Chapter 10 - THE FILE THAT DISAPPEARED
Every monitor flickered simultaneously.
The technician's fingers flew across the keyboard.
"We're being accessed from outside."
Martin stepped closer.
"Disconnect the network."
"I'm trying."
Warning messages appeared one after another.
FILE ARCHIVED.
VIDEO EXPORT INITIATED.
USER AUTHORIZATION OVERRIDDEN.
"They're copying everything," the technician said.
Daniel immediately picked up the security office telephone.
"Lock every external connection."
A voice answered from the operations center.
"Already doing it."
The connection suddenly went dead.
Alex noticed something on the largest monitor.
"The footage."
Everyone turned.
The airport recordings were disappearing.
One by one.
Every file involving Gate 42.
Every recording showing the gray-jacketed man.
Every image containing the smiling stranger.
Deleted.
"No..."
The technician desperately opened backup storage.
Empty.
"They're deleting the backups too."
Martin slammed his hand onto the desk.
"Pull the offline archive."
"We never had time."
Daniel looked at Alex.
"What exactly do you remember?"
Alex closed his eyes.
"I remember the gray jacket."
"The newspaper."
"The smile."
"No."
Daniel interrupted.
"Think smaller."
Alex frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"When people are trained to observe," Daniel said, "they rarely remember faces first."
Alex took a slow breath.
His memories replayed in fragments.
Rolling luggage.
Coffee.
Boarding announcements.
Lily crying.
The gray jacket.
Then...
His eyes opened.
"The watch."
Daniel leaned forward.
"What about it?"
"The man with the gray jacket wore an old mechanical watch."
"So?"
"It was cracked."
Martin looked confused.
Alex continued.
"The glass was broken across the center."
"But he kept checking the time."
Daniel immediately understood.
"A man obsessed with timing..."
"...wearing a watch he couldn't accurately read."
Alex nodded.
"He wasn't checking the time."
"He was waiting for a signal."
The technician suddenly shouted.
"Wait!"
He had recovered a temporary cache file.
Only three seconds remained before automatic deletion.
The final recovered image appeared.
It wasn't from the airport.
It wasn't from the hospital.
It was from a parking garage security camera.
The smiling stranger stood beside a black sedan.
The gray-jacketed man approached him.
The two exchanged a small envelope.
Then the smiling man handed over a photograph.
The resolution was poor, but one detail remained unmistakable.
It was a picture of Alex.
Taken days earlier.
Not today.
Days before he ever arrived at the airport.
Daniel stared at the image in disbelief.
"They were watching you long before this morning."
Alex felt the weight of those words settle over him.
Someone had collected photographs.
Someone had tracked his movements.
Someone had planned something with extraordinary precision.
May you like
And whatever that plan had been...
Lily's desperate cry for help had interrupted it in a way nobody had expected.
