Chapter 15 — A Promise At The Cable Car Station

The rain returned near midnight. Not loud, but loud enough to make the road surface around the station become mushy. The rescue team built a fence at the entrance to the stream, and Ms. Nam turned the medical room into a temporary shelter for Mr. Khang and Mai.

Linh called her lawyer friend, Ms. Thao, to tell her the whole story. Thao asked her not to open any more documents, keep the seal intact, and send copies via a secure channel.

"If someone uses the cable line's old account to interfere with the bank, that is a criminal sign," Thao said. “But you must protect the chain of evidence.”

“We are being watched.”

"So don't arrest people yourself. Call the local police and keep the information."

Linh looked out at the yard. Tu was standing by the fence, his shirt wet, eyes facing the truck road. Duy sat next to Mr. Khang, adjusting the water line.

“There is a Q on the shirt,” Linh said.

"Don't guess the name. Take a photo, seal it, write down where you found it."

"I know."

"Knowing is one thing. Staying calm is another."

The call ended. Linh opened the copy of data Mai took from the maintenance fund server. The account "Van Lo 08" logged in three times during the night: 21:47 at the cable factory, 22:19 at the upper station, 09:17 at the medical room. The device address is not fixed, but all three times it is through a signal transmitter located in the cable weighing room.

Mai sat close to her. “I found out who created the account.”

"Who?"

“The original user was Nguyen Minh Quang.”

Duy heard it and turned around. “My father's name is in the system?”

"No. The account was created using the project manager's employee code. But after 2009, someone logged in with a backup password."

“What is the password?”

Mai shook her head. “Encrypted. But the security question is ‘time of last shift of supervisor'.”

“08:40.”

"Correct."

Linh looked at the box. “The person who created the account is probably someone who knows your mother left the room at 08:25.”

“Captain Hung,” Duy said.

Tu walked in. “Hung is not Quang.”

“But he holds the second key,” Linh replied.

“Hung only received the key after Quang disappeared.”

“Do you know how Quang disappeared?”

Tu did not answer immediately. "Quang left the line on the night of the landslide. Vinh took him down in the maintenance cabin. After that, no one saw him again."

“Where did Vinh take him?”

"Lower station. From there go to the main road."

“You witnessed it?”

“I'll follow.”

Linh saw that what Tu was hiding was no longer just a few details. He was present the night it all started.

“Why didn't you tell the police?”

Tu bent down. "Because I was eighteen years old at that time, my father was in the hospital. Vinh gave me money and said that if I told him, the first person arrested would be my father for losing the device."

Duy stood up. “I need you to tell me everything.”

“I will tell.”

"Now."

Tu looked out at the rain. “Not here.”

An explosion of earth and rock echoed down the mountainside. The rescue team ran toward the fence. Soil from the western slope slid down, dragging down a small electric pole. The light across the station flickered and then went out.

Mr. Khang jumped up in bed. “Where is tomorrow?”

Mai is in the storage room getting blankets. She didn't come back.

Duy opened the door and ran out. Linh followed behind, despite the rain. The western fence fell down, a patch of mud covered the entrance to the warehouse. From inside there was a banging sound.

"Tomorrow!" Duy shouted.

“I'm here!” her voice echoed.

The rescue team asked everyone to back away. The ground still slides intermittently. Duy looked through the crack in the wall and saw Mai stuck behind the medicine shelf, her leg crushed by a wooden bar.

“Do not enter,” the lifeguard captain said.

“My sister is in there.”

"Enter This time it will take the whole roof with it.”

Linh looked towards the table where the box was placed in her bag. The warehouse is just a few meters from Mai. If the landslide continues, the water will sweep away all the documents.

Tu said: "There is ventilation in the back."

“You know?” Duy asked.

“The old medical room had sliding doors.”

They ran around the wall. Duy used a crowbar to open the steel lid, Tu got in first. Linh held the rope, the flashlight followed. The path is narrow and full of mud, just enough for one person to crawl. At the end of the road is the space behind the medicine price.

Mai tried to pull her leg, but the wooden bar got stuck under the cabinet. Tu used an arm jack, Duy used a shoulder block. Linh instructed Mai to keep her head low. Every time the ground shakes, dust falls onto my neck.

“Where is the box?” Mai asked.

“Out there,” Linh replied.

“If you have to choose, save people first.”

Linh turned back to look at the waterproof bag. She thought she would never leave it because inside was the only evidence of her father. But Mai's words made the order clear.

“Yes,” she said. “Save people first.”

Duy used all his strength to lift the wooden bar. Tu pulled Mai out. The group crawled back through the ventilation just as the roof of the medical room partially collapsed. Muddy water poured in, sweeping the table and waterproof bag out into the yard.

Linh rushed after him. The bag got stuck on the fence, but the current pulled strongly. She let go once for fear of being swept away, then watched it drift toward the crevice.

Duy held the seat belt around her waist. “Don't come down.”

“The box floated away.”

“We still have people left.”

"I know."

