The sub-basement location Cass suggested is a freight corridor, service access only, empty at this hour. Three people are waiting there and they’re not Cass. They’re not especially interested in talking. You exit through an emergency access hatch, two floors up and across a maintenance walkway.

You spend ninety minutes in the building’s service tunnels before you’re clear. Cass sends a message forty minutes later: not me. they moved fast. public place next time. From the tunnel grime and the tone of that text, you believe her.