Marcus Bromley's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

An hour later Marcus crossed the yard to the office. The lock clicked back. Andy sat at the desk with his boots flat on the floor and a battered folder open in front of him, the brads bent from use. A messenger bag with a faded yellow cross leaned against the chair leg. Marcus closed the door behind him and stayed standing. "Tell me what you're doing in my yard," he said. "Short version. I decide if there's a long one." Andy turned the folder toward him without standing. "Letter first." He slid a single page across the desk. The paper was creased into thirds and signed in a tight, even hand. Marcus read the name at the bottom before the body: Donovan O'Niel. The letter named Andy by job, not by friendship. It said Andy had a keycard that fit a door not on any blueprint, and it asked anyone holding the floorplans to bring him in rather than bury him. "He wrote that two days before a runner died carrying the blueprints," Andy said. "I came for the body in your slab because the same ledger paid us both. I stayed because the floorplans are here now, and the door I open is here too." He turned the next page. Hand-drawn lines showed the medical wing under the back lot, two water-line entries, and a room circled in pencil deeper in than the rest. "Your people have the map. I have the key. Nobody works for smiles out here." Marcus set a finger on the circled room. "Who else knows what's behind that door?" "Donovan guesses. Nobody knows." Andy met his eyes. "I'm offering a clean trade. Equal share of whatever's in that room, and my name on the plate in your shop with the others. In exchange you stop sitting on me and start moving." He tapped the letter. "That's the long version. The short version is you already lost the option to bury this quiet." Marcus weighed it the way he weighed every angle. Andy was a calculating man with a record of landing on the live side of bad deals. The keycard was a moving part Marcus did not own and could not fake. Killing him cost the door. Holding him cost time he did not have, with watchers on the roof and a barrier half-built around the back lot. The math was already done before he spoke. "Equal share of what's behind the one door," Marcus said. "Not the wing. Not the water lines. The door." Andy nodded once. "Done." Marcus picked up the folder and the letter and tucked them under his arm. "Then you're out of this room. You eat in the shop. You sleep where I can see you. And tomorrow you walk us to the hatch." He opened the door and waited. Andy stood, shouldered the messenger bag, and stepped past him into the yard. The guest had become a partner, and the price was already paid.