CHAPTER 6 — Warehouse Nine
CHAPTER 6 — Warehouse Nine
At sunrise the next morning, Agent Brooks gathered a tactical team.
"If Richard mentioned Warehouse Nine," she said, "it's because he believes there's something inside we won't survive finding."
She looked directly at me.
"I strongly advise you not to come."
"I'm coming."
"So am I," Tessa said.
Brooks hesitated.
Finally...
"Stay behind the entry team."
Warehouse Nine sat on the edge of an abandoned industrial district outside Charlotte.
Broken windows.
Rusted steel walls.
No company logo.
Nothing suggested it belonged to one of the city's richest businessmen.
Yet satellite records showed trucks arriving there for years.
The tactical team breached the front entrance.
The massive steel door groaned open.
Flashlights swept across rows of abandoned machinery.
Dust floated through the air.
Silence.
"Clear!"
"Clear!"
"Second floor clear!"
An agent stopped near the back wall.
"Agent Brooks..."
"You need to see this."
Hidden behind stacks of shipping crates was a reinforced steel door.
No markings.
Just a biometric lock.
Explosives breached it in seconds.
The blast echoed through the warehouse.
When the smoke cleared...
Everyone stood frozen.
It wasn't another storage room.
It was an archive.
Thousands of boxes.
Shelves stretching from floor to ceiling.
Every box carefully labeled.
Politicians.
Judges.
Business executives.
Police officials.
Media personalities.
Every name was attached to dates, photographs, financial ledgers, and encrypted hard drives.
Brooks whispered,
"My God..."
An evidence technician opened the nearest box.
Inside were passports.
Cash.
Forged identities.
Blackmail files.
Another agent called out.
"I found surveillance drives."
Another.
"There are wire transfers to offshore accounts."
Another.
"These files go back twenty-five years."
Then Tessa noticed something sitting alone on a metal desk.
A worn leather journal.
She recognized it instantly.
"My mother's."
Her hands trembled as she opened the first page.
Inside, in elegant handwriting, were seven words.
If you're reading this, Richard has failed.
Tessa's breathing stopped.
She turned the page.
Another sentence.
Jonathan was never the target.
I felt my stomach drop.
Agent Brooks slowly looked at us.
"If not Jonathan..."
Tessa continued reading.
The color drained from her face.
She looked at me with absolute horror.
Then whispered the words that changed everything again.
"It says..."
May you like
"...the person my father wanted dead..."
"...was Miles."
