CHAPTER 287: CHAPTER - 287

Chapter - 287

The BOOM of Crimson Sparrow’s body hitting the steel wall of the container was a deafening, concussive sound that seemed to suck all the air out of the 40-foot box. It was followed by a ringing silence, broken only by the high-pitched whine in Sharon’s ears.

Her flashlight beam, shaky in her hand, found Sparrow’s crumpled form. He was a boneless heap on the floor, a dark, glistening trickle of blood running from his nose. He let out a low, wet moan.

"Rick..." Sharon started, her voice a horrified whisper. "My God... you could have killed him."

Rick clicked his own flashlight back on. His face was a mask of cold, unadulterated fury. The light caught his eyes, and they were flat, dead, devoid of anything human. He completely ignored her. He stalked over to Sparrow, grabbed a fistful of his shirt, and hauled his dead weight up, slamming him back against the wall. Sparrow was barely conscious, his head lolling uselessly, his eyes rolling back.

Sharon opened her mouth to protest, but Rick didn’t ask a question. He didn’t demand the code. He simply pulled his right fist back and buried it deep into Sparrow’s gut.

The sound was a wet, heavy THWACK.

Sparrow’s eyes flew open in a silent, agonized scream as every last bit of air was driven from his lungs in a violent whoosh. He tried to double over, but Rick held him pinned to the wall.

"This..." Rick growled, his voice a low vibration. He punctuated the next word with another brutal, bone-jarring punch to the ribs. "...is for wasting..." Another punch. "...my..." And a third, driving a choked cry from Sparrow’s lips. "...time!"

He let Sparrow collapse to his knees, only to immediately grab him by his greasy hair and slam his face, hard, into the side of a metal shelving unit. The CLANG of his head hitting the steel echoed the BOOM from before. Sparrow cried out, a pathetic, choked, animal sound.

Sharon was yelling now, her voice sharp with panic and rage. "Rick, stop! What are you doing? He can’t tell you the code if he’s unconscious! You’re just beating him!"

Rick turned to her, his movements terrifyingly calm. The new Rolex on his wrist gleamed in her flashlight beam. "I’m not interested in the code anymore," he said, his voice flat. "I’m not interested in him. I’m just... frustrated."

His beam swept across the container, landing on a high-end golf bag full of stolen clubs. He walked over, pulled out a 9-iron, and tested the weight of it in his hand, giving it a short, sharp practice swing. Swoosh. He walked back to the cowering, bleeding, sobbing musician.

"You know what?" Rick said, his voice now almost conversational, which was a thousand times more terrifying than his yelling. "My intestines threat from before... it’s too complicated. Too messy." He tapped the iron head of the club against the steel floor. Clink.

"This," he said, his beam fixed on Sparrow’s legs, "is much simpler. We’re going to find out exactly how many bones are in your legs. We’ll start with the kneecap." He raised the club high over his shoulder.

Sparrow just shrieked, a high-pitched, desperate sound, curling into a tight ball on the floor, his hands covering his head.

"Rick. Stop."

Sharon’s voice was like ice. He ignored her, his muscles tensing for the swing.

CLICK.

The sound was impossibly loud in the metal box. It was the sound of a pistol’s safety being disengaged.

Rick froze. He turned his head slowly.

Sharon was standing ten feet away, her service pistol unholstered. She wasn’t aiming it directly at him—not yet—but it was held in a low-ready position, her finger on the trigger guard. A clear, undeniable, and final line had been drawn.

"Put that away, Sharon," Rick said, his voice a furious whisper.

"No," she said, her voice shaking but full of steel. "You’re done. This isn’t him! This is you! You’re not getting information, you’re not saving Nadia, you’re just enjoying this! This is torture, and I will not stand here and be an accomplice to it."

A raw, primal rage surged in Rick. He took a step toward her. "’Enjoying it’? You think this is fun? Look at the damn clock on your phone, Sharon! We have less than six days! Every second we waste here, she gets closer to being dead! This piece of shit lied to us, wasted our time, and he’s still lying!"

"HE’S NOT LYING!" Sharon roared back, her voice echoing his. "Look at him! Just look at him! He’s a pathetic, sniveling, weed-addled coward! He would have given up his own mother to avoid that ’A-minor’ threat you promised him! He doesn’t know the code! You’re just beating a dead-end because you have nowhere else to put your rage!"

The truth of her words, the sheer, infuriating logic of them, combined with his own adrenaline-fueled rage, made Rick snap. He roared, a guttural, animal sound of pure frustration, and swung the golf club with all his might—not at Sparrow, but at the glass display case of watches he had just been admiring.

CRASH!

The case exploded in a shower of shattered glass, metal, and platinum. The priceless watches scattered across the floor like broken teeth. The stolen Rolex on Rick’s wrist suddenly felt heavy and useless.

"FINE!" he yelled, his voice cracking, the sound deafening in the metal box. "Fine! Then what? We’re done! It’s over! We failed! They win! Is that what you want?"

He threw the now-bent golf club. It clattered uselessly to the floor. The adrenaline dumped all at once, leaving him cold, empty, and furious at his own powerlessness. The System Quest clock was ticking in his head, a relentless hammer blow with every passing second. 6 Days, 1 Hour, 22 Minutes. He slumped against a stack of boxes, defeated, his chest heaving.

