Chapter 9 - MARA'S MEMORYThe water plant became a cage.
Emergency exits were welded shut.
The main doors were reinforced steel.
The ventilation system had been disabled.
Nathan stared at Mara.
“You pulled me from the fire.”
She didn't deny it.
“I did.”
“You told me you weren't there.”
“I didn't tell you that.”
“You let me believe you weren't.”
Mara lowered her weapon.
“I was fourteen.”
Nathan stared.
“You were fourteen too.”
“Yes.”
“What were you doing there?”
Mara looked at the old projector.
“I don't remember everything.”
“Why not?”
“Because they erased part of my memory.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Mara looked him in the eye.
“Yes.”
Then the lights came on.
A medical chair descended from the ceiling.
Straps.
Needles.
Sensors.
Nathan stepped backward.
“What is that?”
Mara recognized it.
“A memory extraction rig.”
A voice came from the speaker.
“You should have stayed ignorant, Agent Hail.”
Mara stared upward.
“Shaw.”
His voice was calm.
“You have ten minutes.”
“Ten minutes for what?”
“To remember.”
The machine activated.
A screen appeared.
Mara suddenly gasped.
A memory.
Flames.
Rain.
Nathan's father shouting.
A teenage Mara dragging Nathan away from the wreck.
A second child crying.
Mara looked back at the car.
Someone was still inside.
She moved toward it.
Nathan's father grabbed her.
“No!”
“There's someone there!”
“Leave him!”
Mara remembered screaming.
Then a man stepped from the shadows.
Gabriel Shaw.
Young.
Calm.
Holding a pistol.
He looked at Mara.
“Forget this.”
The machine screamed.
Mara collapsed.
Nathan caught her.
“You remembered.”
She was shaking.
“Your father knew Shaw was working for Harbor Nine.”
“What was the child?”
Mara looked at him.
“Your brother.”
Nathan froze.
“I don't have a brother.”
“You did.”
A door opened.
Karen Doyle walked in.
Nathan stared.
“How?”
Karen held up a keycard.
“Because they recruited me too.”
“You're working with them?”
“No.”
She looked terrified.
“They contacted me yesterday.”
“Why?”
“Because they said I was the only person who could identify the fifth person.”
Mara frowned.
“Who?”
Karen looked at Nathan.
“The child in the car.”
A monitor turned on.
An old photograph appeared.
Three teenagers.
Nathan.
Mara.
And another boy.
Mara whispered,
“Lucas.”
Nathan stared.
“My brother's name was Lucas.”
Karen nodded.
“They didn't kill him.”
“Then where is he?”
Karen looked toward the ceiling.
“Standing.”
Footsteps sounded above them.
Slow.
Heavy.
One.
Two.
Three.
Someone descended the metal stairs.
Nathan raised his weapon.
A man stepped into the light.
Older.
Scar across his cheek.
Same eyes.
Same face.
Nathan stared.
The man smiled.
“Hello, brother.”
Nathan's weapon nearly fell from his hand.
Lucas Hail had been dead for twenty-one years.
May you like
Yet he was standing there.
And he was wearing Gabriel Shaw's federal badge.
