"Four hours ago."
He stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned to Sharp. "Find the case."
The locked case was in the forward storage compartment: a slim, matte-black, hard-sided unit, the kind used by field agents for document transport. It had a combination lock and a secondary tamper-evident seal. Renata had set it there that morning before they left the hotel. She had logged its placement, as she always did, with a timestamp notation in her portfolio.
Sharp carried it to Calhoun.
Renata said, "That case is sealed under active federal authority. Opening it without a federal warrant constitutes obstruction under—"
Okafor's hand closed on her shoulder and turned her, not gently, away from the conversation. She was repositioned, physically moved three feet to the left, her back now partially to the scene. Her portfolio was taken from under her arm. She watched Okafor hold it. She did not fight him for it.
Calhoun cracked the lock with a bolt cutter Sharp produced from the patrol unit. The tamper seal tore. Inside: a sheaf of documents in tabbed folders, a sealed evidentiary envelope marked with a case identifier, and an encrypted drive—small, flat, matte, the kind that costs $1,200 and looks like a thumb drive for people who work in environments where losing a thumb drive has consequences measured in careers.
Calhoun flipped through the documents. Most were redacted, but the tabs were labeled, and the labels, to a person paying attention, told a particular story: one involving asset tracking, auction records, shell company registrations, and a series of financial transactions routed through three LLCs incorporated in the state of Florida over the previous twenty-two months.
He closed the folder. He looked at the two women. He looked at the drive in his hand.
"Obstruction," he said to Okafor, not to them. "Detain them both."
Okafor reached for his cuffs. He moved toward Nadia, the decision made, the calculation complete in his mind, reduced to a single mechanical action.
Nadia turned her wrists slightly, preemptively—the practiced movement of someone who has seen this motion begin and knows exactly how it ends.
Okafor grabbed her arm above the wrist. She didn't struggle. She let him turn her, let him move her hands behind her back. She stood against the side of her car with her wrists secured behind her while Calhoun watched from eight feet away, arms folded, satisfied with the architecture of this moment.