Daniel’s name appeared at the bottom. Beside it was one word:
UNRESOLVED.
Samuel stared at the page. “Someone has been tracking him.”
“Or tracking the story of him,” Thomas said.
A new message arrived on Thomas’s phone from Elena: I have a source willing to talk. Says Northbridge paid for a private archive and a witness-location program. Can you meet tonight?
Thomas sent back one word: YES.
The ledger was no longer only a clue to the past. It was proof that someone had continued managing the aftermath long after the official investigation ended.
Elena chose a crowded restaurant near the courthouse for the meeting. Her source, Peter Weller, arrived through the rear entrance wearing a baseball cap and a coat that looked too large for him. He carried no briefcase, only a folded sheet of paper in his inside pocket.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he said as he sat down.
“Then tell us what you know and leave,” Elena replied. Her voice was calm, but she kept her chair angled toward the room.
Weller looked at Thomas. “You’re Decker.”
“Yes.”
“I saw your file. Not the whole thing. Enough to know the report was altered.”
“Who altered it?”
“I don’t know the person who typed the final version. But I know who requested the restrictions. Martin Voss. He wanted every record connected to Daniel Mercer moved into a separate archive. Then he asked for the archive to be closed to ordinary review.”
“Why?” Thomas asked.
Weller swallowed. “Because Daniel had evidence that a private contractor was selling route intelligence to people who wanted convoys diverted. The contract was supposed to be about threat analysis. It became something else.”
Elena leaned forward. “Selling to whom?”
“I don’t know. I saw references to a broker, not a buyer. There were payments to companies that did not exist outside paper. After the ambush, the records were supposed to be preserved. Instead, some were deleted, some were transferred, and some were relabeled.”
“Did Daniel survive?” Thomas asked.
Weller’s eyes shifted toward the window. “I can’t prove that. But I saw a medical transport entry that didn’t match the casualty list. One unidentified patient was moved from the field hospital to a civilian clinic. The transfer was approved under a temporary code associated with Meridian.”
Thomas felt his pulse thudding in his throat. “When?”
“The same night.”
“Why wasn’t that in the report?”
“Because the entry was removed from the final archive.”
Weller placed the folded paper on the table. It was a photocopy of a transfer form. Most of the details were blacked out, but the date, facility code, and signature of a receiving administrator remained visible.
Elena photographed it. “This is important.”
“It’s also why my house was searched,” Weller said. “They wanted the original. I gave it to someone years ago because I thought it might protect me. I was wrong.”
“Who did you give it to?” Thomas asked.
Weller shook his head. “I can’t say yet.”
Thomas held his gaze. “If you know where Daniel was taken, tell me.”
“I don’t know where he is now. The clinic closed. The doctor listed on the transfer retired under another name. But there was a second document. A discharge record. It was signed three days later.”
“By whom?”
“Someone using the name Daniel Mercer.”
For a moment, the restaurant seemed to fall away. Thomas heard only the clatter of dishes and the steady pulse in his ears.
Elena asked the question he could not yet form. “Where is that record?”
“An archive in the old municipal hospital. It may still exist, but it’s not indexed under Daniel’s name. It was filed under the temporary code.”
Before Weller could say more, his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen and went pale.
“They found me,” he whispered.
Thomas turned toward the restaurant’s entrance. Two men had just come inside. They were not looking at the menu. One scanned the tables while the other spoke into an earpiece.
“Leave through the kitchen,” Thomas said.
Elena grabbed her notebook. Weller hesitated, frozen by fear.
“Now,” Thomas said, not loudly but with enough authority to break the spell.
They moved through the kitchen, past a startled cook, and out into a service alley. Elena led them to a side street where a taxi was waiting. Weller climbed in first. Thomas gave the driver an address three blocks away, then got out before the car reached it.
He wanted the men to follow him rather than Elena or Weller.
They did.
Thomas walked into the courthouse plaza, where dozens of people crossed between buildings. The two men stayed behind him, maintaining distance. He turned into a public passage, then doubled back through a bookstore and emerged on another street. When he looked again, the men were gone.
His phone rang. Elena.
“Weller is safe for the moment,” she said. “He gave me the transfer form. He’s going somewhere he trusts.”
“Don’t tell me where.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Keep the document off your main server.”
“I already made three copies and gave one to my editor.”
Thomas looked up at the city’s glass towers. “Then we have a witness, a transfer record, and a ledger. We need to know what Daniel took.”
“And who ordered the route change,” Elena added.
Thomas ended the call and walked toward the old municipal hospital. He did not intend to enter that night. He only wanted to see whether the building still stood and whether anyone was watching it.