Chapter 10 - LOCKED INSIDE NORTH HARBOR
Smoke poured from the service corridor.
Elaine ran toward the observation stairs, but a burning document box collapsed across the doorway.
The technician had followed Ethan and did not return.
I pushed myself upright.
Blood ran from the corner of my mouth.
Elaine grabbed the settlement agreement and shoved it beneath her coat.
“Where is the emergency exit?” I asked.
“There isn’t one.”
“You built this place.”
“I financed it. Contractors built it.”
The distinction would have been funny anywhere else.
Flames moved through the paper files with frightening speed. Elaine had apparently stored accelerant for her planned destruction of the evidence. Ethan’s fire found it.
I searched the room.
The surgical-training platform included old oxygen lines, water connections, and drains. Most systems had never become operational.
A red maintenance panel stood behind the observation seats.
Elaine was trying to call someone, but the signal blockers she had installed prevented her phone from connecting.
“Turn off the jammer,” I said.
She ignored me.
“Federal agents are outside.”
“The bridge is gone.”
“They’ll find another way.”
“Not before the roof collapses.”
For the first time, fear entered her voice.
I climbed toward the maintenance panel.
Elaine followed.
“If you leave me here, you lose the only person who knows where Ethan is going.”
“I’m not leaving anyone.”
“You should. I would.”
“I know.”
Inside the panel, I found controls for the fire suppression system.
A warning light indicated that the water supply had been disconnected.
Of course it had.
Elaine had planned to burn the building.
The ventilation system still had emergency power. I reversed the fans, slowing the smoke entering the central room.
It bought us minutes.
Maybe fewer.
Outside, Agent Warren’s teams launched two rescue boats from the river. Lucas joined the first boat despite Rachel ordering him to remain behind.
“You’re a medical engineer, not a federal agent,” she shouted.
“I designed the pressure systems in that training center twelve years ago.”
“You worked on North Harbor?”
“Bennett supplied prototype infrastructure before Thomas withdrew.”
“Do you know another entrance?”
“An underwater utility tunnel runs from the pumping station.”
Lucas guided the boat through the marsh.
Inside, I remembered seeing Bennett equipment labels on the old control panel.
I opened the lower cabinet.
A diagram showed the same utility tunnel Lucas was approaching.
“The pumping station,” I said. “Where is it?”
Elaine pointed reluctantly toward the lower level.
We descended into the smoke.
The basement floor was already covered by several inches of water from a broken pipe. A steel door led to the utility tunnel, but an electronic lock held it shut.
“The power is failing,” I said. “There must be a manual release.”
Elaine searched the wall.
“Ethan took the facility keys.”
“Then we break it.”
“With what?”
I found a steel wrench beside the pump controls and struck the locking mechanism.
Once.
Twice.
On the third blow, the lights went out.
The room became completely dark.
Elaine began breathing rapidly.
“I can’t see.”
“Give me your phone.”
“No.”
“We need the flashlight.”
She surrendered it.
I struck the lock again.
Metal cracked.
Water suddenly rushed beneath the door.
The tunnel had flooded.
On the other side, Lucas and two agents were wading toward us with breathing equipment.
I heard faint blows against the steel.
“Someone’s there,” I said.
Together, Elaine and I pulled the manual release.
The door opened.
Water knocked us backward.
Lucas came through first.
He found me in the darkness and caught my shoulders.
“Nora?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you injured?”
“Not badly.”
Agent Warren’s officers placed Elaine in restraints.
Even then, she tried to preserve control.
“Ethan has the contracts,” she said. “Release me, and I’ll tell you where he went.”
“No deal,” Warren replied.
“He will destroy everything.”
“The camera recorded your confession before you crushed it,” I said.
Elaine looked at me.
“You’re bluffing.”
“The pearl camera stored locally and transmitted remotely. Maya has the footage before the signal failed.”
That was only partly true. We did not know how much had transmitted.
But Elaine did not know either.
The agents took her through the tunnel.
Lucas remained beside me.
When we reached the pumping station, paramedics examined the new swelling on my cheek.
Lucas’s hands were shaking.
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“I wasn’t locked inside a burning building.”
“You entered a flooded tunnel.”
“That was different.”
“Why?”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Rachel approached before he answered.
“Ethan stole a truck from the terminal,” she said. “Traffic cameras caught him heading south.”
“What does he have?”
“The original loan agreements, transfer records, and Elaine’s private account ledgers.”
“Where would he go?”
Elaine, seated inside an ambulance under guard, laughed.
“He’s running to the only person who will still pay him.”
“Who?”
She said nothing.
Agent Warren searched the communications recovered at North Harbor.
One buyer appeared repeatedly—a private acquisition group named Southern Meridian.
It had offered Ethan ten million dollars for Bennett Medical’s patent portfolio if he could establish apparent ownership before the foreclosure deadline.
Southern Meridian maintained a corporate aircraft at a private airfield outside Savannah.
Ethan was headed there.
The transfer deadline was fifty-three minutes away.
“If he gives them the original documents, they’ll move the patents into overseas entities,” Rachel said. “Even if we recover them later, litigation could take years.”
Agent Warren called Georgia authorities.
A storm had grounded air traffic temporarily, but the aircraft was preparing to depart the moment conditions cleared.
The bridge explosion prevented us from returning by road quickly.
Lucas pointed toward the river.
“My boat is faster.”
“It won’t reach Savannah in fifty minutes,” Warren said.
“It can reach the Bennett testing dock in twelve. There’s a helicopter there.”
I looked at Rachel.
“Is it fueled?”
“It was used for a hospital demonstration yesterday.”
Agent Warren began coordinating with aviation authorities.
Lucas took my arm.
“You’re going to the hospital.”
“No.”
“Nora.”
“Those documents affect every person at Bennett Medical.”
“Federal agents can recover them.”
“They don’t know Ethan.”
“And you do?”
The question cut.
I looked toward the dark river.
“I knew the version of himself he wanted me to see. Somewhere inside him, that version still matters. He wants to believe he isn’t a man who hits women and steals companies.”
“You cannot love him into surrendering.”
“I don’t love him anymore.”
“Then what are you planning?”
“To show him exactly what his choices have made him.”
The helicopter lifted from the Bennett dock twenty-one minutes later.
Agent Warren sat beside me.
Rachel and Lucas remained on the ground, monitoring the approaching deadline.
At 11:47 p.m., we saw the Savannah airfield.
Ethan’s aircraft was moving toward the runway.
May you like
The original contracts were aboard.
And in thirteen minutes, the fraudulent transfer would become legally complicated enough to threaten Bennett Medical for years.
