Chapter 5 - The Brooklyn Sanctuary
The safe house was a dusty, third-floor walk-up in a quiet, residential block of Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The apartment belonged to Hale's brother, an undercover narcotics detective who was currently stationed upstate. The windows were covered with thick, heavy drapes, and the interior smelled of old wood and ground coffee.
Hale immediately went to work, locking the door with three separate deadbolts and setting up a secure, encrypted laptop on the kitchen table.
"Mila, honey," Nadia said, guiding her daughter toward a small bedroom in the back. "I want you to lie down. You’re safe here. I promise."
"Is Uncle Marcus okay?" Mila asked, her voice quiet.
Nadia didn't know how to answer. She had seen the mercenaries breach the hangar; she knew Marcus’s chances of survival were slim. But she looked into her daughter’s eyes and lied. "He’s a tough guy, Mila. He knows how to take care of himself. Now, try to get some sleep."
Once Mila was asleep, Nadia returned to the kitchen. She pulled the red backpack from the table, unzipped the lining, and retrieved the small, silver drive.
"This is it," Nadia said, placing it next to Hale’s laptop. "The entire financial history of Caldera Air Logistics. Every bribe, every forged shipping manifest, every shell company. It’s all here."
Hale looked at the drive. "Can you decrypt it?"
"I need a secure connection to the Caldera server to verify the security certificates," Nadia said. "If I try to decrypt it offline, the security protocol will wipe the drive after three failed attempts. Victor designed the system to be self-destructing."
"Then we need to get back inside Caldera," Hale said.
"That's suicide," Nadia replied. "Their headquarters in Manhattan is a fortress. They have private security, state-of-the-art surveillance, and now that the airport blast has happened, they will be on high alert."
"We don't need to go to the headquarters," Hale said, opening a digital map of the city. "Caldera has a backup data center in Long Island City. It’s an unmarked warehouse near the railyards. If we can get inside the server room there, we can patch your drive directly into the main frame."
Before they could plan further, Hale’s laptop beeped. A secure notification popped up on the screen.
It was an internal alert from the Port Authority Police Department.
Hale’s face went pale as she read the text.
May you like
"What is it?" Nadia asked.
"They've issued an active shooter warrant," Hale said, her voice trembling with anger. "For me. They’re claiming that I was the one who placed the device at Gate 32, and that I kidnapped you and Mila to use as shields. My own department has put a shoot-on-sight order on my head."
