Chapter 10
The crimson light flashed aggressively across the dark interior of the container, painting Arthur and Miller in pulsating strokes of blood red. The laptop speakers blared an incessant, ear-piercing alarm that rattled their eardrums.
"What's happening?" Miller yelled over the blaring siren, grabbing the edge of the wooden crate as the ship beneath them suddenly listed sharply to port. "Did you trigger a security protocol?"
"No," Arthur muttered, his fingers flying across the keyboard in a desperate attempt to override the system command. "This isn't my code doing the purging. Someone on their end—someone inside the syndicate—is wiping the servers to cover their tracks."
"If they wipe the servers, the data is gone forever," Miller said, his eyes darting toward the door. "And if the data is gone, we're just loose ends on a floating coffin."
"Look at the screen!" Arthur pointed frantically at the monitor.
The progress bar had stopped its descent toward zero. Instead, a new text window opened, bypassing the automated purge protocol entirely. A string of coordinates appeared on the screen, accompanied by a local radar map of the harbor they had departed from hours earlier.
COORDINATES RECEIVED: WAREHOUSE 14, SECTOR 9. THE CHILD HAS BEEN RELOCATED. COME ALONE.
Miller stared at the map, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Warehouse 14? That's back where we started. Why would they ship us out just to send us right back?"
"Because the ship was never meant to leave the harbor," Arthur realized with a sickening jolt of clarity. "It's a decoy. They moved her while we were locked in this container."
Before Miller could answer, the heavy hydraulic lock on the container door groaned loudly. The massive steel doors slid open a few inches, flooding the dark interior with the harsh, blinding glare of midday sunlight and the salty smell of the open docks.
Silhouetted against the bright light stood three armed operatives in dark tactical gear, their faces obscured by black balaclavas. The center operative raised a suppressed submachine gun, leveling the barrel directly at Miller's chest.
"Step out of the container," the lead operative commanded, his voice heavily modulated. "Slowly. Hands behind your heads."
Miller looked at Arthur, his expression hardening into a desperate resolve. He subtly shifted his weight, preparing to lunge.
"Don't," Arthur warned under his breath, stepping out onto the metal loading ramp with his hands raised. "They want us alive, or we'd already be in the water."
May you like
As Miller followed him out onto the deck, the cold sea breeze whipped their hair. Standing twenty feet away on the concrete pier, surrounded by armed guards, was the police chief, wearing his crisp white shirt, holding a shivering, crying Ellie in his arms.
"Welcome back, gentlemen," the chief smiled coldly, stepping forward as Ellie spotted Arthur and began to scream his name.
