Chapter 16 - The Message on the Dead Screen
The disconnected monitor continued glowing in the dark hangar.
WELCOME BACK, ETHAN.
THIS TIME, COME ALONE.
Martin immediately pulled Ethan away from the screen.
“You are not going anywhere alone.”
Ethan kept his eyes on the message.
“It knows my name.”
“It knows everyone’s name,” Martin replied. “The airport database has already been compromised.”
Ethan shook his head.
“It said welcome back.”
A third line appeared.
YOUR FATHER LEFT SOMETHING FOR YOU BENEATH THE NORTH WALL.
Security officers searched the monitor, but no active cable or wireless transmitter was connected to it. The machine should not have been receiving anything.
Martin ordered the entire hangar evacuated.
Ethan refused to move.
He walked toward the north wall, following the direction marked by the tiny compass engraved inside Flight 782’s engine.
Behind the wall stood the abandoned fuel-testing facility.
Its entrance had been sealed with concrete after Samuel Hale’s workshop explosion seven years earlier. According to official records, the underground section had been filled and permanently closed.
Ethan approached the wall and tapped it with the handle of his wrench.
The first section sounded solid.
The second sounded solid.
The third answered with a hollow echo.
Martin stared at the concrete.
“There’s a chamber behind this.”
The officers brought a thermal scanner. A narrow rectangular space appeared behind the wall, along with a cold metal object near the floor.
Before they could open it, the monitor changed again.
A live camera feed appeared.
It showed the abandoned facility from inside.
A man stood beneath a hanging light, his face hidden by shadow. On the table before him lay Samuel Hale’s stolen notebook.
Beside it sat the silver watch from the old photograph.
Its glass was shattered.
Its hands were frozen at 4:17.
Ethan remembered the warning written by his father.
Trust the one with the broken watch.
The man lifted the watch toward the camera.
“Your father trusted me,” he said.
The voice was not distorted.
It was older, weaker, and nothing like the voice that had spoken from the warehouse.
Martin leaned closer.
“That isn’t Victor.”
The man stepped into the light.
A burn scar covered the opposite side of his face from the one they had seen earlier.
Two men.
Two scars.
Two surviving brothers.
The stranger looked directly at Ethan.
“My name is Victor Lang,” he said. “And the man controlling this airport is my brother.”
Then the video shook violently.
May you like
Someone struck Victor from behind.
The screen went black.
