RAY MARTIN CODE

Chapter 10 – Smoke and Mirrors

The metallic tang of gunpowder still clung to the air, Harker’s body lay sprawled in the gravel, a dark stain blooming beneath him. Ray’s grip on the drive tightened. “You’re going to have to explain yourself.”

Ella’s eyes didn’t waver. “Not here. We’re exposed.”

“You just shot Vance’s top enforcer,” Ray said, voice low but urgent. “There’s no walking away from this.”

Her lips curled into a faint, humorless smile. “There’s no walking away from any of this, Ray. You just realized that.”

She holstered her pistol and scanned the yard, her gaze darting from shadow to shadow. “Follow me.”

Ray hesitated. Every muscle in his body screamed not to trust her, not after those photos… but the freight yard was too open, too vulnerable. Harker might not have come alone. He followed.

Ella weaved between containers with practiced precision, taking turns without pause, as if she already knew the layout. They stopped at a battered red shipping container tucked in the far corner. She tapped twice on the metal, an odd rhythm, and a latch clicked from the inside.

The door swung open, revealing a cramped interior lit by a single bulb. A man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit stepped aside to let them in. His face was weathered, his eyes sharp. “Close it,” Ella ordered.

The man obeyed, sealing them in darkness until the bulb’s dim light steadied, Ray scanned the space, a workbench cluttered with radios, maps pinned to the walls, a cot in the corner. It looked like a temporary command post.

Ella motioned to the man. “Ray, this is Mason. Mason, meet Ray Martin.”

Mason gave a curt nod. “Heard about you.”

“That so?” Ray asked.

“Yeah,” Mason said, “but not everything I heard matches what she told me.”

Ray’s eyes narrowed at Ella. “We’re done with the cryptic routine. Start talking.”

Ella exhaled, as if bracing herself. “Those files you saw, they’re not the whole story.”

“Oh, the part where you’re shaking hands with Vance is missing?” Ray’s tone was acidic.

Her jaw tightened. “That was deep cover.”

Ray laughed,short, bitter. “Deep cover? You were cozying up to a man who orders assassinations over breakfast.”

“You think I enjoyed it?” she shot back. “You think I didn’t want to put a bullet in him the first night I sat across from him?”

“Then why didn’t you?”

“Because I was feeding intel to people who could dismantle his network piece by piece. The moment I pulled the trigger, all of it would’ve collapsed. Years of work, gone.”

Ray didn’t respond. The anger in his chest battled with the uncertainty creeping in, Mason spoke up, voice even. “She’s telling the truth. I’ve been running comms for her since the start.”

Ray glanced at the maps on the wall. Red circles marked locations across the city, ports, warehouses, office buildings. “And what’s this? More ‘deep cover’ work?”

Ella’s eyes followed his. “Those are Vance’s remaining strongholds. After tonight, they’ll know the ledger’s in play. They’ll move fast to shut down or relocate.”

Ray stepped closer. “The Blood Ledger, what’s really in it?”

Ella hesitated. Mason looked at her, then back at Ray. “Names. Transactions. Every dirty deal Vance has made in the last fifteen years. Politicians, cops, CEOs… some of the people in that ledger could topple governments if exposed.”

“And Ella’s in it,” Ray said flatly.

Ella didn’t flinch. “Yes. My name’s there because I had to make it real. If I didn’t, Vance would’ve smelled a plant from a mile away.”

Ray’s thoughts churned. If she was telling the truth, then her betrayal wasn’t betrayal at all, it was the cost of the game. But if she was lying… then she was already too deep in his circle.

Before he could speak, Mason’s radio crackled. A voice whispered, urgent: “Eyes in the yard. Two SUVs. Armed.”

Ella’s posture stiffened. “They’re here for the ledger.”

Ray moved toward the door, but Mason stopped him. “We can’t go out the way you came in. They’ll have that covered.”

“There’s another way?” Ray asked.

Mason nodded toward the floor. “Trap door. Leads to a drainage channel. It’ll spit us out near the south perimeter.”

The thud of boots on gravel echoed outside. They were out of time, Mason pulled open the hatch. Cold, damp air rushed up. “Go!”

