Page 10 of Anchor
“They were told to stand down that day,” he said to the room’s corners. His mouth couldn’t decide if that amused him or not. “Let him walk, they were told.” The words were the temperature of porcelain.
The Ghost didn’t move from his shadow in the corner. “You blame Ian for the strike order? They stood down.”
Vos didn’t turn. “I blame him for what came next.” He opened a drawer with two fingers. An expired badge from Langley slid into the light, its lamination clouded with time. He pressed his thumb over the seal like he expected it to bite.
“You’re alive,” the Ghost said.
“At quite a cost. Chase used his pull to trigger a secondary trade. Sold my name back to Langley. They picked me up outside Istanbul. No trial. No flags. Just a one-way ticket to a Siberian black site.”
He dropped the badge. It landed with a dull clack. “Eight years in a box. No light. No voice. No hope.”
The Ghost stilled. “And then?”
Vos looked up. “Then my contact inside the NSA made the call. Reverse exchange. Took five years. By the time they got me out, I couldn’t speak.”
He flexed one hand, the knuckles still scarred from frostbite. “Took another two years to become human again.”
“And now you found her.” His number one, Scour, nodded toward the screen.
“This was a bit of serendipity. A guest at the gala.”
The next freeze-frame was of Claire Bowman in a doorframe made of gold and money. The text along the edge of the screen told a story that didn’t need a narrator. He liked the way her eyes didn’t smile when her mouth was supposed to.
“Sir, you’re sure,” the woman at the console said without turning. Fingers like ten piano hammers danced across code that should never exist.
“Eyes don’t forget,” Vos said. “That’s Joseph’s daughter.”
Another screen showed the rooftop. It filled with a blur of motion, then clarity: a young man wearing a tux, knee at a spine; Claire’s body dropping into the frame like an answer. He tracked the timestamp. Counted the beats between comm loss and recovery. Smiled.
A muted liberty, exercised on his terms.
On the side monitor, face outlines bloomed and faded in faint yellow annotations. Data curled down the margins. A tag lingered overHanlon, Reid – Clearance: pending.
“Nephew,” he said, almost gently. “That tracks.”
He pushed back, stood, and paced the length of the room’s tables twice. The air carried the smell of scotch and something metallic. He set the glass down on a whole atlas of ring marks that had outlived every one of his plans for the last three years.
The entrance freeze-frame returned to Claire’s not-smile. He didn’t mistake restraint for softness.
“Good.” The word flattened. “Some people don’t know they’re dead yet. They walk anyway.”
He let the video run to where they headed to the stairwell again. “Ian will protect her,” he said. “He always protects what he shouldn’t.”
“You want her dead?” The woman wasn’t curious, just seeking information.
Scour’s brow rose.
“No,” Vos smiled without warmth, “I want his attention. And then I want him to choose. The right choices always feel like sins when you make them.”
Claire tilted her head once more. He had watched the tilt before, in another place where people told the truth in math andbled in code. “She doesn’t know what she is yet,” he said, almost fond. “Ian will protect her anyway. And when he fails, someone will die.”
FIVE
CHASE ANN ARBOR – PRIVATE BRIEFING ROOM – 2102 HOURS
The door shut with a soft hiss, sealing them in. Heather Bowman didn’t sit. Her presence filled the glass-walled chamber like compressed gas: calm, pressurized, and flammable. Her heels clicked once on the polished floor, then stopped. One hand rested lightly on the back of the chair, her polished nails gleaming against the leather. Her temperament held control and showed precision.
Ian Chase stood across the table, his tuxedo jacket folded over one forearm, his sleeves rolled. His demeanor was not tense, not deferential, just waiting. His crystal-blue eyes sharpened.
