Chapter 7: Transmission

The tail car held its distance, headlights low against the dark service road. Dracona checked the mirror again, calculating the gap between their positions.

Harry pulled up Marcus’s contact on the burner. He typed the single coded sequence they had used during the card game runs: three letters for Marcus, four digits for the rail office drop sequence. The message sent without confirmation.

She turned onto the narrower access path that curved behind the old freight line. The tail matched the turn. Dracona kept the sedan steady. The abandoned rail shed appeared ahead, its corrugated metal roof sagging between the support beams.

She pulled the car behind the structure and cut the engine. Harry kept the phone in his hand. They moved toward the side door without speaking. The rusted handle gave after two attempts, the hinges creaking once before they stepped inside.

The interior held only a metal desk bolted to the concrete floor and a single terminal still connected to the rail network power supply. Harry crossed to the desk. He entered his credentials through the backup access path Marcus maintained for him, bypassing the main office routing. The system accepted the login after the second prompt.

Dracona stood behind him, watching the screen load the connection interface to Hale’s old terminal. The remote session established through three carrier hops. Harry navigated the directory structure until he reached the final transmission headers from the twenty-second.

The metadata displayed the same routing sequence they had traced earlier through the holding company account. Harry opened the header file and copied the transmission details. They scrolled through the carrier logs until the original destination identifier appeared.

The burner lit up with Marcus’s reply. Harry opened the message. Marcus confirmed the uncle had issued the sweep order through the rail office payroll contacts. The confirmation listed two times and the specific teams assigned.

Dracona leaned closer to the screen. The decision moved through her mind without requiring further verification. They would send the audio file directly to Marcus instead of routing it through the neutral courier. Harry prepared the shared link with the encryption parameters from the original recording.

She opened her phone and transferred the file path through the account access they had established earlier. The transmission processed through the holding company server.

The header file still displayed on the terminal. She expanded the metadata summary again. One line item showed a coordinate reference from three years prior. The location matched the site where both families had lost key personnel during the single confirmed massacre between their organizations. The timestamp aligned with the same month the official reports had listed the incident as unresolved.