Chapter 4 - THE LAST ORDER
Rebecca was no longer answering her phone.
Agent Hale immediately sent officers to her apartment and law office. Both were empty.
Her car was found inside the parking garage beneath the chapel, exactly where she had left it before the wedding.
The evidence on the drive showed that Jonathan and Rosalind maintained a private network called the Council, composed of security contractors, former police officers and executives whose crimes were hidden through Duncan Apex accounts.
The red line across Rebecca’s photograph was not simply a threat.
It was an active order.
The date beneath it indicated when the order would be completed.
Tomorrow had begun thirty-seven minutes earlier.
The federal technician traced recent access to the folder. Someone had opened Rebecca’s file from a device connected to the Duncan estate network during the wedding ceremony.
Rosalind had activated the order before cutting the chapel’s power.
But Rosalind had already been arrested, and Jonathan was in federal custody.
That meant someone else was carrying it out.
I studied the names in the Council folder until one stood out: Malcolm Reed, director of corporate security for Duncan Apex.
Malcolm had attended the wedding but disappeared during the blackout. He was a former military contractor who controlled Jonathan’s private drivers, surveillance teams and estate guards.
He also knew Rebecca.
Three weeks earlier, he had followed us after a meeting. We escaped by switching vehicles in an underground garage, but Rebecca warned me that Malcolm had recognized her.
Agent Hale issued an emergency alert.
I returned to the photographs.
Malcolm owned property outside the city, including a decommissioned manufacturing plant purchased through one of Jonathan’s shell companies. The plant had originally belonged to Ashford Industrial Systems. According to the records, it contained an underground testing facility built during the Cold War.
Victoria leaned over the table.
“My father called it Site Twelve.”
“What was it used for?” Agent Hale asked.
“Prototype storage. Most of the lower level was sealed when the company moved production overseas.”
“Could someone be held there without being seen?”
“Yes.”
We left immediately.
Rain began before we reached the highway. The plant stood nearly forty miles from the city, surrounded by abandoned warehouses and empty rail lines. Federal tactical teams approached from three sides while Agent Hale insisted that Victoria and I remain inside an armored vehicle.
We obeyed for approximately four minutes.
Then a message appeared on my phone from Rebecca’s number.
COME INSIDE ALONE OR SHE DIES.
A photograph followed.
Rebecca was tied to a metal chair. Blood marked the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were open.
Behind her, a digital clock counted down from fourteen minutes.
Agent Hale saw the message.
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“You’re not going inside.”
“He asked for me because he believes I have something he needs.”
“What?”
I looked at Victoria.
“The password.”
The drive contained encryption keys, but access to the Council’s off-site archive required a password Jonathan had once spoken during an argument in his study. He assumed I was unconscious after knocking me against the desk.
I remembered every word.
Malcolm needed the password to erase the remaining records before federal agents secured the system.
“We don’t know where Rebecca is inside that building,” I said. “If your team enters without locating her, Malcolm may kill her.”
Agent Hale studied the countdown.
“Wear a transmitter. Keep him talking. The moment we identify your location, we move.”
I entered through a side door with my hands visible.
The plant smelled of rust, wet concrete and old chemicals. Emergency lights formed a narrow path toward a freight elevator. The doors opened before I touched the button.
Malcolm’s voice came through a speaker.
“Lower level.”
I stepped inside.
The elevator descended for nearly thirty seconds.
When the doors opened, I saw Rebecca across the room. Wires connected the digital clock to several containers stacked near the support columns. I could not tell whether they held explosives or were part of the deception.
Malcolm stood behind her with a pistol.
“You caused a great deal of damage,” he said.
“You kidnapped the wrong attorney.”
“She was convenient.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Do not give him anything.”
Malcolm struck the back of her chair with the pistol.
“Quiet.”
I forced myself not to react.
“You want the archive password.”
“I want the password and the drive.”
“The FBI has the drive.”
“You copied it.”
He knew me well enough to be dangerous.
I had copied the drive before leaving the estate. The duplicate was inside a hidden pocket sewn into my borrowed jacket.
“What happens after I give it to you?” I asked.
“You leave with your attorney.”
“That isn’t what the order says.”
Malcolm’s expression changed slightly.
Jonathan underestimated me because he believed intelligence belonged only to men with power. Malcolm did not make that mistake. He knew I had opened the Council files.
“You saw the list,” he said.
“I saw your payments. Jonathan transferred more than twelve million dollars into accounts connected to you.”
“I was paid for risk.”
“You were paid to murder people.”
“I protected the company.”
“That is what Rosalind says too.”
“Rosalind understood the world.”
“The world where frightened men call themselves powerful because other people clean up their crimes?”
Malcolm raised the pistol toward me.
“Password.”
The clock showed eight minutes.
I removed the duplicate drive.
“Untie Rebecca first.”
“No.”
“Then you don’t get this.”
“I can take it from your body.”
“You still need the password.”
He aimed directly at my chest.
“Jonathan said pain makes you cooperative.”
“Jonathan says many things when he is afraid.”
Malcolm walked closer.
That was what I needed.
The transmitter under my collar had failed when the elevator descended below ground, but the duplicate drive contained a beacon. Agent Hale could not locate it until Malcolm connected it to the archive terminal.
I held it out.
Malcolm took the drive and inserted it into a laptop beside Rebecca.
A small light flashed.
The beacon activated.
“Password,” he demanded.
I gave him six words.
He typed them.
ACCESS DENIED appeared on the screen.
Malcolm turned toward me.
“What did you do?”
“Those were not the password.”
He struck me across the face. I fell against the metal table.
Rebecca shouted my name.
Malcolm grabbed my hair and pulled me upright.
“The real password.”
I looked at the clock.
Four minutes.
“VICTORIA-ASHFORD-LIVES.”
He entered it.
The archive opened.
At the same moment, steel doors crashed open on both sides of the facility.
Federal agents flooded the room.
Malcolm fired once toward the entrance. Rebecca threw her weight sideways, knocking the laptop table into his legs. His second shot struck the ceiling.
Agent Hale reached him before he could recover.
The clock continued counting down.
A bomb technician rushed toward the containers while another officer cut Rebecca free.
Thirty seconds remained when the technician pulled open the first container.
It held nothing but sand.
There was no bomb.
Malcolm had used the clock to force a decision.
But the archive was real.
Inside it, investigators found records proving that Jonathan’s network had bribed officials, destroyed evidence and arranged at least three deaths.
Peter Lawson’s name appeared in a completed order signed by Rosalind Duncan.
Rebecca gripped my hand as paramedics examined us.
“You could have been killed,” she said.
“So could you.”
“That does not improve the logic.”
“It improved the outcome.”
She almost smiled.
By morning, federal prosecutors had enough evidence to charge Jonathan, Rosalind, Malcolm and seventeen members of the Council under racketeering statutes. Duncan Apex accounts were frozen across six countries. Trading in the company’s bonds was suspended.
Jonathan’s fabricated world was collapsing.
But one final decision remained.
Victoria could reclaim legal control of Ashford Industrial Systems and absorb what remained of Duncan Apex.
Doing so would make her one of the wealthiest women in America.
Instead, she announced that she intended to dissolve the empire.
The decision placed thousands of jobs at risk and turned public sympathy against her within hours.
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Jonathan’s final weapon was no longer violence.
It was the fear of everyone whose livelihood depended on the fortune he had stolen.
