Chapter 1 - The Price of One More Minute
Adrien Volkov had expected the nurse to beg. Instead, Naomi Carter looked past the muzzle of his pistol at the old man struggling to breathe behind her.
"Put it away," she said. "You're making him work harder just to stay alive."
Petrov made an incredulous sound. The station smelled of hot wiring and wet concrete. Adrien could hear the tremor in Raymond's breathing and the small, deliberate movements of Naomi's hands as she pressed the folded dressing against his side.
"You know what happens when people give me orders?" Adrien asked.
"I know what happens when people lose too much blood. You can explain your rules in the ambulance."
She said it without pretending she wasn't afraid. A bead of sweat had appeared at her temple. Adrien was close enough to notice the way her left hand shook when she adjusted her grip, and how firmly she held it anyway.
He lowered the pistol. He did not put it away.
"Marco," he said into his phone. "Call 911. Give them the station entrance. Tell them a man has a penetrating injury and trouble breathing."
"Boss—"
"Now."
Naomi glanced at him once, then returned to Raymond. "You hear that? Help's coming. What's your last name?"
"Turner," the veteran managed. "Raymond Turner."
"I'm Naomi. You're going to keep looking at me, Mr. Turner. Tell me what you had for dinner."
"Coffee."
"Well, that's a terrible dinner. We can argue about it later."
The faintest change passed across Raymond's face. Adrien felt something unpleasant twist inside him. He had spent years treating a human being's terror as information. Naomi was treating this man's jokes as a reason to keep him present.
Goran approached the stairs. "Two minutes before the maintenance crew. We should move her."
"Nobody moves him," Naomi said, not looking up. "And nobody moves me while I'm helping."
Goran reached for her bag. Adrien caught his wrist and pushed it away.
"You heard her. Back off."
Petrov stared. For a moment Adrien saw his authority reflected back at him, warped by the expression of a man who suddenly didn't know what he was supposed to be afraid of.
Raymond caught Naomi's sleeve. His fingers were bluish at the nails. "Don't let them... count me twice."
"What?" she asked.
"Forty-three," he whispered. "We were forty-three."
Naomi's face changed. Adrien recognized that expression: she had heard something that made sense to her and frightened her more than the gun.
"Mr. Turner, where?"
"Brigid's." He coughed. "They sent a bus. Said we were getting beds. We weren't."
Naomi's jaw tightened. She had spent the previous evening at St. Brigid's Veterans Center, where she volunteered between hospital shifts. She had counted seventeen men on the ground floor and fourteen upstairs, and the director had insisted the other twelve had been transferred. She had also seen twelve names on a reimbursement statement that placed them in beds they had supposedly occupied that same night.
Until now, the discrepancy had looked like sloppy accounting. Raymond had just given it a human voice.
A metallic rattle came from the stairwell. Goran turned. Adrien lifted the pistol again, pointing it toward the empty passage rather than at Raymond.
"Put that away before the medics come down," Naomi said. "If they think the scene isn't safe, they'll wait upstairs. He can't afford that."
Adrien looked at the weapon in his hand. He had drawn it because it was the fastest way to control a room. In this room it had become the thing most likely to kill a man he hadn't come for.
He holstered it.
"Petrov. Goran. Go to the car."
"She's our target," Petrov protested.
"She isn't leaving this platform," Adrien said. "And you are."
The men retreated with their mouths shut. Naomi did not thank him. She pulled a foil blanket from her kit and settled it over Raymond without disturbing the pressure dressing.
"Who did this?" Adrien asked.
Raymond's eyes moved toward the stairs. "Man with a clean coat. I took his book. He wanted it back."
"What book?" Naomi asked.
Raymond tried to move his hand into his jacket and gasped. Naomi stopped him. "Don't reach. Just tell me."
"Names," he said. "Actual names. Not numbers."
Footsteps pounded down the stairs. Two emergency medical technicians appeared with a stretcher and equipment. Naomi called out a concise report, then shifted aside just enough to let them work. She answered their questions without offering a theory she couldn't prove. Adrien stayed by the column, his hands visible.
One technician glanced at him. "You with the patient?"
"No," Naomi said before Adrien could answer. "He called for help."
It was true and not remotely the whole truth. Adrien felt the omission like an accusation. He had held a pistol against Raymond's temple less than four minutes earlier. Naomi could have said so. Instead, she was keeping the medics focused on the patient. He understood that didn't mean she would keep his secret later.
As they lifted Raymond onto the stretcher, the old man seized Adrien's cuff. "Your trucks," he whispered. "Your name on the side."
Adrien bent down. "What about them?"
"They took us away. And brought us right back. But the beds stayed sold."
Raymond's hand fell away. The technicians carried him toward the stairs, Naomi walking beside them until the first landing. She returned only to collect her canvas bag, which lay next to a streak of dark blood.
Adrien waited by the disabled security camera. "I need to see those records."
"Then request them from Harborlight Watch like everyone else," she said.
"The Baronovs will burn them before breakfast."
"You don't get to threaten a witness and then ask me to trust your timetable."
He had no answer that wouldn't sound like another threat.
Her phone buzzed in her palm. A message from Tessa Monroe, the nonprofit's lead investigator, appeared above a photograph of a reimbursement spreadsheet. Naomi enlarged it. Adrien saw the top line before she turned the screen away.
ST. BRIGID'S — TRANSFER COMPLETED — 43 RESIDENTS.
The timestamp was 1:48 a.m., fourteen minutes before he had reached the platform. The billing company beneath it was Mariner Freight, one of Adrien's own businesses.
Naomi looked up slowly. "You said you came because your rivals were stealing money."
"They are."
"Then why is your company collecting payment for people who never got a bed?"
On the stairs above them, the ambulance doors slammed. Adrien's phone vibrated with a message from Victor Draven, his lieutenant.
DID YOU FIND THE NURSE? RAYMOND TURNER WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THERE.
Adrien read it twice. Victor had never been told the veteran's name.
Naomi saw his expression and stepped back toward the stairs. "Who just called you?"
May you like
Adrien turned the screen facedown.
For the first time that night, he understood that he had not been sent to retrieve a woman who knew too much. Someone inside his own organization had sent him to a platform where two inconvenient people could be made to disappear together.
