Riley hesitated, his instincts telling him that something did not add up, but he had a schedule to keep and no formal authority in that particular case, so he continued down the hallway to deliver his paperwork, promising himself he would ask more questions if the opportunity arose again.
Meanwhile, in the small office at the rear of the building, Captain Dillon stood staring at his own computer screen, having personally attempted to override the fingerprint lockout, only to receive the same red warning that had stopped Coleman twice already. He rubbed the back of his neck, told himself it was nothing more than an aging system overdue for replacement, and ordered that Marcus remain in custody until someone from the county office could come by in the morning to sort out the paperwork properly.
By early evening, Marcus asked once more for his telephone call, and this time, worn down by the accumulating strangeness of the afternoon, Captain Dillon reluctantly agreed, if only to prove to himself that nothing would come of it.
He led Marcus to a small phone in the hallway and stood close by, arms crossed, expecting to hear a rambling excuse or a call to some relative who would beg for his release.
Instead, Marcus dialed a number he clearly knew by memory, waited three rings, and spoke six words in a tone that was suddenly sharper and more precise than anything the officers had heard from him all day. He identified himself by name and rank, then recited a short sequence of letters and numbers, calling it authentication code Delta Seven, before falling silent and listening.
On the other end of the line, a young operator at a secure desk hundreds of miles away froze at the sound of that code, immediately placing the call on hold and alerting a duty officer without explanation.
Captain Dillon, still watching, saw nothing but silence stretch on for nearly a full minute, and it was that silence, more than anything spoken aloud, that first planted a genuine seed of doubt in his chest. Marcus hung up the phone without another word, thanked the captain quietly, and allowed himself to be led back to the holding cell, his expression unreadable, as though he already knew precisely what was coming next and felt no need to hurry it along.
Barely ten minutes later, the department’s secure line—an old red telephone that sat untouched in Captain Dillon’s office for months at a time—began to ring with a sharp, insistent tone that made every officer within earshot go quiet. Dillon answered it himself, and a composed, unfamiliar voice on the other end asked to confirm his identity before requesting immediate confirmation that a man named Marcus Hayes was currently being held at that station.
Dillon confirmed it, his voice betraying the smallest tremor, and the caller instructed him, in a tone that allowed no argument, to release Marcus Hayes from custody at once, and to make no further inquiries into his identification until additional instructions arrived.