Chapter 6 - THE BOY IN THE CAMERADaniel and Olivia fought their way back toward the terminal.
Rex stayed close.
Every corridor looked different now.
Every shadow seemed to move.
Daniel finally regained radio contact.
“Control, this is Brooks.”
Static.
Then a woman's voice.
“Daniel, thank God.”
“Megan, listen carefully. Captain Vance is compromised.”
A pause.
“What?”
“Don't trust anyone wearing airport credentials.”
“That includes you?”
Daniel looked at Olivia.
“Yes.”
The line went dead.
When they reached the secure operations center, every monitor showed the same image.
Eli.
He was sitting in a chair.
His red backpack was gone.
The masked man stood behind him.
Daniel stepped toward the monitor.
“Where are you?”
The man answered.
“Closer than you think.”
Daniel scanned the camera angle.
A wall.
A fire door.
A yellow stripe.
Then Rex began whining.
Daniel understood.
“Rex knows that location.”
He watched the dog's eyes.
The child was not the target.
The room was.
Rex had previously been trained inside that facility.
Daniel remembered.
Six years earlier, during Rex's certification, he had been brought into an underground training complex.
The address had never been listed.
But Daniel remembered a yellow stripe on the walls.
“Sublevel six.”
Olivia grabbed his arm.
“Then let's go.”
They descended.
When the elevator opened, Daniel smelled something strange.
Smoke.
Not fire.
Burned plastic.
Rex stopped.
Ahead stood three doors.
One was open.
Daniel approached.
Inside was a room full of monitors.
Eli's image appeared on twenty screens.
But there was something else.
A second video.
Nathan Hart.
Daniel watched.
“Nathan,” he whispered.
The recording began.
“Daniel, if you've found this room, then they failed to stop you.”
Nathan looked exhausted.
“I need you to understand something about Eli.”
Daniel's heart hammered.
“He wasn't chosen because he's my son.”
Olivia stared.
“Then why?”
Nathan answered through the screen.
“Because he remembers.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Remembers what?”
Nathan continued.
“Something happened at this airport when Eli was four. He saw people taken through a restricted gate. He saw the man who ordered it.”
Daniel stared at the screen.
“A four-year-old couldn't remember something like that.”
“He did.”
Nathan leaned closer.
“He drew the man's face.”
Olivia covered her mouth.
“And I made one mistake.”
Nathan's expression broke.
“I kept the drawing.”
The screen changed.
A scanned child's drawing appeared.
A stick figure.
A security uniform.
A face.
Daniel stared.
He knew that face.
Everyone in the airport knew it.
The drawing belonged to Captain Harold Vance.
But Nathan wasn't finished.
“The man behind Vance is not Vance.”
Daniel felt a chill.
“Then who?”
The recording ended.
A final message appeared.
LOOK AT REX.
Daniel turned.
Rex stood at the doorway.
His nose was pressed against something.
A small piece of red fabric.
Daniel picked it up.
It belonged to Eli's backpack.
There was blood on it.
Olivia screamed.
Daniel stared down.
Then Rex growled toward the darkness behind them.
Someone whispered:
“Daniel.”
He turned.
A woman was standing at the far end of the corridor.
She looked exactly like Olivia.
Same face.
Same clothes.
Same voice.
“Give me the dog.”
Olivia stepped behind Daniel.
“That isn't me.”
May you like
The woman smiled.
And the lights went out again.
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