Page 28 of Buried Past (First in Line #3)

Chapter nineteen

Matthew

T he Federal Building stood firm like a bully ready to fight—eleven stories of reinforced glass and bureaucratic muscle, nearly empty after hours but still humming with secrets.

I stood at the top of the entrance steps, hands shoved in my hoodie and breath sharp in my throat. I glanced around—no one visible.

Seattle didn't sleep so much as go silent after midnight. The city around me held its breath—no foot traffic or hum of late-night conversations. Only the dull grind of a metro bus crawling uphill three blocks over.

My burner phone read 12:01. I rechecked it, not for the time but for the vibration that hadn't come. Not yet.

I was a target now. There was no other way to see it. No cover or allies visible. Only me on a concrete altar, waiting for whatever Hoyle's men planned next.

Did they want to remake me as their newest asset?

I kept one hand in my pocket—thumb resting on the trigger the way Michael had drilled into me years ago—while I pulled the other out loose at my side. Nothing in my posture screamed cop or soldier. I was a tired man in a hoodie.

At 12:02, I detected movement.

Two men appeared at the far corner, stepping out from behind a wide steel column. Both wore trim suits. Clean lines and good tailoring.

The taller one had a tablet case tucked under his arm. The shorter one moved with twitchy energy at his side.

They approached me slowly. No swaggering, only deliberate movements. The shorter man stopped six feet away, close enough to talk, and far enough that I couldn't reach him without warning. His partner covered my right flank, cutting off the side angle.

The tall one studied me as he spoke. "Punctual. We appreciate that in a man facing extinction."

"Hard to be anything else when you're holding all the cards."

He didn't smile. "Time's not on your side, McCabe."

When he unzipped the case, the tablet's screen glowed in the midnight shadows, and then there he was—a static shot of Dorian.

His face was a mess of swelling and impact bruises, blood running from a gash along his hairline down to his jaw. They'd shredded his shirt down the front, one shoulder exposed.

Across his collarbone, a razor-thin slice still leaked red. His left eye had vanished under swollen skin. Resting on his lap, pristine and unmistakable: today's Seattle Times . Proof of the current date.

I stared at that screen like I wanted to reach through it. Everything in me clenched. I barely controlled the urge to tear the tablet from his hands, slam these men into the stone behind us, and make someone pay for violating Dorian's body.

I breathed deeply. One. Two.

Calm would buy time. Time might buy Dorian.

The shorter one spoke. His voice was soft, almost bored. "You surrender, and we stop the bleeding."

My skin crawled, but I kept my face neutral and professional. "Where was this taken?"

The tall man's grip on the tablet shifted. "That's irrelevant—"

I angled my head, peering in. "Industrial lighting, maybe. Fluorescents. Sounds like a ballast hum in the background. I think I can hear compressors cycling on. Who's handling his interrogation?"

The shorter one narrowed his eyes. "You're stalling."

I shrugged. "It's a hell of an operation. Would be a shame not to admire the craftsmanship."

And then, without moving the rest of my body, I tapped the burner in my pocket: three presses, pause, two more. The screen stayed dark, but I felt it vibrate once. Michael's ghost signal had gone live.

I pushed the phone deeper into my hoodie and exhaled through my nose.

The tablet twitched—pixels scrambling into static.

Then a flicker.

Then chaos.

Not degradation, hijack.

Michael was in. He'd rerouted their surveillance.

"Signal's not degraded," the tall man muttered, tapping frantically. "The device is failing." He shook it, achieving nothing. Their primary surveillance link to Dorian was dying in real-time.

The other one pulled out his phone, thumb already moving. His expression tightened. "Dead. Mesh network's down."

The tall one muttered out loud. "That wasn't scheduled." His hand slipped toward his belt—not a weapon, something else, probably a fallback relay. Whatever it was, it wouldn't work anymore.

They'd just realized they weren't the ones running this meeting anymore.

They stopped talking.

Both men focused on the flickering tablet between them as if it might explode. The screen stuttered again, then collapsed into digital snow for three seconds before it pulled itself back together. When it did, the image was different—it was a live feed now, timestamped in the lower corner.

My pulse slammed against my ribs.

Dorian blinked. On-screen. Barely, but it was movement. In the background, the feed picked up a soft, rhythmic metallic clang—steady and spaced. It was like the sound of a container swing arm locking into place. I'd heard that enough times near the port to know it wasn't ambient traffic.

