Page 151 of The Enforcer’s Pawn

The tech runs behind Roman with the tablet raised. I catch one glimpse of the feed as we move, gray corridor, plastic sheeting, Cara’s coat, Patrick’s hand locked around her arm. Then the image flickers.

“Keep it alive,” I shout.

The tech curses and runs beside me, one hand on the tablet, the other pressed to his earpiece. Roman stays at my back. Dima takes the left wall. I take the right.

Ahead, the corridor bends toward the service lift. Another suppressed shot punches into the plaster beside my head. I don’t have time to duck. I don’t have time to slow down.

Kirill starts speaking too fast over the line. “Doors, lift, fake appointment, wallet check. We have all of it recorded.”

“Plain,” I snap.

He comes back fast. “Patrick is proving he still has the wallet records. Morozov’s people are using the hotel to trap him before he can release them. We have the money trail, and we have Morozov’s side trying to stop it.”

An alarm starts above us, calm and neat in a building with gunfire inside. People scream in the lobby. Plastic sheeting snaps loose ahead and whips across the corridor. Lights flicker over wrapped furniture, paint tins, and a half-built reception counter. A rolling cart slams into the wall hard enough to spill folders across the floor.

Someone shouts in Russian for everyone to get down.

Dima cuts left and points two fingers toward a side office. “Office.”

I jerk my chin toward the door. “Clear it.”

He kicks it open, sweeps inside with his gun up, then waves one man through. Roman pulls the tech behind a stack of boxed fixtures.

The maintenance guard breaks into the line, his voice tight and close to the mic. “I have eyes. Patrick has her. She’s fighting him every step.”

“Hands,” I say, moving past the half-built counter.

“Right hand on her arm. Left hand on his phone. No weapon on her that I can see.”

Phone means records, access, or a dead-man switch. Arm means I can’t shoot through him.

I move faster. The corridor narrows near the service bend. Dima slides along the left wall. I take the right and keep my gun angled down until I have a clean line. Roman stays behind me.

Through the wire, Cara says, “Where are the records, Patrick?”

My teeth lock together. Good girl. She keeps him talking.

Patrick’s answer comes rough. “You don’t need to know.”

Cara fires back, “Morozov will kill you before you get to trade them.”

Something crashes near her microphone, followed by Patrick’s hissed breath.

“Morozov can’t kill me until he knows whether the wallet package has already gone to Volkov,” Patrick snaps.

Yuri barks in my ear. “Got it. Wallet package is the label.”

Kirill follows fast. “Patrick just opened it from his phone. It’s buried under a New Harbor archive file.”

Behind me, Roman drags a wounded Volkov man behind the half-built counter and shouts, “Meaning?”

Kirill comes through my earpiece. “Patrick used the key. The wallet package is the proof bundle.”

Yuri keeps talking. “It’s tying together. New Harbor, Sable Crown, Vostok, Oak and Tron, and Patrick’s own words.”

“What else do you need?” I ask, stepping over broken plastic.

Yuri answers fast. “Patrick gave us the package label. Now we need Morozov’s side to make a move on record. A lift override, corridor seal, phone wipe, cleanup order, anything protected.”