
He blinked. “The trace is done. We have her.”
Alistair dropped the hammer. It landed with a dull thud on the carpet. The manic carpenter vanished. The predator returned.
“Where?”
“She isn’t meeting a buyer yet. She is meeting Special Agent Lewis from the FBI.”
“Lewis?” Alistair stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers. “He’s the head of the Organized Crime Division. If Harper hands that drive to Lewis, the assets are frozen and warrants go out within the hour.”
“When is the meet?” Skye asked.
“Tonight. Ten PM. At the old shipyard. Warehouse 4.”
Alistair grabbed his jacket and checked his sidearm.
“We have to stop it,” Skye said.
“I will stop it,” Alistair corrected. “You stay here.”
“No,” Skye said. “I am coming.”
“It is dangerous, Skye. Lewis will have a tactical team.”
“And Harper knows you,” Skye argued. “She knows your moves. She expects you to come in guns blazing. She doesn’t expect me.”
Alistair looked at her. He saw the set of her jaw. He knew he couldn’t stop her.
“Fine,” he relented. “But you wear a vest. And you stay in the car until I secure the perimeter.”
He glanced back at the crooked door one last time.
“If we don’t get that Ledger,” he muttered, “it won’t matter if the door is fixed. Because there won’t be a home left to protect.”
They piled into the SUV. Gabriel drove like a madman through the city streets.
In the back seat, Skye gripped Alistair’s hand.
“We will get the Ledger,” she whispered.
Alistair looked out the window at the passing blur of lights.
“I don’t care about the Ledger,” he said quietly. “I care about you hearing what’s on it.”
He squeezed her hand painfully tight.
“If you hear those tapes… promise me you will remember who I am now. Not who I was then.”
Skye looked at his profile in the dark. It wasn’t prison he feared. It was her judgment.
“Drive faster, Gabriel,” Skye ordered.
The shipyard was empty. It was a trap. Or a decoy.
They spent three hours searching shipping containers, but Harper was a ghost. She had played them. The meeting with Lewis was a ruse to draw Alistair out while she moved the data to a secure server.
The next day, the tension was unbearable. Alistair was spiraling, checking the perimeter sensors every ten minutes. He hadn’t slept. He was a wire pulled so tight it was singing.
“This isn’t working,” Victoria said, finding Skye in the library. “He is going to burn himself out, and then he will make a mistake. We need to reset the board.”
“How?” Skye asked.