The Level Three corridor waits like a clean lie. Oak doors. Beige carpet. Dead silence, except for the faint click of a reader somewhere ahead and Murderbone’s low growl at Dallas’s knee.

The Oversight Clerk stumbles out behind them, sweat-slick and shaking. Jackson stays near the elevator, eyes on the hall. Dallas catches a fresh smear of blood on the baseboard, still wet.

The keycard reader beside Office 12 flashes green. The door across from it cracks open a finger, then stops, as if someone inside is listening to every breath in the wing.

The voice comes from behind the half-open door, calm and close. The Oversight Clerk recoils. Jackson raises his weapon. Murderbone plants himself between Dallas and the opening as the door widens another inch.

Dallas has the route now, and the man in the Bishop mask has just shown his hand. The trap is inside Office 12, and the trail to the kidnapped Professor Dayton runs straight through it.

Dallas drives the clerk down onto the carpet with one hard shove. The man hits the floor with a strangled gasp, and the keycard he was fumbling skitters under the office door.

Dallas steps over the fallen clerk and into Office 12. His boot catches the threshold, and the cracked door bangs the wall hard enough to rattle the frame.

Inside, the room is all dim monitor glow and stacked files. A console on the far desk shows an amber light blinking beside a hardcopy route map.

The clerk claws backward, staring at Dallas and the mask with fresh terror, while Murderbone lunges to block the doorway behind him. The hidden relay starts clicking faster somewhere below the floor.