CHAPTER 5: ORION
Rafael was held at a federal correctional facility four hours outside the city.
Elena had not seen him since the day she walked out of the courthouse consultation room. She had believed that meeting would be their last.
Two days after the mysterious call, she sat across from him again.
A thick glass wall separated them.
Rafael looked different.
His hair was shorter. His face had lost weight. The confidence that once filled every room now appeared only in brief flashes.
“You shouldn’t have come,” he said through the telephone receiver.
“You called me.”
“I didn’t think they would let the call connect.”
“Who are they?”
Rafael glanced toward the guard.
“Orion wasn’t a person. It was an account.”
“What kind of account?”
“A private intelligence fund created twenty years ago by executives, political donors, attorneys, and government contractors. Officially, it financed international risk research.”
“And unofficially?”
“It paid people to bury problems.”
Elena remained still.
“What did my father discover?”
“Mateo found evidence that Orion was being used to manipulate public contracts, destroy investigations, blackmail regulators, and force smaller companies into bankruptcy.”
“Daniel’s brother was part of it?”
“He stole money from your father’s trust to make payments into Orion. When Mateo caught him, they damaged the brakes to frighten him.”
“That part has already been proven.”
“No,” Rafael said. “Only part of it was proven.”
Elena’s grip tightened around the receiver.
Rafael continued.
“The mechanic was told to weaken the brake line enough to force your father to cancel his trip. But someone changed the instruction.”
“Who?”
“I never found out.”
“Then why mention Orion now?”
“Because Daniel had a second archive.”
“The investigators searched everything.”
“Everything they knew about.”
Rafael told her about a set of encrypted records Daniel had hidden inside the Morales Foundation’s original donor database. The files contained payments, names, recordings, and legal agreements.
Mateo had discovered the archive shortly before his death.
“He copied it,” Rafael said. “Then he divided the copy into pieces.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know one piece was placed inside the foundation records. Daniel knew it too. That’s why he tried to gain access before he fled.”
Elena studied him.
“What do you want in exchange?”
His face tightened.
“Nothing.”
“You have never given information without wanting something.”
“I want to stay alive.”
Rafael leaned closer to the glass.
“Someone has been asking questions about my conversations with prosecutors. Yesterday, a guard offered to move me to a quieter unit. That same unit had three unexplained deaths last year.”
“Why would Orion care about you?”
“Because I found one of the names.”
“Whose name?”
Before Rafael could answer, the guard approached.
“Time.”
Rafael ignored him.
“Elena, listen to me. Don’t open the donor database from a company computer. Don’t use your phone. And whatever happens, don’t tell Victor until you know who his father worked for.”
Elena froze.
“Victor’s father?”
The guard reached for the receiver.
Rafael spoke quickly.
“His father was one of Orion’s original attorneys.”
The line went dead.
On the drive back, Elena called Victor.
He answered immediately.
“How did it go?”
She looked through the window at the highway passing beneath the gray afternoon sky.
For the first time since they had rebuilt the company together, Elena lied to him.
“Rafael knew nothing.”
There was a pause.
Then Victor said, “I’m glad.”
His voice sounded sincere.
That made the lie hurt more.
When Elena arrived at the Morales Foundation, police cars were already parked outside.
The front doors had been forced open.
Computers had been destroyed.
Files covered the floor.
A young attorney named Naomi Clark lay unconscious beside the records room.
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On the wall above her, someone had written one word in red paint.
ORION.
