Viktor stared at the photograph as though the paper had struck him.
I understood why.
For seven years, he had believed his sister was dead.
For six months, I had believed my father was simply recovering from an accident.
Now one photograph had shattered both beliefs.
Clara stood beside my father in front of a glass door. She looked older than the woman in Viktor's photographs, but unmistakably alive. Her dark hair was cut shorter, and there was a thin scar running beneath her left ear. My father stood beside her, thinner than I remembered, but upright.
Alive.
The timestamp was three days old.
I touched the corner of the photograph.
“Where is this?”
Viktor shook his head.
“I don't know.”
“You've been looking for her for seven years.”
“Yes.”
“And you don't recognize the building?”
“No.”
I turned the photograph over again.
There was nothing else.
No address.
No name.
Only the sentence.
SHE NEVER DIED.
Viktor folded the photograph carefully.
“Clara wouldn't have contacted me this way.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if she wanted me to find her, she would leave something only I could understand.”
“Maybe she doesn't want you to find her.”
His eyes met mine.
“Then why send the photograph?”
“To make sure we know she's alive.”
He thought about it.
“That isn't the same as wanting to be found.”
We stood beneath the streetlamp while traffic passed behind us.
Then I noticed something in the background of the photograph.
A sign above the glass door.
Only three letters were visible.
RHC.
I zoomed in using my phone.
Viktor leaned over my shoulder.
“Rhein Medical?”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
He took the phone.
“RHC.”
“What does it mean?”
“Rehabilitation Humanetics Center.”
I stared at him.
“That sounds like the project.”
“It was.”
“Where was it located?”
“Outside the city.”
“Does it still exist?”
“No.”
“Then why is my father there?”
Viktor looked at the photograph again.
“Because someone reopened it.”
We went back to the car.
This time Viktor drove.
He entered an address into the navigation system.
“Where are we going?”
“To the original site.”
“You said it was destroyed.”
“It was.”
“Then why go?”
“Because buildings can be destroyed.”
He glanced at the photograph.
“Records are harder to erase.”
The drive took nearly an hour.
The city gradually disappeared behind us. Apartment blocks became warehouses, then fields, then stretches of industrial land divided by old fences.
We passed a rusted sign with the letters RHC barely visible beneath layers of paint.
Viktor slowed.
“There.”
The entrance gate was chained.
Beyond it stood a low concrete complex surrounded by weeds.
Most of the windows were broken.
A section of the roof had collapsed.
Nothing about the place suggested that anyone had used it recently.
But there were fresh tire tracks in the mud.
Viktor parked.
We entered through a gap in the fence.
The building smelled of damp concrete and rust.
I held my phone's flashlight over the walls.
Old signs remained.
LABORATORY.
ARCHIVE.
CLINICAL OBSERVATION.
Then we reached a corridor blocked by fallen plaster.
Viktor pushed some debris aside.
Behind it was a metal door.
It wasn't old.
The paint was clean.
The hinges had been recently oiled.
I stared at him.
“This isn't abandoned.”
“No.”
He tried the handle.
Locked.
I stepped closer.
There was a keypad.
Four digits.
Viktor looked at me.
“I don't know the code.”
I thought about my father's notebook.
The dates.
The symbols.
The sequence.
Three-two-one.
Danger. Leave.
Maybe it wasn't only a warning.
Maybe it was an instruction.
I tried 321.
The keypad flashed red.
Viktor looked at me.
I tried the date of the accident.
Red.
Then the date of the conference.
Green.
The lock clicked.
Neither of us moved.
“You knew that date,” Viktor said.
“So did my father.”
We opened the door.
Behind it was a functioning corridor.
The lights were on.
The floor was spotless.
The walls were lined with security cameras.
Someone had restored part of the facility.
We walked slowly.
At the end of the corridor was a glass observation room.
Inside stood several computers.
One monitor displayed a file.
My name.
I stepped closer.
The screen contained a profile.
ANNA KELLER.
LANGUAGE SPECIALIST.
TRANSLATION ACCESS: LEVEL FOUR.
STATUS: ACTIVE.
My stomach dropped.
“Level four?”
Viktor stared at the screen.
“You were never an employee.”
“No.”
“Then why did they give you access?”
“I didn't know I had access.”
He opened another file.
My photograph appeared.
Beside it were recordings from the conference seven years earlier.
I watched myself speaking into a microphone.
German.
Then Arabic.
Then English.
The recording showed a document on the screen behind me.
Viktor froze it.
“There.”
A line of text had been highlighted.
He read it.
“These weren't rehabilitation instructions.”
“What were they?”
“Patient transfer orders.”
“Transfer where?”
“Outside the approved network.”
I felt cold.
“People were moved.”
“Yes.”
“Without their families knowing.”
“Yes.”
“And my translations were used to authorize it.”
Viktor didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
My father's investigation suddenly made sense.
He hadn't been investigating equipment.
He had been investigating people.
Patients.
People whose medical records had been altered so they could disappear into an unauthorized program.
I looked at another screen.
A list of names.
Most were crossed out.
Some had dates.
One name was highlighted.
CLARA REINHARDT.
Status: TRANSFERRED.
I turned toward Viktor.
“She wasn't killed.”
“No.”
“She was transferred.”
“Yes.”
“And my father found her.”
“Yes.”
A door opened behind us.
We turned.
Clara stood in the corridor.
For a moment, Viktor couldn't breathe.
She looked at him.
Neither moved.
Then she said his name.
“Viktor.”
His face crumpled.
“Clara?”
She nodded.
He took one step toward her.
She raised a hand.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“Why?”
“Because they're watching.”
She looked at me.
“You're Anna.”
I nodded.
“My father is alive.”
“I know.”
“Where is he?”
Clara looked toward the ceiling camera.
“Not here.”
“Then where?”
She took a small key from her pocket.
“Where this began.”
She placed it in my hand.
“The warehouse.”
Then the lights went out.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: Clara Was Alive Because My Father Had Hidden Her, but the People Who Controlled the Facility Had Already Discovered Our Location
The Hundred-Dollar Bill That Was Meant to Humiliate Me Revealed Something Far More Dangerous Than Arrogance
Part 9 of 12
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