Ray dropped down first, landing in ankle-deep water. Ella followed, then Mason, The channel was low and narrow, the air heavy with mildew. They moved quickly, the sound of their footsteps swallowed by the damp walls.

After several minutes, they emerged into an overgrown lot on the edge of the yard. A chain-link fence stood between them and the road.

Ray climbed first, swinging over and dropping to the pavement. Ella was halfway up when the sharp crack of a rifle split the night.

The round tore through the fence inches from her head. “Sniper!” Mason yelled, firing blindly toward the rooftops.

Ella dropped the rest of the way, hitting the ground hard. “Move!”

They sprinted across the road, diving behind a row of abandoned cars. Another shot rang out, sparking against metal.

Ray peered around the rusted hood and spotted movement on a rooftop, a dark figure adjusting a rifle. “Can you get us out?” Ray asked Ella.

She checked her watch. “If we make it two blocks east, there’s a safehouse.”

Mason swore under his breath. “They’ll expect that route.”

Ray’s eyes scanned the street, and landed on a delivery truck idling at a loading dock. Keys in the ignition, back door open, He pointed. “That’s our ride.”

They ran for it, bullets chasing their heels. Ray jumped into the driver’s seat, Ella and Mason scrambling into the back, The engine roared, and Ray tore out of the lot, swerving onto side streets.

For a few blocks, there was silence except for the hum of tires, Then Ella spoke from the back. “There’s something you need to see. Something I didn’t want to show you until you were ready.”

She slid a flash drive across the seat, Ray glanced at it. “What’s on it?”

Her eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “The truth about your father.”

The boardroom was all glass, steel, and pretense. A skyline stretched beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, but Ray barely noticed it. He was focused on the people at the table, predators in tailored suits.

At the head sat Marcus Vance, CEO of Vance Dynamics, a man whose smile was as dangerous as any weapon. To his right, Victor Chen, the company’s CFO, polished his glasses slowly, as if every word spoken would be stored and dissected later.

Ray’s new role, Interim Systems Director, meant he now had a seat in this room. It also meant he was under a microscope.

“so as I was saying,” Marcus’s voice was smooth, “our liquidity crisis can be managed. The code Mr. Martin recovered has already proven its potential in streamlining our defense contracts.”

Defense contracts. Ray stiffened. That wasn’t what the code was built for, at least, not in the fragment he had found. But if they had more…

“Mr. Martin,” Marcus said suddenly, “would you care to explain exactly how your algorithm bypassed the existing security firewall?”

The eyes of the board turned toward him. Some curious. Some skeptical. One or two… hostile. Ray forced a steady breath. “It wasn’t bypassed,” he said. “It was replaced. The original firewall had a hidden vulnerability a deliberate one. Someone built it that way.”

A beat of silence, Victor Chen’s eyebrow arched. “Are you implying internal sabotage?”

“I’m stating it,” Ray replied.

A whisper of movement, subtle, but he caught it. The man two seats down from Victor shifted in his chair, his hand disappearing under the table for a moment.

Trigger point, Ray thought, He had studied enough human behavior to know when someone was about to make a move, verbal or otherwise.

Marcus smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re suggesting that someone in this room compromised a billion-dollar system?”

“Yes,” Ray said. “And I can prove it.”

That was a gamble, He couldn’t, yet. But if he said it, maybe the guilty party would make the first mistake, The man who’d shifted earlier was sweating now. Barely visible, but there, Ray locked eyes with him, The man looked away. Too quickly.

Before Ray could speak again, the lights flickered, A subtle tremor hummed through the building, It wasn’t a normal power fluctuation, Marcus’s phone buzzed. He glanced at it, then froze. His jaw tightened. “Meeting adjourned,” Marcus said abruptly. “Martin, stay.”

The rest of the board rose, some confused, some clearly relieved. But the sweating man moved faster than the rest, slipping out the door without looking back. Ray waited until the room was empty. “What’s going on?”

Marcus turned the phone so Ray could see the message. Just two words, in block capitals: TRIGGER DEPLOYED

And below it, a timestamp counting down from 00:59:59.