Chapter 7: Seven A.M.
Her name was Diane Cho.
Her office was on the fourth floor of a building that looked like it handled insurance disputes, which Paul said was intentional.
She was in her mid-fifties, with reading glasses pushed up on her head and a directness that made small talk feel unnecessary.
She took the drive from me, plugged it into an isolated laptop that wasn't connected to anything, and started reading without a word.
Marcus and I sat across from her.
Paul stood near the door.
After eleven minutes she looked up.
"Where did you get this?"
"My brother worked for one of Voss's companies."
"How old are you?" she asked Marcus directly.
"Nineteen."
She looked at him for a moment.
"You copied this yourself?"
"Yes."
"Do you understand what's on it?"
"Some of it."
She turned the laptop so we could see the screen.
"Forty-one months of financial records.
Transfers through seven shell companies across four states.
The receiving accounts link back to three names that federal investigators have been trying to connect to a specific network for over two years." She paused.
"This is not a small operation."
"Can you use it?" I asked.
"I can get it to the right people, yes.
But I need to be honest with you about what that means." She took her glasses off her head and set them on the desk.
"Once this goes in, it moves at the government's pace, not yours.
Voss won't be arrested tonight or tomorrow.
There will be a process."
"How long?"
"Weeks, minimum.
Possibly months before anything visible happens."
"He gave us forty-eight hours."
"I know." She looked at me steadily.
"Which means you need a way to buy time without giving him what he wants and without letting him know what you've done."
"What do you suggest?"
"Tell him the drive is corrupted.
That Marcus is trying to recover the files.
It's plausible — these things happen.
It buys you a week, maybe more, before he stops believing it."
"And if he doesn't believe it?"
"Then we accelerate on our end." She closed the laptop.
"I'm going to need both of you to write formal statements.
Everything — how Marcus got the job, what he observed, the meeting last night, the photograph, the texts.
All of it documented."
Marcus leaned forward.
"Will he know it was me who gave this up?"
Diane looked at him directly.
"He'll suspect.
But if this goes where I think it goes, by the time he's in a position to act on that suspicion, he won't be in a position to act on anything."
It was the most careful version of a promise I'd ever heard.
But it was enough.
We spent two hours in that office writing statements.
Paul sat in the corner and said nothing.
Diane asked precise questions and typed everything herself.
When we were done, she walked us to the door.
"One more thing," she said.
"The woman who was with Voss last night.
Silver ring, right hand."
"Yes."
"Her name is probably Carla Stenn.
She's been identified as a contact in two of the other cases that went quiet." Diane's expression didn't change.
"She's the one who decides when the pressure escalates.
Voss gives the orders.
She carries them out."
I thought about her standing at the restaurant door, smiling at the camera.
She hadn't been careless.
She'd been confident.
There was a difference.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me yet." Diane held the door open.
"Go home.
Act normal.
And do not contact Voss before the forty-eight hours are up."
In the elevator, Marcus stood beside me without speaking.
When the doors opened on the ground floor, he said quietly: "I'm sorry I made this your problem."
"You didn't make it my problem," I said.
"You made it our problem.
That's different."
He nodded.
We walked out into the morning.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I showed it to Paul without answering.
He read the screen.
His jaw tightened slightly.
May you like
*Clock's running.
Don't get clever.*
