Riker studied her face.
“Do you suspect someone in the city administration?”
“I suspect that the boy has reported something serious. I suspect his mother may be in danger. And I suspect the people who came to your clubhouse were not interested in a peaceful family reunion.”
“That's a careful answer.”
“It's the answer I can defend.”
She looked toward the door.
“I'm also going to need your original notes, the digital event history, the photographs from the overlook, and a record of the telephone call you received.”
“You'll get them.”
“Good. And Riker?”
He waited.
“Do not attempt to enter that factory. Do not confront Derek Voss. Do not organize a ride toward the station. If you discover new information, report it.”
Riker nodded.
“Understood.”
The sheriff paused.
“I mean it.”
“So do I.”
After she left, Riker watched her vehicle pull away from the clubhouse.
Moose approached him.
“You trust her?”
“I trust her to do the job she has shown she can do.”
“That isn't the same as trusting her.”
“No. It isn't.”
Moose considered that.
Then he asked the question neither man wanted to say aloud.
“What if she can't protect the boy's mother?”
Riker looked toward the western sky.
The sun was beginning to sink behind the mountain.
“Then we keep finding people who can help.”
At 5:41 p.m., the first evidence of the larger conspiracy appeared in a place nobody had expected.
It arrived as a message sent to the Steel Saw chapter's public email address.
The subject line contained only four words:
YOU WERE NEVER THE TARGET.
The email had no signature.
It contained a single attachment, a photograph of a document resting on a wooden table. The paper appeared to be a page from an internal planning file.
At the top, beneath a municipal seal, were the words:
PROJECT LANTERN — PHASE THREE
Below them was a list of locations.
The abandoned factory.
The railway bridge.
The reservoir pumping station.
The emergency power facility.
Then, at the bottom, one sentence had been underlined in red.
PUBLIC DISORDER MUST PRECEDE OPERATIONAL ACCESS.
Riker read it twice.
Moose leaned over his shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
“It sounds like they need a distraction.”
“Maybe.”
“Something big enough to pull police, emergency crews, and reporters away from the reservoir.”
Riker stared at the photograph.
The plan might involve a staged crisis designed to create access to infrastructure that would otherwise be protected. The motorcycle ambush could provide the public disorder. A supposed gang attack would draw law enforcement to the mountain road and fill the news with frightening images.
Meanwhile, the people behind Project Lantern could move equipment, alter records, or execute some other operation at the reservoir.
The question was what they intended to accomplish once they had access.
Riker enlarged the photograph.
There was a faint reflection in the polished surface of the table.
A window.
Beyond it, the outline of a tall industrial building.
And in the lower corner of the image, partially obscured by the document, was a metal object with a distinctive curved handle.
Moose squinted.
“That's not a normal office desk.”
“No.”
“Looks like a workbench.”
Riker studied the background.
The photograph might have been taken at the factory, the railway station, or another industrial site.
It was impossible to identify the location from the image alone.
But whoever had sent the email wanted them to see the document.
That meant the sender either possessed access to Project Lantern or had obtained a copy from someone who did.
The message did not ask for money.
It did not demand that Riker leave town.
It simply stated that the Steel Saw riders had never been the real target.
Riker leaned back.
“Someone wants us looking at the reservoir.”
Moose nodded slowly.
“Or someone wants us to think we should be looking at the reservoir.”
“Exactly.”
Riker forwarded the message to Sheriff Brooks through the secure contact she had provided. He included the original email headers and the untouched attachment.
Then he sent a separate message to Evan.
“Keep Leo away from the computer. Don't show him the document unless the sheriff asks him to review it.”
Evan replied that he understood.
Riker returned to the photograph.
In the reflection, near the far edge of the window, there appeared to be a second building with a large painted number.
Three.
He could not tell whether the number belonged to a warehouse, a platform, or a loading bay.
But the detail reminded him of Leo's phone call.
Platform three.
The railway station.
He opened the rail operator's public map and compared the platform layout with the photograph.
The old station had three numbered service platforms, although only two were used regularly. Platform three sat beside a storage building that had been closed for years.
The building had a basement.
According to old municipal plans, that basement connected to a maintenance corridor running beneath the station.
The corridor had originally carried electrical cables and signal equipment.
It also led toward the industrial district.
Riker felt a slow chill settle over him.
If Project Lantern involved the station, the hidden document might have been photographed there.
And if the missing mother had been taken to platform three, the connection was becoming harder to dismiss.
He called Sheriff Brooks.
She answered immediately.
“Cross?”
“I received a document related to Project Lantern. I've forwarded it to your secure address.”
“I have it.”
“What do you make of the phrase about public disorder?”
“I make nothing of it until we can authenticate the document.”
“Fair enough.”
“Have you identified the location in the photograph?”
“Possibly the old railway station. There's a reflection that might show platform three.”
The sheriff was silent for a moment.
“Do not go there.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Good. I have units checking the station perimeter and requesting access records from the rail operator.”
“Any sign of Leo's mother?”
“Not yet.”
Riker looked toward the darkening mountain.
“Sheriff, I think the attack on us is supposed to draw attention away from something happening at the reservoir.”
“That's possible.”
“What would Project Lantern need public disorder for?”
“I don't know.”
“If somebody wanted to enter a restricted facility, they could create an emergency that pulled security away.”
“Yes.”
“Or they could make the emergency itself look like an attack by a criminal group.”
The sheriff exhaled.
“Riker, you're describing a theory. It may be a good theory. It is still a theory.”
“I know.”
“Then help me keep it that way until we have evidence.”
He agreed.
The sheriff ended the call.
Riker remained seated for several minutes, looking at the image on his screen.
He had spent years learning to distinguish a pattern from a coincidence.
Sometimes the pattern was real.
Sometimes it was a story constructed by a mind desperate to impose order on chaos.
The only reliable way to know the difference was to test each connection.
The factory.
The railway station.
The reservoir.
The municipal contract.
Derek Voss.
Martin Vale.
Mayor Sterling.
And the boy who had ridden a rusty bicycle up a mountain because he believed twelve strangers were about to be killed.
Riker closed the photograph.
Outside, the first lights of the city flickered on.
The sun slipped behind the ridge.
And somewhere below the mountain, eight hundred engines were beginning to gather.
The first motorcycle arrived at the Steel Saw clubhouse at 6:02 p.m.
It belonged to a retired mechanic named Walter Briggs, who had ridden with the chapter for nearly twenty years. He had been planning to attend the fundraising dinner and had no idea that the afternoon's charity ride had turned into a criminal investigation.
He stepped through the clubhouse entrance, removed his helmet, and immediately noticed the unusual atmosphere.
“Where's everybody?”