Chapter 6 - The Target Was Blackwood
I ran.
The helicopter was airborne within ninety seconds.
I called Blackwood.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
The photograph remained on my screen.
Crosshairs.
His chest.
The parade ground.
Why Blackwood?
My father sat opposite me.
"Because Warren has something."
"What?"
"I don't know."
"You've said that before."
He absorbed the accusation.
Fairly.
"I gave him information over the years without telling him what it meant."
"Like the coordinates."
"Yes."
"What else?"
He thought.
Then his face changed.
"The medal."
"What medal?"
"His Navy Cross."
Blackwood had received it after Afghanistan.
My father had personally delivered the citation package.
"What did you put in it?"
"A micro-storage wafer."
I stared.
"Containing?"
"Caleb's original personnel index."
That was why Blackwood mattered.
He had unknowingly carried the list for eighteen years.
We landed hard.
The parade ground was nearly empty.
Blackwood stood near the ceremonial platform surrounded by security.
Alive.
I ran toward him.
"Inside!"
He frowned.
"What?"
A gunshot cracked.
Blackwood dropped.
I tackled him.
Security returned fire toward a distant rooftop.
We dragged Blackwood behind concrete cover.
"Hit?"
He checked himself.
"No."
The bullet had missed by inches.
"Your Navy Cross."
He stared.
"What?"
"Where is it?"
"My office."
We moved.
The medal case was gone.
Blackwood swore.
Security footage showed someone entering his office twenty minutes earlier.
General Cole.
Except Cole was still hospitalized.
Another disguise.
Trent's network was moving.
My phone rang.
Caleb.
"Hello, Evelyn."
"Where are you?"
"Ask your father."
I looked at Jonathan.
Caleb continued.
"Tell him it's time to finish what we started."
The call ended.
My father looked defeated.
"I know where he's going."
"Where?"
"San Clemente Island."
An old classified facility.
Project Reaper's first operational site.
We assembled everything.
Federal tactical teams.
Naval security.
Reaper operators whose loyalty had been independently verified.
Blackwood demanded to join.
"No."
"It's my medal."
"It's my operation."
"You don't technically exist."
"Then technically you can't argue with me."
He had a point.
I still left him behind.
We reached the island after dark.
The facility was buried inside a former radar installation.
Caleb had arrived first.
So had several former military officers connected to the network.
They weren't planning escape.
They were planning destruction.
Servers throughout the complex were overheating.
Caleb intended to erase everything.
We breached.
My father guided us through corridors he had helped design.
At the central server room, Caleb waited.
The Navy Cross sat on a table.
"Jonathan."
"Caleb."
Eighteen years stood between them.
Caleb looked at me.
"You think your father is the hero?"
"No."
My father flinched.
I continued.
"I think he made mistakes. Heroes who can't admit mistakes are dangerous."
Caleb smiled.
"Smart girl."
"He admitted his."
The smile vanished.
"You didn't."
Caleb drew a weapon.
My father moved.
A shot.
My father fell.
I fired.
Caleb's weapon spun away.
Operators restrained him.
I dropped beside my father.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
"Stay with me."
He grimaced.
"Not planning another eighteen-year disappearance."
"Good."
We recovered the medal.
Inside was the wafer.
The index contained hundreds of names.
Some guilty.
Some manipulated.
Some innocent.
That distinction mattered.
We shut down the servers without destroying evidence.
By dawn, Project Reaper was finished.
Or so we thought.
Daniel called from Washington.
"Eve, we decrypted the final section."
"And?"
"There's a command authorization."
"For what?"
"The entire original project."
"Signed by Caleb?"
"No."
"Trent?"
"No."
My father looked at me.
Daniel's voice became quiet.
"It was authorized by someone still serving."
"Name."
A helicopter landed outside.
Blackwood stepped out despite my orders.
He walked toward us.
Daniel said the name.
I stared at Blackwood.
He stopped when he saw my expression.
"What?"
I lowered the phone.
May you like
The original authorization bore one signature.
Rear Admiral Warren Blackwood.
