Chapter 3 - The Order From Washington
Daniel Shaw didn't move.
Cole lay bleeding at my feet.
Blackwood stared at the Deputy Secretary.
I slowly reached for my sidearm.
Shaw noticed.
"Eve."
"Don't."
His protective agents shifted.
I raised my weapon.
"Hands where I can see them."
Shaw lifted them.
Blackwood stepped away.
Cole tried speaking again.
"Shaw..."
Blood filled his mouth.
I knelt.
"Stay with me."
His eyes struggled to focus.
"Not... Daniel."
I froze.
"What?"
"Other Shaw."
Then he lost consciousness.
Medics rushed in.
Daniel Shaw lowered his hands slowly.
"Would someone mind telling me how many Shaws we're dealing with?"
Cole survived.
Barely.
While surgeons worked, we locked down the base.
The imposter Hayes remained missing.
So did the stolen guidance systems.
And now my father's supposed death had become part of the investigation.
I hated personal missions.
They destroyed judgment.
That was precisely why Reaper operators weren't assigned cases involving family.
But somebody had engineered this.
They wanted me emotionally compromised.
The question was why.
Blackwood sat across from me in an interrogation room.
The man who had slapped me hours earlier looked considerably less powerful.
"Who's the other Shaw?"
He rubbed his face.
"Caleb Shaw."
Daniel's expression hardened.
"My brother."
I stared.
"You have a brother?"
"Had."
"Meaning?"
"Caleb died fifteen years ago."
I almost laughed.
Apparently dead men were becoming common.
Daniel explained.
Caleb Shaw had worked military intelligence alongside my father.
After Jonathan Mercer supposedly died, Caleb began investigating the same network.
Three years later, his boat exploded off Maryland.
No body recovered.
"Convenient," I said.
Daniel nodded grimly.
"Very."
Blackwood knew more.
I could see it.
"What aren't you telling us?"
He stared at the table.
"Your father contacted me after his supposed death."
"When?"
"2014."
Six years afterward.
"What did he say?"
"One sentence."
Blackwood looked at me.
"'If Eve ever joins the military, keep her away from Reaper.'"
My chest tightened.
"Why?"
"He wouldn't tell me."
I stood.
"You knew my father was alive for twelve years?"
"I knew he was alive once."
"And you said nothing?"
"He made me swear."
"My mother buried an empty coffin."
Blackwood looked ashamed.
"I know."
I wanted to hate him.
Part of me did.
But rage wouldn't solve anything.
"What happened after 2014?"
"Nothing. He vanished."
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A video file.
I opened it.
My father appeared on screen.
Older than I remembered.
Gray at his temples.
Alive.
He looked directly into the camera.
"Evelyn, if you're watching this, Reaper has been compromised."
My hands went cold.
The recording continued.
"Do not trust anyone simply because Washington trusts them. The network survived because it doesn't recruit traitors. It creates loyal men, then gives them reasons to betray everything."
He paused.
"If Warren Blackwood is still alive, he knows where I left the first key."
The video ended.
Everyone looked at Blackwood.
He whispered, "I have no idea what he's talking about."
I believed him.
Then Blackwood suddenly touched the medals on his chest.
His fingers stopped on an old campaign ribbon.
He removed it.
Behind the ribbon was a tiny metal strip.
He stared at it.
"I've worn this uniform for years."
The strip contained coordinates.
Camp Pendleton.
A storage facility beneath the old communications bunker.
We went after dark.
Blackwood insisted on coming.
I allowed it.
Maybe my father had chosen him for a reason.
The bunker had been abandoned since 2011.
We descended underground.
At the bottom was a steel door.
The coordinates opened an electronic lock.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Photographs.
Hard drives.
Shipping records.
Evidence spanning twenty years.
My father had built an archive.
Daniel stared around.
"This could destroy careers."
"Maybe governments," I said.
Blackwood opened a file.
His face changed.
"What?"
He handed it to me.
PROJECT REAPER.
The program existed before Task Force Reaper officially began.
But it wasn't an operations unit.
It was a surveillance project.
Its purpose was to identify military personnel psychologically capable of executing orders without hesitation.
Names filled the pages.
Mine was there.
Age fourteen.
I stared.
"They were watching me before I enlisted."
Daniel cursed.
Another page contained my father's handwriting.
EVE MUST NEVER BE RECRUITED.
I kept reading.
Reaper hadn't selected me accidentally.
Someone had deliberately overridden my father's warning.
Blackwood searched another cabinet.
"Eve."
He held a photograph.
My father stood beside Caleb Shaw.
Between them was General Cole.
Written behind them:
WE FOUND THE ARCHITECT.
No name.
Then I noticed a reflection in a window behind the three men.
A fourth person.
Blurred.
Watching them.
Daniel took the photograph.
"Can we enhance it?"
"Yes."
My technician began processing the image remotely.
While we waited, I found another envelope.
My name.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Evelyn,
If you've reached this room, then everything I tried to prevent has happened.
Reaper found you.
And if Reaper found you, the person controlling it is closer than you think.
I turned the page.
The next line stopped me.
The person who recruited you knows I'm alive.
Footsteps sounded outside the bunker.
Blackwood drew his weapon.
Daniel killed the lights.
Someone entered the corridor.
One person.
Slow steps.
Then a familiar voice called through the darkness.
"Eve?"
I recognized it.
It belonged to the man who had recruited me into Naval Special Warfare twelve years earlier.
May you like
Admiral Thomas Vale.
And according to official records, Thomas Vale had died three months ago.
