Chapter 2 - The Twelve Names in the Notebook
Adrien read the page twice.
Eleven names.
Eleven dates.
Eleven black lines drawn through people who had already died.
A shipping executive in Rotterdam.
A prosecutor in Montreal.
A banker in Zurich.
A union lawyer in Boston.
A judge in Newark.
People Adrien knew by reputation and, in two cases, personally.
“How many were accidents?” he asked.
Elena closed the notebook.
“Almost all of them.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“Seven looked like accidents. Two were suicides. One was a home invasion. One simply disappeared.”
“And you believe Meridian killed them.”
“I know Meridian was paid to make their deaths look unrelated.”
Victor glanced toward the detained fake officers. Airport police were approaching now, escorted by men Adrien actually recognized.
“We need a private room,” he said.
Elena nodded.
Within ten minutes, Gate 17 had become an official security scene. Adrien’s name made cooperation move faster than it should have. Elena hated that she noticed.
They were escorted into an airline executive lounge overlooking the runway.
Rain had begun outside.
It streaked the glass and blurred the private jet sitting beneath floodlights.
Adrien stood with both hands in his pockets.
“So start.”
Elena remained near the window.
“No.”
His expression changed.
“Excuse me?”
“You still think information is something you can order.”
“I have a bomb under my seat.”
“And you’re alive because someone warned me before you boarded.”
“Who?”
“That is the question.”
Adrien’s jaw tightened.
Matteo stepped between them emotionally, if not physically.
“Can we agree neither of you has time to win?”
Elena almost smiled.
Adrien did not.
Victor placed the black Meridian access card on the table.
“Four years ago, Meridian Strategic Response officially dissolved after an internal explosion at its Virginia operations center.”
Adrien looked at him.
“I remember.”
“Most of the world believed twenty-eight people died.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
Adrien glanced at Elena.
She said, “The rest vanished into private contracts, intelligence services, or retirement.”
“And you?”
“I disappeared.”
“Why?”
Elena looked at the notebook.
“Because I refused to authorize an extraction that was actually an execution.”
Victor’s face went hard.
“Belgrade.”
She nodded.
Adrien said, “Who was the target?”
“A twelve-year-old boy.”
The room went silent.
Elena continued.
“His father had records tying Meridian clients to political killings. Meridian wanted the father. The boy became leverage.”
Adrien watched her.
“You refused.”
“I moved both of them out before the team arrived.”
Victor said, “She burned twelve safe identities to do it.”
“And Meridian came after you.”
Elena nodded.
“They issued what we called a white notice. No law enforcement. No court. Just permission for every contracted team to kill the person named.”
Adrien looked at the men outside the lounge.
“And these assassins?”
“They were on the first team sent for me.”
Matteo frowned.
“They failed?”
Victor looked at Elena.
“She had evidence Meridian had ordered our families marked if we disobeyed. She gave it to us instead of killing us.”
Adrien’s eyes shifted to Elena.
“That’s why they kneel.”
“No,” Elena said.
Victor answered anyway.
“We kneel because we owe her our lives.”
Elena looked irritated.
“I hate when he says that.”
“You saved four killers and they became sentimental,” Adrien said.
Victor almost smiled.
“Occupational hazard.”
A bomb technician entered.
He handed Matteo two photographs.
The first showed a pressure device beneath Adrien’s seat.
The second showed a small transmitter wired behind the cabin’s satellite communications panel.
Elena studied it.
“Remote trigger.”
The technician nodded.
“Range?”
“Global if routed through satcom.”
Adrien looked at Elena.
“So they didn’t need me in the air.”
“No.”
“Then why the seat sensor?”
“To make you think the device depended on boarding.”
Matteo understood first.
“The first bomb pushes us to another aircraft.”
Elena nodded.
“And the transmitter tells them where.”
Adrien’s face became colder.
“A moving target trap.”
“Yes.”
His phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
UNCLE CARLO.
Adrien declined it.
Elena noticed.
“Family?”
“My father’s brother.”
“He know your flight plan?”
“Half my organization knows my flight plan.”
“He call often?”
“No.”
The phone rang again.
Adrien answered on speaker.
“Carlo.”
A warm male voice filled the room.
“Thank God. I heard there was some incident at JFK.”
Adrien looked at Elena.
“How?”
A pause.
“News travels.”
“It hasn’t hit the news.”
The room went completely still.
Carlo recovered quickly.
“Your pilot called someone. You know how these things spread.”
Adrien’s expression gave nothing away.
“Where are you?”
“At the club.”
“Stay there.”
“Adrien—”
He ended the call.
Matteo swore under his breath.
Elena said, “Could be innocent.”
“My uncle is many things. Innocent is not one of them.”
“That doesn’t make him Meridian.”
Adrien finally looked at her with something close to respect.
“You don’t jump to conclusions.”
“I spent five years staying alive because other people did.”
Victor’s phone vibrated.
He read a secure message.
His face changed.
“We have a problem.”
Elena straightened.
“What?”
“The three men following you when you entered JFK?”
“Yes.”
“They were not ours.”
Adrien looked toward the detained officers.
“Then who were they?”
Victor turned the screen around.
A security-camera still showed the three original men beside the newsstand.
Facial recognition had returned identities.
All three worked for Moretti Global Logistics.
Adrien’s company.
Matteo stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Elena looked at Adrien.
“You said your security stopped when you raised one finger.”
“They did.”
“Apparently not all of them.”
Adrien’s face went dark.
Someone inside his own organization had tracked Elena before he had even met her.
Then the lounge door opened.
One of Adrien’s senior security men stumbled inside, blood on his shirt.
“Boss.”
Matteo rushed forward.
“What happened?”
The man held out a phone.
“They took Carlo.”
Adrien froze.
“Who?”
The guard swallowed.
“He said they were Meridian.”
On the phone screen was a live video.
Adrien’s uncle sat tied to a chair.
Behind him stood a woman in a white coat.
Elena went pale.
Victor whispered, “No.”
Adrien looked at her.
“You know her.”
Elena could barely speak.
“My former director.”
The woman on-screen smiled directly into the camera.
“Hello, Elena.”
She leaned closer.
“Adrien reached for the phone before the feed vanished, but Elena caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Celeste counts reactions. Breathing rate. Anger. Which name makes you look left. She trained us to read fear like handwriting.”
Adrien slowly lowered his hand. “And she just read mine?”
“Probably.”
“What did she learn?”
“That Carlo matters. That you hate being managed. That you move toward threats instead of away from them.”
Matteo muttered, “She could have learned that from a newspaper.”
Elena finally sat. Her knees had begun to shake, and she hated that Adrien noticed.
He did not comment on it. He simply moved the sealed water bottle closer across the table.
“Anything else?” he asked.
Elena looked at the frozen black screen. “Yes.”
“What?”
“She knew exactly where I would be standing.”
Adrien’s expression hardened.
The threat was no longer outside his organization. It was inside the route, inside the schedule, inside the assumptions people made before Elena had even collided with him.
The woman on-screen had not found them.
Someone had delivered them to her.
May you like
Then Celeste’s last sentence seemed to linger in the dark glass:
“You should have stayed forgotten.”
