Tight security kept people out.
Loose security showed you who was trying to get in.
He stood in the shadows of the corridor outside the holding cell, far enough back that the light didn't reach him, close enough that he could see everything. The refinery had no shortage of shadows. Dark side of a planet, perpetual industrial gloom — it suited his purposes perfectly tonight.
Burk hadn't worked alone. That much was obvious. Someone had gotten him onto Kantenan, embedded him in the operation, given him access to information about Adryel that he shouldn't have had. That someone would want to know what Burk had managed to find out before he was taken.
And that someone would come looking.
So Dhomhes had made sure that the guard rotation outside Burk's cell had a very convenient gap in it.
He didn't have to wait long.
She moved well, he'd give her that. Confident, purposeful, like she had every right to be walking through a refinery holding block in the middle of the night. She didn't look around nervously the way most people did when they were somewhere they shouldn't be. She just walked.
Dhomhes watched her stop outside Burk's cell.
Watched the door open.
Smiled to himself in the dark.
He couldn't hear everything. Enough.
Burk looked up when she entered. No surprise on his face. He knew her. That was confirmation enough of several things Dhomhes had suspected.
She didn't sit. Didn't pace. Just stood in the center of the cell with her arms crossed, looking down at Burk the way someone looked at a tool that had stopped working.
"The chip," she said. No preamble. No greeting.
Burk shook his head. "She doesn't have it."
Something shifted in her expression. Not panic. Calculation. "She had it when she boarded. I confirmed it myself."
"She transferred it." Burk's voice was flat. Resigned. The voice of a man who had already accepted how this ended for him. "Before we arrived. I don't know when. I don't know to who."
"You had her." The words came out quietly, which somehow made them worse than if she'd shouted. "You had her and you couldn't get a straight answer out of her."
"She was telling the truth." He looked up. "She doesn't have it on her anymore. Whoever she gave it to, they don't know what they're carrying."
She was quiet for a moment. Thinking.
"It doesn't matter," she said finally. "We'll find it."
"How? It could be anyone on that transport. Anyone in the refinery."
"It won't be just anyone." She uncrossed her arms. "She trusted someone with it. There aren't many people she trusts." A pause. "Find the person she trusts most and you'll find the chip."
Burk said nothing.
She looked at him for a long moment. The way you looked at something you were finished with.
"Someone will be in touch," she said.
They both knew no one would be in touch.
She turned to leave.
The light in the corridor caught her hair as she stepped out of the cell.
