Chapter 5: The Brother in the Cold
They found Raymond Webb's signal forty minutes later.
Not through the encrypted app — that had gone dark the moment Reyes's team pinged it.
They found him through a loyalty card.
A coffee shop three blocks from the airport, used eleven minutes after the elevator doors closed.
Twenty-two dollars and sixty cents.
A large black coffee and a blueberry muffin.
Reyes showed Harlan the transaction record in the car.
"He used a card," Harlan said.
"Linked to a legend that's been dormant for four years.
Either he wanted to be found, or he got sloppy."
"Ray doesn't get sloppy."
Reyes said nothing.
The coffee shop was a narrow place with fogged windows and four small tables.
When Harlan walked in with two agents behind him, Raymond Webb was sitting at the table farthest from the door, both hands wrapped around a paper cup, the case on the bench beside him.
He looked up when the door opened.
He didn't run.
Harlan stopped at the table.
The two agents positioned themselves at the door and the counter without being signaled.
The barista looked once and found something urgent to do in the back.
Ray looked older than the last photograph in his file.
Thinner, as Marcus had said.
There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there in Sarajevo.
"You used the loyalty card," Harlan said.
"I know."
"So you wanted me to find you."
"I wanted you to find me before anyone else did." Ray looked past his brother at the agents by the door.
"Can we do this without the audience?"
"No."
Ray nodded slowly.
He looked down at the cup in his hands.
"How's Marcus?"
"Splinted wrist.
Scared.
Angry." Harlan pulled out the chair across from his brother and sat down.
"He thinks he was helping you."
"He was helping me."
"He unlocked a federal vehicle using stolen access credentials and facilitated the removal of sealed evidence in an active prosecution.
He's seventeen."
"I know how old he is." Ray's jaw tightened.
"I didn't want him involved.
I needed one thing from him.
I thought it would take thirty seconds and he'd never have to know the rest."
"Instead he got thrown onto the hood of a car by a patrol officer who thought he was stealing the vehicle."
Ray looked up sharply.
"Is he—"
"He's fine.
No thanks to your planning." Harlan leaned forward.
"The case, Ray.
Right now.
What's in it that's worth six years of cover and burning a seventeen-year-old boy to get?"
Ray was quiet for a moment.
He looked at the case on the bench beside him.
Then he reached into his coat and set something on the table between them.
A drive.
Small, matte black, the size of a thumb.
"That case is a decoy," Ray said.
"It's been a decoy for three weeks.
Whoever told Voss it was being moved today — they've been feeding him false logistics since the original transfer was compromised in March." He pushed the drive forward slightly.
"Everything that actually matters is on that."
Harlan looked at the drive.
He didn't touch it.
"Who else knows?"
"On our side?
Two people.
One of them is me." Ray paused.
"The other one is why I couldn't come to you directly."
"Who is it?"
Ray picked up his coffee.
Set it down without drinking.
"Deputy Director Callahan."
The name landed in the space between them like something dropped from a height.
Harlan did not move.
"Callahan has been running a parallel channel to Voss's legal team for eight months," Ray said.
"Not through official counsel.
Through a private intermediary.
I have the communications.
I have the financial transfers.
I have three recorded conversations." He nodded at the drive.
"All of it is on there.
Authenticated, timestamped, and already mirrored to two locations that Callahan cannot reach."
"You're telling me the second-highest-ranking official in the federal division overseeing the Voss prosecution has been compromised."
"I'm telling you he's been bought." Ray met his brother's eyes.
"And he knew the real evidence was being moved today too.
Not the decoy.
The real transfer.
Which means someone was going to intercept it — and it wasn't going to look like a theft.
It was going to look like a procedural loss."
Harlan sat back.
"I needed the decoy moved visibly," Ray said.
"Loudly.
With enough confusion that the real transfer could happen clean while everyone was looking the wrong direction.
Marcus was just supposed to unlock the vehicle.
The rest was already in motion."
"And Cole stopping him?"
"That was not part of the plan."
Harlan looked at his brother for a long time.
At the lines around his eyes.
At the hands around the cup, which were not entirely steady.
"You could have come to me."
"Callahan has eyes on your office.
Has had for months.
The moment you started asking questions, the evidence disappears and Voss walks and Callahan retires quietly with a full pension." Ray shook his head.
"I needed it to be airtight before anyone inside the building knew."
"And now?"
Ray pushed the drive the rest of the way across the table.
"Now it's airtight."
Harlan looked at the drive.
Then he picked it up.
Outside the fogged window, a black sedan rolled slowly past and did not stop.
Reyes appeared at Harlan's shoulder.
"Sir.
We have a problem."
Harlan turned.
"Callahan just issued an emergency transfer order for the Voss case.
Effective in two hours.
He's pulling jurisdiction."
Ray stood up.
"If he pulls jurisdiction, the sealed indictments dissolve.
Everything resets."
May you like
Harlan was already on his feet, the drive in his coat pocket.
"Then we have two hours," he said.
