Chapter 4 - THE BLACKBIRD LIST
Maya showed Elias the messages.
He read them twice.
“Do you live with your father?”
“No. He’s in Lowell. I have an apartment in Cambridge with two roommates.”
“Call both.”
“My roommates?”
“Tell them not to go home.”
Maya stared at him.
“Is this really that serious?”
Elias looked toward the burned records room.
“Someone set fire to evidence ten minutes after I announced a forensic review.”
That was answer enough.
By the time the fire department cleared the floor, Novaris no longer belonged to its normal hierarchy.
Independent security officers arrived from a firm contracted directly by the Ward Voting Trust. Serena sealed the executive network. No one at vice-president level or above was allowed to remove a laptop, phone, file box, or storage device without logging it.
Victor Crane was furious.
“This is theater,” he snapped when Elias returned to the boardroom. “You’re treating senior leadership like criminals.”
Elias sat down.
“I’m treating evidence like evidence.”
Victor pointed toward Maya.
“And she gets to stay?”
“Yes.”
“She has no clearance.”
“She has something better.”
“What?”
“A reason to tell the truth.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
Maya wished she felt as brave as Elias made her sound.
She didn’t.
Her hands had not stopped shaking.
Serena connected an independent laptop to a cellular hotspot.
“We pulled archived HR data on James Reed,” she said. “Senior systems reliability engineer. Eleven years at Novaris. Terminated six years ago after the Lakeview incident.”
Maya looked at her.
“What incident?”
No one answered.
She turned toward Elias.
“You know.”
He nodded slowly.
“There was a prototype facility outside Worcester called Lakeview.”
“For what?”
“A decision engine.”
Andrew Bell stared at the table.
Maya noticed.
Elias continued.
“Novaris was developing software that could combine public records, behavioral data, purchasing patterns, location history, and institutional databases into risk predictions.”
“Risk of what?”
“That depended on the customer.”
Maya’s face tightened.
“Police?”
“Among others.”
Victor crossed his arms.
“It was six years ago. The project was canceled.”
Elias looked at him.
“Then why is Project Helix using the same architecture?”
Victor said nothing.
Maya looked at Andrew.
“You knew?”
Andrew rubbed both hands over his face.
“I knew Helix inherited modules. I did not know Blackbird existed.”
Graham finally spoke.
“Lakeview failed because the model produced unreliable outputs. We shut it down.”
Elias nodded.
“And James Reed?”
Graham’s expression did not move.
“He violated protocol.”
Maya pushed back from the table.
“My father barely breaks the speed limit.”
Graham ignored her.
“He copied protected development material to an unauthorized drive.”
“Why?” Elias asked.
“To embarrass the company.”
“Or preserve evidence?”
Graham’s jaw tightened.
“We investigated.”
“Who is we?”
Silence.
Elias looked at Victor.
“Was Mr. Reed placed on Blackbird before or after the investigation?”
Victor’s voice was careful now.
“I don’t remember.”
“Then your memory is about to become very expensive.”
Maya’s phone buzzed again.
This time it was her father.
DAD.
She answered immediately.
“Dad?”
A long silence.
Then James Reed whispered, “Where are you?”
“At Novaris.”
Another silence.
“Get out.”
“Dad—”
“Listen to me. Do not trust anyone in that building.”
Maya looked at Elias.
“Mr. Ward is here.”
Her father stopped breathing for a second.
“Elias?”
“Yes.”
“Put him on.”
She handed over the phone.
Elias lifted it to his ear.
“James.”
The voice on the other end was too low for Maya to hear.
Elias’s expression changed.
“When?”
Pause.
“Are you certain?”
Pause.
“Stay where you are.”
Another pause.
“No. I’m not asking.”
Elias ended the call.
Maya stood.
“What did he say?”
Elias looked at Serena.
“Get a car.”
“Where?”
“Lowell.”
Maya stepped toward him.
“What did my dad say?”
Elias did not soften it.
“He is the person who sent me the first package six weeks ago.”
Maya stared at him.
“My dad?”
“He used initials. J.R.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he believed Blackbird was monitoring family members.”
Maya looked down at the burned list.
FAMILY LEVERAGE.
Her stomach twisted.
“What does he have?”
Elias answered carefully.
“Evidence that Lakeview was never shut down.”
Maya’s eyes lifted.
“And Helix?”
“According to your father, Helix is Lakeview.”
Graham stood so quickly his chair hit the wall.
“That is false.”
Elias looked at him.
“Then you’ll enjoy proving it.”
Graham’s phone vibrated.
He glanced down.
For the first time all morning, real panic cracked through his expression.
Elias saw it.
“What happened?”
Graham locked the screen.
“Nothing.”
Serena’s phone rang immediately after.
She answered.
Her face hardened.
“Say that again.”
Everyone waited.
She lowered the phone.
“The garage camera archive just came back online.”
“So?” Elias asked.
Serena looked at Maya.
“There’s footage from last Friday.”
“Of what?”
“Your father.”
Maya’s mouth went dry.
Serena turned the laptop around.
A frozen image filled the screen.
James Reed stood in the underground garage beneath Novaris headquarters.
Across from him was Victor Crane.
Victor was holding an envelope.
May you like
And Maya’s father was handing him a key.
