Chapter 16 - The Coordinates
The coordinates pointed to an abandoned municipal records warehouse located on the desolate industrial docks at the edge of the harbor—the very same district Arthur Sterling’s journal had mentioned in its opening pages.
“We can’t go there alone, Mom,” Emily said, pacing anxiously across the kitchen floor as I packed my leather bag with a flashlight, my phone, and a portable data reader. “This has Richard Vance’s fingerprints all over it. It’s an ambush.”
“I know it’s an ambush, Emily,” I replied calmly, zipping my jacket. “Which is why we aren’t going alone.”
I picked up my phone and dialed Agent Miller’s direct secure line. It rang twice before a gruff, alert voice answered on the other end. “Miller.”
“Agent Miller, it’s Judge Margaret,” I said without preamble. “We just received a drop at our house containing coordinates to the old harbor municipal archives and an encrypted drive. The bait is Arthur Sterling’s secondary vault.”
There was a brief pause on the line as Miller digested the information. “That warehouse was condemned after a suspicious fire twenty-five years ago. If they’re luring you out there, they’re looking to finish what Richard’s clean-up crew started.”
“Exactly,” I said. “So here is what we are going to do. You and a tactical backup team will surround the perimeter thirty minutes before we arrive. Let them think I took the bait alone. Once they expose themselves, we close the trap once and for all.”
“It’s dangerous, Margaret,” Miller warned. “Even with tactical backup, those docks are a maze of rusted steel and blind corners.”
“Thirty years ago, men like Arthur Sterling killed my husband and hid behind their badges and boardrooms,” I said, my voice steady with unyielding resolve. “It’s time to settle the ledger.”
An hour later, my sedan pulled up to the rusted iron gates of the municipal harbor warehouse. The fog rolled in thick off the dark ocean water, swallowing the surrounding container ships in a ghostly white shroud.
May you like
I killed the headlights, stepped out of the car into the damp chill of the night, and walked toward the cavernous sliding metal door of the warehouse, holding the encrypted USB drive tightly in my hand.
The door stood slightly ajar, a sliver of pale yellow light spilling out onto the cracked concrete driveway. From the shadows above, unseen eyes watched my every move.