They stood in the rain watching the waterproof bag swirl in the mud. Tu did not hesitate, tied the rope to the tree trunk and crawled down to the edge of the ravine. Duy shouted at him to turn back, but Tu pointed towards the rock blocking the stream. The bag was stuck there, less than two meters from the shore.

“No need to go deep,” Tu said.

“The ground is slipping!” rescue team warned.

Duy holds the rope, Linh shines the light. Tu used the hook to pull the bag little by little. A piece of ground above cracked. Duy pulled hard on the rope, Tu slid up with the bag right before the mud fell.

They brought their bags to shore. The seal is still there, but the inner box has a corner dented. Linh checked with a dry towel, did not open it.

Mai sat under the porch, her leg hurt but not broken. Duy knelt before her, not blaming her, just giving her extra boots.

“I said save people first,” Mai said.

“I listen.”

“So why do you keep going back to the box?”

Duy looked at Linh and Tu. “Because someone saved the box for us.”

Tu wiped the mud from his face, breathing heavily. “I didn't save the box. I saved my father's testimony.”

Mr. Khang was taken out under a blanket. He looked at the evidence bag, then looked at Mai. “You guys made the right choice.”

“But the box was dented,” Linh said.

“Paper can dry. People don't always come back.”

The rescue team built a new tarpaulin roof. The district police finally arrived, bringing cameras and records. Linh handed over the red shirt piece, contractor card, account data and box condition. Ms. Thao participated via call, asking everyone to sign each minutes.

Captain Hung stood outside, no longer holding the key. A police officer asked him about the account "Van Lo 08". Hung said he didn't know.

Mai opens the server, shows the login record. “The last time the account used a backup password was from your device.”

Hung looked at her. “You hacked into internal data.”

“I read the authorized copy.”

“Who gave it?”

“Maintenance Fund.”

Hung shut up. Tu looked at him, but didn't speak.

Linh placed the box on the table under the light. “Tomorrow we open, there will be lawyers and police representatives. No one touches it tonight.”

Hung looked at her. “If it has your name on it, you can still open it Star?"

“I didn't open to protect my name.”

“So what for?”

Linh remembered her father's last sentence. “To return the correct name to the person who was erased.”

Outside the canvas, the rain gradually subsided. At the bottom of the waterproof bag, the tin box made a clicking sound. A lever inside had just broken, revealing a thin crack running across the lid.

Linh added the new situation to the record. “The lid of the box deformed after being swept away by water. Do not open at the scene.”

Ms. Thao reminded on the phone: "Separate people who witnessed the rescue and people who witnessed physical evidence. Mai had to sign a statement about being trapped; Tu notes about getting bags; A theory of the chain of preservation.”

Mai looked at Linh. “Did you really do that?”

“If we don't write it down, later they will say we created our own landslide to protect the box.”

“Sounds tiring.”

“It's more tiring than having to pay a debt because there's not a single line of text.”

Mai nodded, took the pen and signed. Her hands shook but the words were clear. Duy signed later, then Tu. When it was Mr. Khang's turn, he couldn't write much, just his name and one sentence: "I saw someone give the appendix."

The police asked Mr. Hung about the saying "keep records or keep people". He denied making threats. Ms. Nam gave the camera recording in the shop, but the nine-minute clip was missing, making the story not enough.

Nam, the contractor, asked to declare more. He said the person who paid him used a bank account in the name of a subsidiary of the bank that was claiming Duy's family. They asked him to bring the fake box to the station before 08:40 to create evidence that the evidence had been leaked.

“Do you know who gave the order?” the officer asked.

“I only see messages from numbers ending in 2009.”

Mai opens the data and finds the old contact number. A phone number for the loan management department appeared, calling her home six times a week.

Linh looked at Duy. “Tomorrow we won't just open boxes. We have to open the bank records as well.”

Duy put his hand on the edge of the bag, not touching the seal. “I won't let you leave the mountain alone.”

Mai replied: "I don't want you to carry the burden alone."

They sat under the canvas roof until dawn. No one sleeps deeply. Each sound of the cabin vibrating made everyone look up. The Van Lo route is closed, but the ramp still has people wanting to go through.

When morning came, a rescue vehicle carrying supplies arrived. On the car windshield is the new unit logo, below the old logo there is still a triangle mark. Linh took a photo and saw in the corner of the photo the letter "Q." like a piece of clothing.

Q is not just the first letter of a person's name. Maybe it's the code of the loan management department, or the internal code of the person who changed their name on the file.

Mr. Khang opened his eyes and called Linh. “The box must be opened before I forget your face.”

Linh looked at the box. “I will remember.”

“I forgot for so long.”

Outside the yard, the rescue team began clearing the land. Duy asked them to set up a safe way down to town. Mai kept the copy of the contract in a sealed bag. Tu sat a distance away from Hung, silent like someone waiting to have to choose between testimony and an old promise.

Linh knows that today she will not be able to return the house immediately, nor will she be able to clear the debt in one day. But for the first time, everyone present around the box agreed that they would not let anyone else open it in the dark.