He pulled the worker away from the smoke and dragged him toward the open air. Natalie called for medical help. Trent followed, helping another employee who had emerged through the loading bay. Agrippa did not enter the building; he stayed outside, directing people away from the smoke until firefighters arrived.
Malcolm appeared at the front entrance with his coat over one arm, coughing theatrically. He saw Agrippa and stopped.
“You always did like making a scene,” Malcolm said.
“You’re burning your own records.”
“An electrical fault. Tragic, but hardly my responsibility.”
Daniel emerged behind him, the metal case now gone. He looked toward the street, searching for an escape. When he saw the investigators arriving, he turned back toward the building.
“Daniel!” Malcolm snapped. “Stay here.”
But Daniel was already moving. He sprinted down the service corridor and out through a side gate. An investigator chased him while another officer moved to restrain Malcolm.
Malcolm did not resist. He held out his hands and smiled as if the entire event were a misunderstanding that would be corrected by morning.
“You have nothing that proves I ordered anything,” he said to Agrippa. “A frightened doctor, a bitter former champion, a disgraced bully, and a collection of spreadsheets. That’s your case?”
Agrippa stepped closer but kept his hands open. “You’re right about one thing. It isn’t enough by itself.”
Malcolm’s smile widened.
“Which is why you should be worried about what Daniel took from the basement,” Agrippa continued. “He didn’t take the archive. He took the original contract.”
For the first time, Malcolm’s expression slipped.
Agrippa had no proof that Daniel carried the contract, but Malcolm’s reaction was answer enough. The document mattered. It was the hinge on which the entire scheme turned.
The investigator placed Malcolm in a patrol car. As the door shut, Malcolm leaned toward the window.
“You think the truth will save you?” he asked. “People don’t want the truth, Fisher. They want a story they can believe. I’ve spent years making yours for you.”
Agrippa watched the car pull away. “Then it’s time they heard mine.”
The firefighters contained the blaze before it destroyed the entire basement. Much of the paper storage was damaged, but the investigators recovered several metal cabinets that had been protected from the flames. The original contract was missing.
Natalie reviewed the footage from the loading entrance. Daniel had carried the case into the building, but when he emerged, it was empty. A second camera caught him leaving through the side gate with a folded envelope inside his coat.
“He has it,” she said.
“Where will he go?” Trent asked.
Agrippa thought about Daniel’s years of accounting, his shell companies, his careful movements through a world built on hidden transactions. “Somewhere he can turn it into leverage.”
The lawyer called with a new development: Elias Vale’s private security team had contacted Daniel. They were offering him safe passage out of the country in exchange for the contract and the archive’s access key.
Malcolm had been arrested, but the man who financed the operation was preparing to erase the last evidence.
Agrippa looked toward the old arena, where the championship banner still hung above the entrance. For years, he had thought the fight was over when the bell rang. Now he understood that some fights were designed to continue long after the crowd went home.
“We find Daniel before Vale does,” he said.
Daniel Voss chose a place with no cameras he could trust and no exits he did not know: the abandoned freight terminal on the eastern riverfront. Natalie traced a message sent from one of his shell companies to a temporary phone registered near the terminal. The investigators were on their way, but Daniel had asked for a meeting with Agrippa alone.
The lawyer advised against it. The investigators advised against it more strongly. Agrippa agreed to wear a wire and remain within sight of the team. He did not intend to fight Daniel. He intended to make him talk.
The terminal’s windows were broken, and weeds pushed through the cracked concrete. Daniel stood beneath a hanging industrial lamp, clutching the metal case. He looked exhausted, his expensive coat stained with soot.
“You came,” he said.
“You asked.”
“I expected you to bring a squad.”
“They’re nearby. I’m not here to rescue you from the consequences.”
Daniel gave a short, bitter laugh. “You think I don’t know what I deserve?”
“I think you know exactly what you did. That’s why you’re bargaining.”
Daniel opened the case. Inside lay a stack of papers sealed in plastic, a small encrypted drive, and the original contract.
“Vale has offered me a way out,” he said. “A new identity. Money. A place where none of this follows me.”
“And what does he want?”
“The contract, the drive, and the name of the person who copied the original medical report.”
“Keene already gave a statement.”