Chapter 3 — The Thirteenth Landmark

An did not run out the main door. She retreated deeper into the warehouse, grabbed the iron bar of the pipe rack and pulled it aside. Behind the shelf is an old drainage slot, wide enough for a person to slide through if the mesh is removed.

“Look left!” the person outside the door shouted.

An stuffed the recorder into his shirt and used a screwdriver to unscrew four rotten screws. The net fell to the floor, the sound of the impact was too clear. Two flashlight beams immediately swept towards her.

“There's someone in there.”

An crawled through the gap. The cold mud reached up to my ankles. She crawled along the drainage pipe, hearing the sound of shoes hitting right outside. The smell of old sewers made her nauseous, but she didn't stop. The pipeline leads behind the abandoned water plant, where the weeds are taller than your head.

She crawled out under a banana bush and lay still until she heard the sound of the car engine leaving the dirt road. When she stood up, her knees were scraped and her shirt was stained with mud. She called Bich.

“Are you still working?”

"Preparing a podcast episode about riverside land funds. Where are you?"

“Warehouse number 4.”

“Did you really go in there?”

“Someone wants the tape.”

The end of the line was silent for a beat. Bich has a habit of remaining silent when about to say something that makes others uncomfortable.

"An, I've heard a lot of rumors about that warehouse. If you have evidence, don't give it to me right away. Back it up, take pictures, date it. The source can't protect you if you die before telling it."

“I'm not dead yet.”

“Don't use that to reassure me.”

An tells about Milestone 13 and the message. Bich didn't ask why she was investigating, just asked for the location.

"Tomorrow I go to Ha Luu. I know someone who used to work at a data center."

"Who?"

“Not sure if I still want to talk.”

“Bich.”

“I will come.”

The call ended. An stood in the middle of the lawn, looking at the lights from the new urban area. She wanted to go back to her mother's house, but was afraid of bringing danger to the tea shop. Finally she drove to the civilian rescue station by the dock.

Tran Khoi is pulling an aluminum boat ashore. He wore a red life jacket, the sleeves were rolled up past his elbows, and his biceps had a long scar. Khoi used to be a medic in a military rescue team. After being discharged from the army, he founded a civilian group specializing in supporting flooded areas where the authorities had not yet arrived.

“Miss Lam,” he said, not surprised to see her at nearly ten o'clock at night. “Come to measure water or find a place to sleep?”

“I need to ask something.”

“If you ask me to borrow money, I don't have it.”

“Do you know the canal behind the Tan Giang fence?”

Khoi dropped the anchor rope. "Who in Ha Luu doesn't know? It's just that now people call it the technical way."

“Tomorrow takes me to Milestone 13.”

“I do not bring project people into the construction area.”

“I don't work for Tan Giang.”

“You are signing off on their system.”

“I checked the city data.”

“When that data is wrong, you still get paid?”

An looked at him. “Do you hate me because of the logo on the contract or because of my father?”

Khoi paused. “I don't hate people who haven't done anything.”

“You know my father?”

"Know the name. My sister died during the relocation that year."

An doesn't know how to apologize. Khoi turned to face the river, where a fishing lantern flickered.

"They said my brother was swept away by water while evacuating. But the car carrying people stopped in front of a road that was blocked with barriers. If the culvert had opened twenty minutes earlier, it would not have flooded. If the alarm had been correct, everyone would have gone another way."

“What is your sister's name?”

“Thao.”

"I do not know."

“You weren't living here at the time.”

Khoi spoke very softly, but the last sentence seemed to put a heavy weight between the two of them.

"I need check Marker 13 because it records a different water level than the public data. If you help, I will share everything I can confirm.”

“Share with whom?”

“With you first.”

Khoi looked at her for a long time, then nodded. “Five o'clock in the morning. The water is steady, you can go by boat."

An slept in the car for nearly four hours. When she woke up, she saw a new message from an unknown number: She didn't know what was in the canal.

Khoi arrived on time, carrying two life jackets and a tool box. He didn't ask how long she had been asleep. The boat left the dock when the city was still submerged in light gray. The fog is not thick, just enough to cover the bridges under construction.

“In which part of the channel is mark 13 located?” An asked.

“The part no one wants to claim is theirs.”

Khoi drove through a low water gate. On the shore, old houses lie close together, their corrugated iron roofs glistening with dew. Some doors have been painted with red numbers. An records the location.

“What is the purpose of a house being marked?”

"Compensation. Or scare people into selling cheap.”

“Who marked it?”

“You can ask Duy directly.”

“I will ask.”

The canal gradually narrows. Khoi turned off the engine and used a pole to push the boat through shallow water. Milestone 13 is behind a cluster of reeds, but it's not the same as last night. A new steel mesh was erected around the pillar, with a sign "safety inspection equipment" placed on it.

“It wasn't there last night,” An said.

“So who knew you were coming?”

Khoi stopped the boat. An stepped into the mud and looked at the shoe prints on the floor. There are three types: wide-soled work shoes, pointed rubber shoes and a small rut leading to the shore. She took pictures of each mark.

Mark 13 is still only 2.47. But the metal lid was open. The piece of oiled paper is no longer there.

“They took it away.”

Khoi looked up at the shore. “Maybe they want you to think that.”

An checked the slot under the watch face. A hard object touched her finger. She pulled out a small black plastic box, the size of two fingers. The box has a waterproof rubber band and an old plug port. An opened the lid. Inside was a microSD card, a voice recorder, and a piece of label that read “B-13.”

Khoi whistled. “Is that still running?”

