Chapter 3 - The Name Inside the Dead File
“Give me the phone,” Caleb said.
I locked the screen.
“No.”
His disbelief lasted only a second before anger replaced it.
“You're still doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Deciding what I can know.”
“This message is about something that happened before you were born.”
“It has my name in it.”
He was right again.
I hated how often he was right that day.
Marcus held out his hand.
“Let me see.”
I showed him the message.
His face hardened.
“That's a threat.”
“No.”
“What would you call it?”
“A warning.”
“There's a difference?”
“Yes.”
Dale stared at me.
“You're thinking of going.”
“I haven't decided.”
“You already have.”
Thomas stood.
“Absolutely not.”
I looked at him.
He caught himself.
We weren't married anymore.
He wasn't allowed to order me around.
But fear had brought old instincts back for everyone.
“Rebecca, a man you believed dead for twenty-two years sends you a hotel key and threatens to expose something connected to Prague, and you're considering meeting him alone?”
“I didn't say that.”
“You didn't have to.”
Marissa surprised me.
“Then don't go alone.”
Everyone looked at her.
She folded her arms.
“If this man wanted Rebecca dead, he had opportunities in a crowded graduation hall.”
Marcus nodded slightly.
“That crossed my mind.”
Thomas frowned at her.
“You're helping?”
“I am thinking.”
She looked at me.
“He wants something from you.”
“Yes.”
“Then make him believe he's getting it while somebody else watches.”
Dale laughed bitterly.
“You think this is a television show?”
Marissa turned on him.
“No. I think your lying is part of why we're standing in this room.”
Dale fell silent.
I almost thanked her.
Instead, I asked Marcus, “Can you find the hotel?”
He picked up the key card.
There was no logo.
Only a magnetic strip and room number.
“Maybe.”
He photographed it, then stepped into the hallway.
Caleb remained staring at me.
“What did you do in Prague?”
“Nothing.”
“The message says otherwise.”
“The message is designed to make me come.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“I wasn't in Prague when the team died.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I don't know what he means.”
Caleb didn't believe me.
The terrible part was that I wasn't certain I believed myself.
Memories changed when enough years passed.
Things you thought were unrelated grew edges that fit together.
I remembered a phone call the night before the Prague team departed.
A request for routing information.
A voice I trusted.
Coordinates I passed along because it was my job.
I had wondered about that call for years.
I had never allowed myself to wonder too hard.
Marcus returned ten minutes later.
“Found it.”
“Where?”
“Twenty-five minutes from here. Small independent hotel near Dayton.”
Dale sat down hard.
“It still exists?”
“You know it?”
“I knew it then.”
Marcus looked at him.
“You were there.”
Dale shook his head.
“No.”
“You recognized the room.”
“I knew where Adrian stayed.”
“How?”
“Because he called me.”
My anger returned.
“When?”
“The night before he disappeared.”
I walked toward him.
“You never told me that.”
“I was ordered not to.”
“By whom?”
He looked away.
“Dale.”
“Colonel Everett.”
I searched my memory.
“Samuel Everett?”
“Yes.”
Marcus's expression sharpened.
“Brigadier General Samuel Everett?”
“He wasn't a general then.”
“He retired eight years ago.”
I felt something inside me tighten.
Samuel Everett had overseen the administrative side of Section Seventeen.
He had shaken my hand after Prague.
He had looked me in the eye and told me Adrian was dead.
“What did Adrian tell you?”
Dale's answer came slowly.
“He said the betrayal wasn't inside your team.”
I stared.
“What?”
“He thought Section Seventeen itself had been created for a second purpose.”
“What purpose?”
“He wouldn't say over the phone.”
“Then why did he call you?”
“He wanted access to the personnel index.”
Marcus leaned in.
“The same index you later supposedly destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No.”
“You're sure?”
Dale's eyes flashed.
“Yes.”
I watched him.
He was hiding something.
Again.
“Where was the index kept?”
“A secure archive.”
“Who had access?”
“Everett. Two administrative officers. Me.”
“Names.”
He hesitated.
Marcus said, “We're past protecting classified bureaucracy.”
Dale gave him two names.
“Major Nicholas Reed. Civilian analyst Helen Carter.”
I remembered Helen.
Tall.
Quiet.
Always wore silver-framed glasses.
“Carter died,” I said.
Dale nodded.
“Stroke. 2011.”
“And Reed?”
Marcus pulled out his phone.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
He searched.
“Virginia.”
I stood.
“We need to talk to him.”
“No,” Marcus said.
“We don't know if he's involved.”
“That is why we talk to him.”
“Rebecca, you have a meeting in four hours with a man who was officially dead.”
“Then you have four hours.”
Marcus almost smiled.
I recognized the look.
Respect mixed with irritation.
I used to get it often.
Caleb noticed too.
“You really did this for a living.”
I looked at him.
“A long time ago.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You're doing it right now.”
That silenced me.
Marcus arranged for an officer to drive Dale, Thomas, Marissa, and Caleb away from the ceremony site.
Caleb refused.
“I stay with Mom.”
“No,” I said.
His face hardened.
