“They’re keeping him there,” Trent said.
“Or controlling him,” Natalie replied. “We need to know which.”
Agrippa lowered the binoculars. The urge to cross the street and drag the truth out of the building rose in him with familiar force. He recognized that feeling. In the cage, anger had been useful only when he controlled it. Outside it, anger could destroy everything he was trying to protect.
He called the lawyer and sent the photographs. The lawyer told them to stay back and promised to contact a federal investigator he trusted. They agreed to wait until dawn.
They did not get the chance.
At 3:04 a.m., the side gate opened again. Two men carried a long black case to a waiting sedan. A third man followed, holding a clipboard. He was Daniel Voss.
“He’s moving Keene,” Natalie said.
Agrippa was already heading for the stairs. “Call the lawyer. Send him the live location.”
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“To make sure the doctor doesn’t vanish again.”
He crossed the street with Trent several steps behind him. The sedan’s engine started. Agrippa stepped into the pool of light at the gate, hands visible, posture calm.
“Daniel.”
Voss froze. His face changed from irritation to alarm, then settled into a practiced smile. “Fisher. You’ve developed a talent for appearing where you’re not wanted.”
“Funny. I was about to say the same thing.”
The guards moved toward Agrippa. Trent remained behind him, tense but present. Natalie’s voice crackled through the phone in Agrippa’s pocket, telling him that help was on the way.
“Let the doctor go,” Agrippa said.
“You have no idea what you’re interfering with.”
“I know a false medical report when I see one. I know money was stolen from fighters. And I know someone paid to make a dead man disappear.”
Voss’s smile vanished. “You won a title. You got your money. You walked away. Why can’t you leave it there?”
“Because you didn’t let me.”
One guard lunged. Agrippa sidestepped, caught the man’s wrist, and used his momentum to put him against the fence. He released him as soon as the man stopped fighting. Trent blocked the second guard long enough for Natalie to arrive at the gate, phone held high and camera recording.
“Everything is being transmitted,” she shouted. “The police have the location.”
Voss glanced toward the road. In the distance, sirens began to rise.
He bolted for the sedan.
Agrippa could have chased him. Instead, he moved to the black case. A lock held it shut, but the case was not what mattered. Through the open van door, he could see Keene sitting inside, wrists trembling, eyes fixed on the floor.
“Doctor,” Agrippa said, keeping his voice low. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
Keene lifted his head. Fear filled his face, but beneath it was recognition.
“Samuel Keene,” Agrippa continued. “You signed my clearance. You know what happened.”
The doctor’s lips moved without sound. Then, barely above a whisper, he said, “I know who ordered it.”
Before Agrippa could ask the name, a sharp blast echoed from the far side of the warehouse. The lights went out. Men shouted. In the darkness, the sedan’s tires screamed against the pavement.
When emergency lights flickered on, Daniel Voss was gone—and Dr. Keene was gripping Agrippa’s sleeve with both hands.
“They’re going to kill me,” he said. “And if they do, you’ll never learn who really paid for that fight.”
The police arrived in a wave of blue lights and shouted commands. The facility’s guards were separated and searched. Natalie handed over her recordings, the photographs, and a copy of the financial archive. Agrippa stayed beside Dr. Samuel Keene while paramedics examined him in the back of an ambulance.
Keene refused to speak to anyone in uniform until the lawyer arrived. He kept looking over his shoulder, flinching whenever a door slammed.
“They told me you were dangerous,” he said to Agrippa. “They said you’d come looking for revenge.”
“I came looking for the truth.”
“Those can look the same to frightened people.”
Agrippa did not argue. He knew what his reputation looked like from the outside: a former champion with a frightening record, a man whose name could empty a room. Malcolm had spent years turning that reputation into a weapon, trusting that people would believe the fighter was unstable before they believed the promoter was corrupt.
The lawyer arrived just before sunrise with two investigators. Keene agreed to give a preliminary statement in a secure location. Before he was led away, he caught Agrippa’s wrist.
“There’s something you need to understand,” he said. “The report wasn’t changed simply to get you into the championship. The championship was only one piece of a much larger arrangement.”