Chapter 5: Signals

Dracona kept her hands on the table edge. The phone still showed the account number. She watched the digits until they blurred, then pushed the device aside.

“We can’t stay here while the file sits on a link,” she said. “We need routes out.”

Harry rubbed the skin where the straps had bitten. Red lines crossed his wrist.

“Guns first?” he asked.

She nodded. “Sidearms. Nothing traceable. I have two in the trunk we left in the mill yard. Your contacts handle the courier. Mine watch for my father’s pings on the network.”

He stood. The chair scraped once across concrete.

“Marcus kept a driver on payroll after he went off grid,” Harry said. “The man answers to signals, not names. I can reach him without routing through any office line.”

Dracona slid her phone into her coat. She counted the minutes since the recording had played. Enough time for her father to have ordered checks on every login she had used. The link still sat open on her screen.

“Give me Hale’s last number,” she said. “I’ll hold any move on my father until we test that line.”

Harry looked at the floor a moment. Dust collected near the wall where the single vent pushed stale air. He recited eight digits. She entered them without speaking, then saved the contact under a random string.

They moved together toward the door. She undid the lock. The corridor beyond smelled of oil from the machines that had once run on the floor below. Harry took the left side. She kept the right wall. Neither of them risked the center light that still burned at the far end.

The parking space inside the mill yard held one car. She had parked it nose out. The trunk popped without sound. Two compact pistols lay wrapped in cloth. She handed him the smaller one first, checked the magazine on her own weapon, and closed the lid again.

“West gate,” she said. “We take separate lanes until the crossroads, then one text confirms the meet point with the driver.”

Harry nodded once. The pistol sat flat against his side beneath his jacket. She moved toward the driver door. He slid into the passenger seat without argument.

Dracona started the engine. The dashboard clock read 03:17. Headlights stayed off until they cleared the gate. She took the service road that ran behind the textile loading docks. No cameras faced that stretch.

The first signal point stood at an old rail siding three blocks past the mill. She parked behind a rusted container and left the keys in the ignition. Harry stepped out, kept low beside the car, and sent the coded text from a burner he had kept in his pocket since the game night. Three short rings answered him almost at once.

Dracona stayed by the rear bumper. Her own phone registered a network ping from one of her father’s monitoring servers. She killed the connection on her end before the query finished.

The driver arrived on foot. Jacket collar up. Hands empty. Harry exchanged a single word through the open window of the idling sedan the man had brought. The agreed signal transferred across one nod.

Dracona approached once the exchange finished. She kept her distance from the driver but spoke loud enough for the conversation to carry.

“File drops tomorrow morning at the usual neutral board,” she said. “We need fast confirmation on receipt.”

The driver looked past her to Harry.

“Done,” he said. “One question first. Lucius issued the order an hour ago. Both of you. Clean sweep, no exceptions.”

She felt the words settle between them before any reaction showed on her face.