Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE LOCKED ROOM
They found the screaming woman behind a locked door at the end of the eastern corridor.
Stellan reached it first.
He pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked it.
The room was small, with a narrow bed, a bathroom, and a window that had been sealed from the outside.
A woman sat against the far wall.
Her hair was unevenly cut.
Her face was pale.
But Celia recognized her immediately.
The seventh interpreter.
Nadia.
The woman looked up.
Her eyes moved from Stellan to Archer.
Then they settled on Celia.
"No," she whispered.
Celia approached slowly.
"You're Nadia?"
Nadia began shaking her head.
"You shouldn't have come here."
"Why?"
"Because they know you're Daniel's daughter."
Stellan crouched several feet away.
"Who knows?"
Nadia looked at him.
For the first time, genuine fear crossed her face.
"Your family."
Stellan's expression hardened.
"My family is dead."
"Not all of them."
He stood.
"Explain."
Nadia looked toward Celia.
"Your father gave me a recording. He told me to hide it until the right person came."
"What recording?"
"The recording of the night Anton Varo died."
Stellan went pale.
"Where is it?"
Nadia closed her eyes.
"Your brother has it."
The silence was absolute.
Stellan didn't move.
Celia remembered the family history she had read.
Anton Varo had two sons.
Stellan, the older.
And Julian, the younger.
Julian Varo had supposedly died in a boating accident twelve years earlier.
"Your brother is dead," Celia said carefully.
Nadia shook her head.
"That's what he wanted everyone to believe."
Stellan took one step backward.
"You're certain?"
"I saw him."
"When?"
"Six weeks ago."
Stellan looked toward Archer.
The older man seemed to have aged ten years in a few seconds.
"Who brought you here?" Stellan asked Nadia.
"Archer."
"Why?"
"Because he said I would be safe."
Archer lowered his eyes.
"That was the intention."
Nadia laughed bitterly.
"You locked me in this room."
"Because someone was searching for you."
"You could have told me."
"I couldn't risk it."
Celia stepped between them.
"Enough. We need to find my mother."
Nadia nodded.
"Your mother is with Grekov's people. But there's something you need to understand."
She reached beneath the mattress and removed a folded piece of paper.
It was a handwritten Russian passage.
Celia read it.
Her throat tightened.
The words described a transfer of control over the Eastern port.
But the final sentence was different.
It referred to a second beneficiary.
A person whose identity had been concealed behind a linguistic code.
"What's this?"
Nadia looked at her.
"Your father created it. He said the original agreement had two signatures that weren't supposed to exist."
Celia examined the writing.
Then she recognized something.
The strange arrangement of punctuation.
The repeated word order.
It was the same linguistic fingerprint her father had used.
"There's a hidden message."
Stellan moved closer.
"Can you read it?"
"Not yet."
She pulled out her notebook and began marking the repeated patterns.
After several minutes, she stopped.
The message was not a name.
It was a date.
November 14.
And a location.
Mercer Terminal.
"What's Mercer Terminal?" she asked.
Stellan looked at the paper.
"An abandoned shipping facility."
"Who owns it?"
He didn't answer immediately.
Archer did.
"Your mother."
Celia stared at him.
"What?"
"Your father transferred the property to her shortly before he died."
"Why would he do that?"
"Because it was where he hid the original recording."
Celia's phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
A video appeared.
Her mother was sitting in a chair, her hands tied loosely in front of her.
Grekov stood behind her.
He looked directly into the camera.
"Ms. Rowe. I believe it's time we stopped hiding behind translators."
He leaned closer.
"Bring the original agreement to Mercer Terminal by midnight. Come alone."
The video ended.
Stellan took the phone.
"You're not going."
Celia looked at him.
"My mother is there."
"I'll retrieve her."
"You don't know where the recording is."
"I know where Grekov will be."
"And he knows you're coming. That's why he asked for me."
Stellan stepped closer.
"You think this is about your mother?"
Celia's eyes filled with tears.
"I think it's about my father. And I think everyone in this house has been lying to me since I arrived."
Stellan didn't deny it.
That hurt more than anything else.
She turned toward the door.
"Take me to Mercer Terminal."
"No."
"Then I'll find my own way."
Stellan caught her wrist.
Not painfully.
But firmly enough to stop her.
"Celia."
She looked down at his hand.
He released her immediately.
For the first time, his voice lost its cold authority.
"If you walk into that building alone, I may not be able to bring you back."
Celia swallowed.
"Then don't let me go alone."
Something passed between them.
A silent agreement.
Stellan turned to Archer.
"Prepare the team."
But as they left Nadia's room, Nadia called after them.
"Stellan."
He stopped.
She looked terrified.
"There's something I never told you."
"What?"
"The man who ordered your father's murder wasn't Julian."
May you like
She took a shaky breath.
"It was someone who has been protecting you ever since."
