They Sawed Me Open, So I Stocked the End of the World novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Ironhold

Ironhold had a gate this time, and it was the same gate.

Jessa saw it from the causeway: the grey stone of the old naval fort, a new steel wall bolted on top, and a crane still swinging over the courtyard.

In the first life she had walked up to those doors with a rotten tooth and a bag of tins.

Now she walked up in a clean coat, with four soldiers and two brothers, and the sentries saluted Rhys.

"Don't look at the basement hatch," Rhys said, low.

"I'm not."

"You're looking at it."

She looked somewhere else.

The general received them in a long office with a harbor window and a table covered in maps.

He was a tall man in his late fifties, silver at the temples, with a quiet voice and polished boots.

He stood when they came in, which she had not expected.

"Captain Hartwell. Miss Hartwell." He offered a chair. "Thank you for coming so promptly."

"You said you had a file," Rhys said, and did not sit.

"I do."

The general put a thin folder on the table and left his hand on it.

"Eleven days ago, Miss Hartwell, you sold four hundred and twenty-five bars of gold through a lawyer who is too careful to ask where you got it."

"My father's storage unit."

"Your father owned a car and a boat." He smiled slightly. "You bought a fortress in the hills the day after a medical institute bid on it, and four days ago a hospital cluster appeared sixty miles away exactly as you apparently expected."

"Apparently."

"The Director of Halcyon told me you knew."

Jessa kept her face still.

So the Director had gone to him first.

"I know a lot of things," she said. "I read the news."

"Of course." He folded his hands. "I won't insult you. I'll make you an offer instead."

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