“Absolutely.”
“No.”
“You don't get to disappear again.”
The word struck me.
Again.
“I never disappeared from you.”
“You disappeared every time I asked about your past.”
I had no defense.
He stepped closer.
“You taught me that courage is doing the thing you're afraid of while admitting you're afraid.”
I remembered saying it before his first high school wrestling match.
I had forgotten.
He hadn't.
“So admit it,” he said.
I looked at my son.
“I'm terrified.”
His expression softened.
“Good.”
I almost laughed.
“Good?”
“Now stop pretending you're protecting me by leaving me ignorant.”
I glanced at Marcus.
He gave the smallest shrug.
He was staying out of that one.
“Fine,” I said.
Caleb nodded.
“Fine.”
“But you follow every instruction I give you.”
He almost smiled.
“Mom, I just graduated Army training.”
“And I changed your diapers.”
Thomas coughed.
Marissa looked away to hide a smile.
For ten seconds, we were a family again.
Then Marcus's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“Nicholas Reed is dead.”
Dale stared at him.
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
“How?”
“Home invasion.”
My stomach dropped.
“Anything stolen?”
“Police report says no obvious valuables missing.”
Marcus looked at me.
“But his study was torn apart.”
We all understood.
Someone was looking for something.
“What about his files?” I asked.
“Local police logged several boxes.”
“Can we access them?”
“Not quickly.”
Dale whispered, “Unless the person searching didn't find what they wanted.”
Caleb looked between us.
“What would Reed have?”
I knew the answer.
“The destruction record.”
Marcus nodded.
“If he signed off with Dale, he might have kept a copy.”
Dale shook his head.
“He wasn't supposed to.”
I looked at him.
“Apparently nobody followed the rules.”
Marcus placed a call.
For the next hour, he worked contacts I didn't understand and asked questions in carefully neutral language.
By five-thirty, we had learned Nicholas Reed's daughter had collected several personal effects before police sealed the study.
One was a metal lockbox.
She had taken it to her apartment.
Marcus reached her by phone.
He said only that the box might contain government material.
She agreed to bring it to a nearby police station.
We arrived shortly after six.
I shouldn't have gone.
I knew that.
Adrian's meeting was less than an hour away.
But every road seemed to lead back to that box.
Nicholas Reed's daughter was named Anna.
Thirty-four.
Red eyes.
No sleep.
She placed the lockbox on a desk.
“My dad told me if anything happened, I should never open this at home.”
Marcus asked, “Did he say why?”
“No.”
“Did he mention Section Seventeen?”
Her eyes flickered.
That was enough.
“Yes,” I said.
Anna looked at me.
“You're Rebecca.”
The room went silent.
“How do you know my name?”
She opened her purse.
Pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“My father gave me this six months ago.”
She handed it to me.
Three names.
Samuel Everett.
Adrian Vale.
Rebecca Mercer.
Mine was circled.
Underneath, Nicholas Reed had written:
IF VALE CONTACTS HER, EVERETT WAS WRONG.
My pulse pounded.
“Wrong about what?”
Anna shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Marcus examined the lockbox.
Anna supplied the combination.
Inside were old personnel sheets, two cassette tapes, a sealed folder, and a black notebook.
Dale reached for the notebook.
I stopped him.
“Wait.”
Something was written on the cover.
Marcus opened it.
Most pages contained dates and initials.
The final pages held lists of transfer codes.
One repeated dozens of times.
4-9.
My identifier.
I felt sick.
“What is this?”
Dale stared.
“I don't know.”
Marcus flipped backward.
Beside several entries were dollar amounts.
$18,000.
$42,000.
$125,000.
Transfers spanning twenty years.
All coded 4-9.
Caleb whispered, “Someone was moving money under your identifier.”
“Why?”
Marcus turned another page.
A name appeared beside the final transaction.
CALEB HALE.
My son stopped breathing.
I grabbed the notebook.
The entry was dated six weeks earlier.
Four days after Caleb received his graduation assignment.
The amount beside his name was $250,000.
Thomas cursed under his breath.
Caleb looked at me.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
Then I saw the notation beside it.
TRANSFER ON ACCESSION.
My blood went cold.
Marcus read it.
“Accession means entry into service.”
“I know.”
Someone had tracked my son's enlistment.
This had never been about my tattoo being seen by accident.
The ceremony had been the trigger.
Marcus turned to Anna.
“Did your father ever mention Caleb?”
“No.”
A police officer opened the door.
“Colonel Shaw?”
“Yes?”
“There is a gentleman outside asking for Mrs. Hale.”
My entire body went rigid.
“Name?”
The officer checked a note.
“Samuel Everett.”
Dale stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
Marcus whispered, “Everett is here?”
The officer nodded.
“He says Mrs. Hale has something that belongs to him.”
I looked at the clock.
6:41 p.m.
Nineteen minutes before Adrian's meeting.
Marcus moved toward the door.
I caught his arm.
“Wait.”
Footsteps stopped on the other side.
Then a man's voice spoke through the closed door.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
“Rebecca.”
May you like
Samuel Everett had found me.
And he wasn't alone.
