Chapter 7 - The Locker at Iron Gate
The airport district was an expanse of corrugated metal hangars and chain-link fences. Iron Gate Vaults operated out of an unmarked concrete bunker tucked between a cargo depot and an aviation fuel farm. The interior was sterile, quiet, and chilled to exactly fifty-five degrees to preserve physical media.
Elena wore a clean thrift-store trench coat, her hair pinned tightly beneath a silk scarf. She carried the duplicate dispatch slip, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. Marcus waited two blocks away in the idling truck, ready to intervene if private security was called.
The clerk behind the reinforced glass counter was an older man with wire-rimmed glasses who barely glanced up from his monitor. "Account name?"
"Vance Heritage Consulting," Elena said, pitching her voice with steady, measured calm. "Picking up archival media box 402. Verification code 1-9-5-8."
The clerk tapped his keyboard with two fingers. A mechanized click echoed down the hallway behind him. "Sign here," he said, pushing a digital pad across the slot.
Elena scrawled an illegible signature—the same rushed stroke she had seen Victoria use on package deliveries at the front gates of the mansion. The clerk stamped the slip, retrieved an olive-drab plastic case from a locked dumbwaiter, and pushed it through the security drawer.
"Have a pleasant day," he said, already looking back at his screen.
Elena walked out into the cold tarmac wind, holding the case against her chest. Inside was the black solid-state drive that contained the missing twenty minutes of footage. She didn't have a computer capable of reading the encrypted enterprise format, but she knew someone who did.
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When she reached the truck, Marcus was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. "Did you get it?"
Elena opened the case, revealing the heavy drive nestled in black foam. "Now we have to make sure Brandon actually watches it before Victoria finds out it’s gone."
