Page 47 of Outside the Room

Isla killed the lamp and pressed herself against the window frame, using the darkness as camouflage. The figure moved with the confidence of intimate familiarity, navigating the labyrinthine container stacks without hesitation. Destination: the eastern section, where shipping containers created a steel and shadow maze perfect for clandestine meetings.

The Minnesota cold struck her like a physical assault when she slipped through the building's rear exit. The temperature had plummeted since sunset, turning the air itself into a weapon that sought exposed skin with surgical precision. But she pushed through the discomfort, her focus laser-sharp on maintaining visual contact while remaining invisible.

The pursuit became a careful ballet between concealment and tracking. She used the massive container walls as cover, their towering presence creating corridors of shadow perfect for surveillance. The snow that hampered her movement also aided her cause—the figure ahead carved a clear trail through the pristine white canvas, a breadcrumb path she could follow from a safe distance.

Crouched behind a coil of industrial rope that smelled of tar and salt, Isla watched the figure meet his contact in a narrow gap between containers. Under the sickly yellow glow of a security light that flickered with electrical uncertainty, the first man's features became visible.

Her breath caught in her throat like a trapped bird.

Gregory Nash.

The CEO of Nash Global Shipping stood before her in expensive winter wear, his silver hair immaculate despite the weather, conducting business in a frozen wasteland at an hour when legitimate executives should be home with their families. This wasn't a chance encounter or emergency consultation; this was the kind of meeting that required isolation and secrecy.

Their conversation occurred in hushed tones that the wind scattered before they could reach her ears, but their body language spoke volumes. Nash's posture radiated authority even in these circumstances, while his contact maintained the deferential stance of an employee receiving instructions. When Nash produced a thick envelope from his coat's inner pocket, the transaction's nature became unmistakable.

The exchange of cash for services rendered—the oldest criminal commerce in human history.

Nash departed with the same purposeful efficiency that had brought him here, his expensive shoes leaving precise prints in the snow as he disappeared behind the wheel of a black SUV. The vehicle's engine purred with German engineering refinement, and temporary license plates caught the security light's glow before the darkness swallowed him completely.

His contact remained behind, producing a cigarette with the casual ease of someone accustomed to waiting in cold places. The lighter's brief flare illuminated features that belonged on police composite sketches—mid-thirties, clean-shaven, with the hard-edged look of someone who performed unpleasant tasks for adequate compensation.

Isla waited until Nash's taillights vanished before attempting pursuit, but her quarry was already in motion. He moved through the container maze with the easy familiarity of someone who could navigate these steel canyons blindfolded, disappearing into shadows that seemed to swallow him whole.

Her pursuit became increasingly desperate as the labyrinth revealed its true nature. The narrow passages between towering containers created a three-dimensional puzzle where one wrong turn could lead to complete disorientation. Every stack looked identical in the darkness—endless repetitions of corrugated steel and cryptic shipping codes that offered no landmarks for navigation.

Her boots betrayed her with each step, crunching on gravel that seemed amplified in the unnatural quiet. Her breath came faster now, visible puffs of vapor that might as well have been signal flares announcing her presence. But the knowledge that she was onto something significant—Nash's presence, the cash payment, the obvious secrecy—drove her forward despite mounting anxiety.

Then she lost him completely.

The maze had claimed another victim, turning her from hunter to hunted in the space between one heartbeat and the next. Isla paused, trying to retrace her path through memories already blurred by adrenaline and cold, but the shadows stretched in every direction with malevolent similarity.

The port's silence became oppressive. The kind of unnatural quiet that settles like heavy snow when predators realize their prey has detected them. Every survival instinct honed by years of dangerous work screamed warnings that echoed off the container walls.

She turned slowly, scanning the darkness between the towering metal walls. Nothing moved. No sound except the distant electrical hum and the whisper of wind finding purchase in steel structures. But the air itself felt charged with menace, thick with the presence of unseen eyes.

Then she heard them—footsteps that weren't her own. Fast. Purposeful. Coming from behind with the rhythm of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The crowbar's glancing blow sent galaxies of stars exploding across Isla's vision, the impact resonating through her skull like a cathedral bell struck by lightning. She stumbled backward, her shoulder striking the razor-sharp edge of an open shipping container with enough force to tear fabric and skin. Before equilibrium could return, powerful hands seized her jacket and drove her deeper into the metal tomb while dragging the heavy door nearly closed behind them.

Darkness devoured the space with absolute hunger, broken only by a knife-thin line of pale light bleeding through the gap where steel met steel. The container's atmosphere was a cocktail of industrial scents—rust flakes and old cargo, machine oil and the metallic bite of winter air, all now seasoned with the copper tang of blood that filled her mouth like bitter wine.

Her heart hammered against her ribs with the desperate rhythm of a caged bird as she drew her Glock and fired. The muzzle flash transformed the container into a lightning-struck cavern, revealing her attacker's face for one frozen instant—young, determined, completely unknown to her. The gunshot's deafening crack rebounded off the steel walls, multiplying into a symphony of violence as she fired again into the darkness where he'd been standing.

But he was already moving with predatory grace.

His shoulder drove into her wrist like a battering ram, sending the Glock skittering across the container floor into the abyss beyond the light's reach. A heartbeat later, his hands found her throat—calloused fingers that knew exactly how much pressure to apply, how to position themselves for maximum effect, how to turn human anatomy against itself.

Panic clawed at the edges of her consciousness like desperate fingernails, but Isla forced it back into its cage. FBI training took control of her nervous system, overriding fear with muscle memory and tactical thinking. She shifted her weight, brought her knee up with explosive force into his solar plexus, then drove her elbow into his floating ribs as his grip loosened and precious air rushed back into her lungs.

The container became their private battlefield—a steel-walled arena where civilization's rules held no authority. They grappled in the darkness like ancient gladiators, both slipping on the ice-slick floor, both slamming against unforgiving walls with impacts that would leave permanent reminders of this encounter. The sounds of their struggle echoed strangely in the confined space—grunts of effort, the wet slap of flesh meeting flesh, the scrape of fabric against rough metal.

Isla managed to hook her leg behind his ankle in a move she'd learned at Quantico, sweeping him down with satisfying violence. She was on him before he could recover, using her momentum to drive his face into the steel floor with enough force to feel cartilage collapse beneath her hands. The wet crack of breaking bone punctuated their struggle, followed by the warm splatter of blood that painted her fingers with evidence of small victory.

Fighting through his increasingly desperate struggles, she managed to wrench one arm behind his back and snap a handcuff around his wrist—the metallic click sounding like salvation in the cramped darkness.

The container door exploded inward with the force of revelation, flooding their steel tomb with harsh white light from a powerful LED flashlight. Isla flinched away from the glare, temporarily blinded after their battle in the shadows, then saw Sullivan's familiar silhouette filling the doorway like an avenging angel. His weapon was raised, his eyes wide with the shock of finding his partner locked in mortal combat with an unknown assailant.

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