“Don't know yet.”

“Don't pop here.”

“I need to see the data.”

“If someone installed it, they would know when you opened it.”

An looked at the box. Khoi is right. She put it in a waterproof bag and then returned to the boat. As they left the shore, a small explosion rang out from the fence. The metal vibrated, the steel mesh fell down.

Khoi immediately pulled An to sit down. A stone shot into the boat's hull, making a clatter.

“Don't raise your head.”

“That's not rock.”

Khoi opened the rescue box and took out a plastic shield. He used the pole to push the boat into the ditch on the side. Two more noises rang out, this time from the opposite bank. No one said anything.

The canoe drifted into a cluster of water hyacinths. Khoi checked An and saw that she was not injured before exhaling.

“Did they shoot?”

“It could be nails shot from an air gun. Enough to startle people, not enough to cause death.”

“Why threaten?”

“Let me remember where I am.”

An took the phone, but there was no signal. She looked toward Mark 13, which had disappeared behind the reeds. The data in the box could explain the number 2.47. Could also be bait.

When the boat reached the wide canal, Khoi's phone vibrated. Message from air traffic: Get her off the North Bank before the water rises.

Khoi showed it to An. “You come with me from now on, don't drive yourself.”

“I don't need protection.”

“I'm not protecting you. I protect the boat, because if something happens I have to declare it.”

An almost smiled. “Do you always talk like this?”

“Just for those who don't know listen."

They took the box to Phuc's machine repair shop. The younger brother realized that the memory card was the type used in waterproof cameras, but the old computer couldn't read it.

“It's possible the data was encrypted,” Phuc said. “Or dead card.”

An plugged into a dedicated reader. The screen shows a single folder: 12-09. Inside there are seventeen audio files, each file is exactly 13 seconds long.

“Thirteen seconds?” Khoi asked.

“Could be a check signal.”

An opens the file first. The sound of running water, the sound of a metal valve and a very distant male voice.

“Milestone seven has been passed. If we open the whole cluster, the North Coast will bear it.”

The second file is the sound of a door closing. The third file features the sound of a woman reading a series of numbers. The fourth file is noisy. The fifth file echoes her father's voice:

“Can't open more. Waiting for hospital confirmation.”

An stops broadcasting.

The sixth file turned on by itself when she touched it by mistake. Another person's voice, younger, said clearly:

“If you don't sign, it will be opened by hand. At that time, no one could save the industrial park.”

Khoi looked at An. She didn't blink.

The last file has only a steady beep and a whispered sentence:

“The thirteenth mark does not measure water. It measures the person who lied.”

The screen turns off. The electricity in the store was cut off.

Outside on the street, all the lights in the North Shore area simultaneously turned red as a warning.

A loudspeaker rang out, a mechanical voice repeated:

“This is a safety drill. People please do not panic.”

Khoi pulled down the curtains. An looked at the last audio file still playing in his head. The city had just turned on its flood warning on a clear morning, the same day she found Marker 13.

And someone who knew she heard it.

An didn't know how much the people in the store had seen, but she knew one thing: everything they had just found wouldn't be safe if it was just on a memory card. She took two phones and copied the file names and time codes by hand into the notebook. Bich said she didn't need to do that, but An still wrote it down. Numbers written on paper cannot be changed with a command.

Khoi pulled the curtain up a small slit. On the street, warning speakers still repeat the phrase "don't panic". A delivery man stopped his car under a light pole, looked at the water flowing through the ditch and then left. The city doesn't know what they just discovered.

“What do you plan to do with these seventeen files?” Bich asked.

“Not announced yet. Seek to confirm the source.”

“The source is water.”

“The source of the voice.”

Bich opens the third file, filtering valve sounds and background sounds. In the noisy classroom, the phone rang three times, then a female voice read the name of a street. That's not the center's voice. An recognized the reading rhythm as the rescue station's internal announcement.

“There was someone outside the recording system,” she said.

Khoi bent down to the small speaker. “This sound used to play at the old ferry terminal. Before the flood, the rescue team used a private channel to notify people."

“Who still has the device?”

"My younger sister."

After Khoi finished speaking, he remembered Thao had died. He leaned his back against the wall, looking at the tile floor. An didn't ask further, just put the recorder on the table.

“If she ever recorded it, there might still be a copy at home.”

“The house was demolished after the flood.”

“But the data could be in the salvage warehouse.”

Khoi looked at An. “You want to find that too?”

“I want to know who said 'if the whole cluster opens, the North Coast will bear it'.”

Khoi nodded slowly. He no longer asked her if she really made the contract or not. An understood that from that moment, the two of them were standing at a water bank that had no name on the map.

Bich put the memory card in metal box, wrap with moisture-proof tape and give each person a copy. She kept the fourth copy in her coat.

“If one person is detained, the other three still have the data,” she said.

An looked at the last file. “And if all four of you are detained?”

"I sent a timed copy to the editor. If I don't cancel, it will send itself."

Khoi smiled faintly. “Every journalist has a way of scaring themselves.”

“Every rescuer thinks they are immortal,” Bich replied.

Outside the door, the red warning light went off. Everything returned to normal so quickly. An knew this was not a sign of safety, but a sign that someone had just deleted another line of data.

She put away the notebook and looked at Khoi. “Tomorrow morning at five o'clock, we'll go to the old salvage warehouse.”

“I will drive the boat.”

“I thought you were just protecting the canoe.”

“If the canoe could talk, it would tell me not to leave you behind.”

An didn't laugh, but for the first time since returning, she felt like she was no longer investigating alone.