Michael entered the second passphrase and waited for the archive to open.
The private club had moved him to a deeper room after the photographers outside increased. The room he was in had no windows. One door. A narrow table with a lamp, an untouched bottle of water, and the phone he had stopped trusting but could not put away. His suspension letter was still open on another screen.
No operational authority.
No archive access.
No investigative communication.
The words would have been laughable two days ago.
Now they were real enough to block his people from taking his calls.
The encrypted archive opened with a plain folder list. Michael had never liked decorative systems. He liked files that could be found quickly when someone needed to remember who owned whom.
Silas had once told him that keeping insurance was a habit for smaller men.
