Marina Dre's Arc

Chapter 11 of 14

"Camera two," Mia repeated in Marina's ear. "Man on the stairs. He's not waiting to talk. He's waiting to shoot." Marina stopped on the stone steps. She didn't know the buyer's face. Any man in that tower could be him, or a gun hired by him. She could walk in blind and die guessing. So she changed the plan. She would not meet a stranger. She would make a stranger show himself first. She climbed to the clerk's office below the tower floor. Edwin Scrivener sat behind a counter stacked with ledgers, the nervous young man who logged every visitor the harbor master sent. His hands shook as he stamped a page. He had let Marina pass once before without asking her name. He owed her that silence, and she had come to collect. "The man who booked the tower tonight," Marina said. "You signed him in. I want his real name." Edwin's pen stopped. "I can't. He pays the master. If I talk, I'm done here." Marina set a sealed package on his counter. The wrapping looked plain, untouched. "Then don't talk. Carry this up for me. Tell him it's the evidence he wants, and watch his face when he opens it." Inside was nothing but newspaper. A man with clean intentions would be confused. A killer would reach for a weapon. She raised her wrist. A slim scanner band sat there, lights blinking. "And I'll be watching too. This reads metal through a coat. If he carries a gun, I'll know before you reach the top step." Edwin wiped his mouth. He looked at the package, then at the stairs, then back at Marina's steady face. "If this goes wrong—" "It won't touch you. You hand it over and you leave." He took the package. He climbed. Marina pressed to the wall and read her band. On camera two, Mia tracked him. "He's at the door," she breathed. Edwin knocked. The door opened. Marina's scanner jumped red. Two weapons in that room, close to the door. Then she heard it through Edwin's open collar mic, a voice she had chased for three years without a face. "Tell Marina Dre her daughter is already bought and paid for. This is just the receipt." The scanner marked the man who spoke. On the feed, Mia zoomed. A gloved hand turned the package over. On his wrist hung an old king's watch, the trident crown clear in the gray light. The buyer. Not a guess anymore. A face. "Edwin, down the back stair, now," Marina said into the mic. The clerk bolted. The buyer shouted. A gun cracked plaster. Marina turned and ran. She had the face she needed. She also had two armed men between her and the only known exit, and a buyer who had just promised her daughter was already sold. At the end of the corridor waited the old freight elevator, its rusted gate her one way out.