“Why did you come here?”
“You texted me.”
“No.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No, Lila. I did not.”
Lila took out her phone.
Or tried to.
Her pocket was empty.
She remembered.
“It went under the truck.”
Rusk crouched and retrieved it.
The screen had cracked.
Lila unlocked it and opened the message.
Her mother read it.
Her face became pale.
“That isn’t my contact.”
“It says Mom.”
“Look at the number.”
Lila did.
A number she didn’t recognize.
Her stomach tightened.
“But it appeared in the same conversation.”
“Message injection,” one technician said.
Lila looked at him.
“You can do that?”
“Someone here can.”
Evelyn turned toward the vehicle.
“The code.”
“What?”
“The message gave you an entry code?”
“Yes.”
“What code?”
“4071.”
The technician shook his head.
“That code doesn’t exist.”
“It opened the door.”
Nobody spoke.
Evelyn walked to the keypad.
She entered 4071.
The lock opened.
The technician stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“Not anymore,” Evelyn said.
Lila looked at her mother.
“Someone created the code for me?”
Evelyn slowly turned.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
The answer came from the command vehicle.
A man’s voice.
“Because you came exactly when I needed you to.”
Everyone froze.
The vehicle’s monitors turned on by themselves.
Static.
Then an image.
A man stood beneath a concrete structure somewhere near the water.
Rain fell behind him.
His face was covered by a respirator.
In his right hand was a black object about the size of a paperback book.
The Helix module.
Evelyn stepped toward the monitor.
“Who are you?”
The man tilted his head.
“You still ask questions as if answers belong to you.”
Evelyn stopped moving.
Lila looked at her.
Her mother knew that voice.
“Adrian,” Evelyn whispered.
Rusk heard it.
“So you know him?”
The man removed the respirator.
He was perhaps fifty-five.
Dark hair streaked with gray.
A scar crossed the left side of his face from temple to jaw.
Evelyn looked as if someone had punched her.
Lila had never seen her mother frightened.
Not once.
Until now.
“Adrian Pike,” Evelyn said.
The man smiled.
“Good evening, Commander.”
One of the officers whispered, “Pike is dead.”
Adrian heard him.
“People keep saying that.”
Evelyn stepped closer to the screen.
“You died at Blackwater Station.”
“No.”
“You were identified.”
“A body was identified.”
“You disappeared for fourteen years.”
“Because your organization needed me to disappear.”
Lila looked at her mother.
“What is he talking about?”
Evelyn ignored her.
“Return the Helix module.”
Adrian laughed softly.
“There she is.”
“Whatever you want, we can discuss it.”
“No. We discussed it fourteen years ago. You chose.”
“I made the only decision available.”
“You always tell yourself that.”
The screen changed.
A digital harbor map appeared.
Hundreds of lights represented vessels.
Then several navigation channels turned red.
A technician cursed.
“What did he do?”
Adrian’s voice continued.
“Your coastline runs on trust, Evelyn. Captains trust coordinates. Rescue crews trust beacons. Pilots trust weather telemetry.”
One red point on the map moved.
Then another.
“Tonight,” Adrian said, “trust becomes expensive.”
Evelyn turned to her staff.
“Disconnect external navigation relay.”
“We can’t.”
“Why?”
“The Helix authentication is overriding us.”
“Shut down the entire system.”
“We’d blind our own rescue traffic.”
Adrian smiled from the monitor.
“Exactly.”
Evelyn faced him again.
“What do you want?”
“The truth.”
“About what?”
“Blackwater.”
The word changed the room.
Several older officers looked away.
Lila noticed.
“What’s Blackwater?” she asked.
Her mother said nothing.
Adrian answered.
“Ask Commander Voss.”
“Adrian.”
“Tell her, Evelyn.”
Lila looked at her mother.
“Tell me what?”
Evelyn’s jaw tightened.
“Fourteen years ago there was an accident at an offshore emergency station.”
Adrian laughed.
“Accident.”
“A fire.”
“A controlled demolition.”
Evelyn snapped, “You don’t know that.”
“I watched the charges detonate.”
The hangar became silent.
Adrian moved closer to his camera.
“Twenty-eight people were officially killed at Blackwater Station.”
Lila stared at him.
“Officially?”
He looked directly into the lens.
“Forty-three people were there.”
A technician behind Evelyn slowly lowered his tablet.
Adrian continued.
“Fifteen names were erased before the rescue teams arrived.”
Lila looked at her mother.
“Why?”
Evelyn didn’t answer.
“Mom.”
“Because,” Adrian said, “Blackwater wasn’t an emergency station.”
Evelyn turned.
“Cut the feed.”
“We can’t.”
“Then kill power to the vehicle.”
“We did. He’s running through the backup system.”