I took a half-step closer. Not enough to alarm them. Just enough to lower my voice and still allow them to hear.

"That's not a photo. It's a live feed. Where is it broadcasting from?"

The tall man didn't answer. His finger danced over the screen, trying to reset the display again. The shorter one turned his body just slightly, putting space between us. Not quite retreat. Not quite threat posture either. Something in between—a man recalculating the risk with each breath.

I took that breath away from him.

"Your tablet pulled the feed from a live source and routed it through a ghost mesh," I said. "But your relay's wide open. You didn't mask the signature properly. That's why you're scrambling."

"Shut up." The tall man was starting to unravel.

The shorter one turned toward him. "Control should've killed the link."

"Control doesn't know we're dark. They've lost everything. The live feed wasn't supposed to come to us."

Good. That meant Michael was in, scrambling their communications.

My phone buzzed. Just once.

I didn't look at it. I didn't need to.

Michael only needed one word to confirm what I already knew: Port.

The container yards. Somewhere in that sprawl of rust and cranes, they held Dorian. I'd find the exact place before sunrise—or die trying.

"You overplayed it," I said, adding a slight touch of amusement to my voice. "Next time you threaten someone, maybe you shouldn't leave your transmission window wide open."

The shorter man's hand twitched toward his jacket. He wasn't searching for a weapon. He grabbed a comms device that no longer worked. For the first time, he looked at me like he might actually be afraid.

"Pleasure doing business," I said.

They didn't answer. Both knew they'd lost control and could be in the crosshairs of an unseen threat. They were already moving—retreat disguised as strategy, descending the stairs with fast, silent steps. I didn't follow right away.

Let them pull their exit string. Let them call in the fallout. All they were doing now was covering their own backs.

I pulled my second phone from the inside pocket and checked the screen.

Message from Michael. "Port. Move."

His pin glowed red over a satellite image of the port's edge. Between the cranes and fuel silos sat a rust-scarred square labeled Structure B7 . Three blinking thermals. One stationary. Two mobile.

I moved. Fast. Down the steps, three at a time.

Hoyle's befuddled couriers scattered as soon as their shoes hit the sidewalk—clean retreat choreography, but I recognized the nerves under it. The taller one moved southeast, jaw tight, phone already to his ear. The other veered north toward Pike like he had somewhere to go to vanish.

They weren't worried about me chasing them. That was their second mistake.

I hit the bottom step fast and pivoted left. The burner in my hoodie buzzed again—another confirmation ping from Michael—no words this time, only a location, confirmed.

A black SUV rolled out of the shadows half a block down, engine low and steady like it had been circling on idle. The car pulled curbside less than six feet from me.

Marcus.

He didn't get out. The passenger door swung open, interior cabin lit by a faint dashboard glow and the gleam of his ballistic vest under a zipped jacket.

I ducked in and yanked the door shut as he hit the gas. A rifle case sat between the seats. Two open radios crackled low.

Marcus didn't look at me right away. "What the hell happened?"

"They showed me a live feed," I said, working to catch my breath. "Didn't mean to. Michael grabbed the relay. We've got a location."

He nodded once and took a hard left across an empty intersection. The tires spat water and found their grip again without complaint.

"Michael's already in position. Pinged Elias fifteen minutes ago. Backup's light, but they're moving in from different sides." Elias was an old colleague of Michael's, and he only appeared when lives were in danger.

My second phone chirped again. An updated satellite image appeared, with the red X centered on a long, corrugated rectangle between two container stacks. Heat sigs confirmed. One motionless. Two pacing. All three were inside the building.

Marcus's voice was low and controlled. "You think he's still alive?"

I didn't answer. I only said, "Drive faster."

He did.

The warehouse hunched between two walls of rusting containers. No signage. No exterior lighting. Only a flickering bulb over a side door that wasn't standard issue—new hinges and newer bolts, like someone had reinforced it in a hurry.

Marcus killed the headlights two blocks away. We coasted the rest of the way in darkness, engine low and smooth, wheels whispering over wet asphalt. I counted every heartbeat.

Michael emerged from behind a container stack as we pulled in—gear slung tight, weapon drawn, face set to war mode: no smirk or offhanded comment.

He nodded at us. Behind him, Elias appeared, shouldering a med pack that looked like he stole it from a field hospital.

I climbed out of the SUV before it entirely stopped.