Page 100 of Anchor
Dr. Hunter Montgomery, chief medical officer and trauma surgeon from New Orleans, strode in fast, already scrubbed, already masked. “Hello, folks. Casey called the first minute he went down. Here to help when I can.” He moved beside Beth, aware there was nothing more to do yet. So he joined the wait.
Then, behind the glass of the sterile zone, another figure appeared, tall, quiet, unflinching. Ian.
He didn’t step inside. Didn’t speak. Just stood at the edge, eyes locked on Reid, on the mess of blood and ice and hands working like a symphony against time.
Tuck didn’t look up. He just kept squeezing.
Beth glanced once at Ian. Just a flicker of acknowledgment. They were all just waiting for the antidote.
THIRTY-TWO
EXECUTIVE SUITE – 0630 HOURS
The lights in Claire’s suite were low. Only the glow from her laptop cast shadows across the desk, where files were fanned out like a crime scene. Algorithms. Movement logs. Data anomalies that now made perfect, horrifying sense. Her tea had gone cold again.
A soft knock. She didn’t look up. The door opened anyway.
Kieran Chase stepped inside, shirt wrinkled, hair a little disheveled, like he hadn’t moved from behind a screen in two days. He held a tablet under one arm and something heavier under his eyes.
Claire didn’t move, just stared at the data feed pulsing across the screen. “You could’ve pinged,” she said flatly. “System’s still mine, last I checked.”
“I know,” Kieran said, voice soft. “Didn’t want to ask permission to show up. Just... needed to.”
She slowly turned, her eyes landing on him, sharp and tired. “He confessed?”
He exhaled hard. “Yeah.”
Her mouth tightened. “Too late.”
Kieran stepped farther in. No dramatic entrance, just guilt, carried plainly. “I built the goddamn architecture,” he said. “Every clearance protocol. Every trace-routing tool. I saw the usage logs. I should’ve caught it—Terry’s access. Vos’s mirrored accounts. The shadow thread. All of it.”
Claire stood, wrapping her arms around herself. “But you didn’t.”
“No.” He swallowed. “I missed it. And I don’t miss things. I trusted him…” Something in his voice cracked on that last word.
Claire studied him, long enough to make him flinch slightly. “I’m not mad,” she said finally. “Just...”
“Disappointed?”
“No, not in you.”
He blinked.
“I’m disappointed he got that close,” she added, quieter. “Vos played the system you trusted. Used it to hunt the people you were trying to save.”
Kieran nodded. “Terry’s talking.”
Claire’s head lifted. “Voluntarily?”
“Wrecked,” Kieran said. “But yeah. We isolated him and got him a monitor. Someone outside Chase, so he’d feel safe. He’s flipped. Full deposition. He named every data trail Vos used to cover the leak. Everything.”
Claire stepped forward. “You have his config code?”
“Yep.” Kieran tapped his temple. “And his patch keys. I can spoof Vos’s access in reverse.”
Claire didn’t smile, but her eyes flashed with something cold and razor-sharp. “Then let’s use it,” she said. “Turn the system on him. Frame him with his own tools. Let him trip the wires he thinks he owns.”
Kieran hesitated. “That’s dangerous.”