A tense, heavy silence filled the container, broken only by Sparrow’s wet, gasping sobs. Sharon, still breathing heavily, her heart pounding, slowly and deliberately re-holstered her weapon. The immediate danger was over. Her cop brain, no longer distracted by the savage violence, began to work, processing the facts.

"Nadia was a pro," she said, her voice quiet, almost to herself. She was thinking aloud, piecing it together. "A high-end, professional con artist. But Sparrow..." She gestured with her flashlight at the whimpering, bleeding man on the floor. "...Sparrow is a moron."

Rick looked up, his eyes dead. "What’s your point?"

"My point is, Nadia knew he was a moron. She was ruthless and cold, not stupid. She’d never trust her entire retirement fund to a 10-digit code only she knew. What if something happened to her? She’d need a backup. But she’d also never trust him to remember a complex code. So she would have to create a simple, idiot-proof clue. Something that meant nothing to anyone else, but that even this idiot could eventually figure out if he had to."

A spark of life returned to Rick’s eyes. He got to his feet. He stalked over to Sparrow, who flinched and curled up again. Rick hauled him up by his shirt, ignoring the blood and the tears.

"The clue!" he barked, his face inches from Sparrow’s. "Where is it? The backup! What did she tell you?"

Sparrow was barely conscious, his mind a soup of terror, pain, and whatever drugs were left in his system. "N-no clue... I don’t know..." he sobbed. "She... she just... always... always said... ’Don’t be a moron, Sparrow. All the answers... are in your own damn songs...’ I... I don’t know what it means, man! My songs are deep! They’re about... about pain... and... and birds..."

"’In your songs’?" Rick and Sharon looked at each other.

Rick’s flashlight beam swept the container, looking for anything related to his "music." His beam landed on something that was completely out of place among the high-end electronics and designer clothes. In the corner, tucked behind a stack of brand-new flat-screens, was a beaten-up, cheap-looking acoustic guitar case, covered in peeling band stickers.

He stalked over and kicked it open. It was empty. "Nothing."

"Wait," Sharon said, shining her light inside. "Look."

Taped to the worn, fuzzy, bright-red velvet lining of the case... was a small, laminated card.

Rick ripped the card from the lining. It wasn’t a number. It was a picture.

It was a blurry, laminated photo from an old cell phone. It showed a cheap-looking grocery store birthday cake with "Happy 21st, Sparrow!" written on it in waxy, garish blue frosting.

Rick and Sharon just stared at it.

Rick looked at the blubbering, bleeding Sparrow on the floor. He looked at the cheesy, pathetic photo. He looked back at Sharon.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"The idiot-proof clue," she breathed. "She didn’t trust him to remember a code. But she knew he was a narcissist. She knew he’d never forget his own 21st birthday."

Rick stalked back to the safe, his heart pounding with a new, frantic hope. He looked at the keypad. "The date. What’s the date?"

He turned and yelled at Sparrow, who flinched so violently he seemed to rattle. "Your birthday! When is it?"

"A-August... twenty-first..." Sparrow whimpered.

Rick turned to the keypad. He typed in 0-8-2-1. A red light flashed. Error.

"The year!" Sharon said, pointing her flashlight at the cake in the photo. "It says ’Happy 21st’. We need the year he turned 21."

"HEY, IDIOT!" Rick roared. "WHEN DID YOU TURN 21?"

"I... I don’t know, man..." Sparrow sobbed. "I... maybe 2018...? 2019...?"

"Useless!" Rick snarls. He stared at the keypad. "It’s a six-digit code. MM-DD-YY. He must have turned 21 in 18 or 19."

He turned back to the safe. He typed in the six digits, slowly, deliberately. 0 - 8 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 8.

A red light flashed. Error.

"Damn it!" Rick slammed his fist—the one with the new Rolex—against the solid steel door. His knuckles cracked, but he didn’t feel it.

"Try the other one!" Sharon yelled, her voice tight with anticipation.

Rick took a deep, steadying breath. He typed in 0 - 8 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 9.

For one agonizing second, nothing happened.

Then, a green light on the keypad flashed once.

A heavy, satisfying CHUNK echoed through the container as the electronic locking bolts retracted.

Rick and Sharon exchanged a look of stunned, disbelieving triumph.

Rick looked at the safe. Sharon looked at Sparrow, then at the photo. "She used his birthday... Maybe she did love this idiot."

Rick let out a short, harsh laugh. "Love? No. She owned him. This just proves it. It’s the one thing she knew he’d never be able to forget."

He reached for the heavy steel handle, his other hand—the one with the stolen Rolex—resting on the safe door.

Miles away, far down the row of containers, Sparrow One and Sparrow Two were crouched behind a stack of steel beams. Sparrow One was looking through a high-powered sniper scope, his crosshairs centered directly on the dark, open rectangle of Container 7B.

Sparrow Two, the spotter, had a directional microphone aimed at the same location. He listened intently, and then a slow, cold smile spread across his face. He’d heard it. The heavy CHUNK of the safe unlocking.

He pressed his collar mic. "Raven, this is Sparrow Two," he whispered. "They’re in. The box is open."

Raven’s voice replied instantly, cold, final, and clear in their earpieces. "Good. Let them do the heavy lifting. The moment they step out with the asset, you are weapons-free. Take them both. I want the laptop, and I want two bodies. No witnesses."

Sparrow One settled in, his breathing slowing to a calm, practiced rhythm. His finger rested lightly on the trigger.

"Target acquired," he whispered to himself, his eye pressed to the scope, watching the darkness. "Come on out..."