Below the Floor

Below the gate, Sub-Basement B lit up in strips of white fluorescent light. Server racks lined one wall. A shredder ran in the corner, chewing paper into gray snow. In two steel tins, loose pages burned with a low orange flame.

“Get that out,” Claire said.

An evidence tech knelt beside the tins, already filming. Another agent killed the shredder with a hard pull on the power cord. The machine gave one last crunch and died.

On a folding table near the racks sat three cartons of forfeiture receipts, edges curled from heat. Claire lifted the top stack. Travis Cole’s name was on every large transfer line, initials neat and dark in the corner.

Behind her, one of the agents called out, “We’ve got more boxes.”

Claire looked at the burning tins, then at the paper in her hand.

“This wasn’t cleanup,” she said. “This was a routine.”

Ward had both hands on the file cabinet like he could hold it shut by force alone.

Marcus Vance caught him at the elbow and turned him toward the wall. “Don’t move.”

Ward’s face had gone flat and gray. His right hand dropped halfway to his back pocket, then stopped. Claire stood in the doorway of the records room while two agents swept past her with gloves on and evidence bags already open.

The room smelled like paper dust and old coffee. A box fan in the corner pushed warm air over stacks of traffic forms, seizure logs, and three ring binders with no labels on the spine.

“Open it,” Claire said.

Ward swallowed. “There’s nothing in there that isn’t—”

Vance pulled the drawer open himself.