Chapter 4 - The General's Secret
General Hale did not move.
Forty officers stared at him.
So did I.
“Explain,” I said.
Hale looked at the dark phone screen.
“I can't.”
Mercer stepped between us.
“That isn't good enough.”
“No.”
Hale looked around.
“You misunderstood me. I can't explain because I don't know who entered that room.”
“He said ‘General.’”
“Yes.”
“You're a general.”
“So are nineteen other people with access to this installation.”
Reed looked toward Ross.
“Where is Voss being held?”
“Security Annex Two.”
“Can we reach them?”
“No communications.”
Mercer took command.
“Then we go physically.”
Ross shook his head.
“Not with forty officers.”
“Take a team.”
“I'll go,” I said.
Mercer immediately refused.
“No.”
“This involves me.”
“That is exactly why you don't go.”
“Jonathan.”
His expression changed when I used his first name.
“You've spent seven years hiding.”
“I've spent seven years staying alive.”
“And I'm apparently next.”
“Yes.”
“Then I'm done being protected by people who won't tell me the truth.”
Hale sighed.
“She goes.”
Mercer stared at him.
“You don't get to decide.”
“Neither do you.”
I stepped between them.
“I decide.”
Five minutes later, we left the banquet hall.
Me.
Mercer.
Reed.
Ross.
Two MPs.
General Hale remained with the officers.
We moved through a service corridor to avoid the main lobby.
Emergency power illuminated every third fixture.
The building felt abandoned.
It wasn't.
At the first intersection, we found a security officer unconscious beside a door.
Alive.
Pulse steady.
No visible injury.
Ross knelt.
“He was sedated.”
Mercer found a puncture mark near the man's neck.
“Professional.”
We continued.
Annex Two was two buildings away.
Rain had begun outside.
We crossed under the covered walkway.
The security annex doors were open.
That was wrong.
Ross drew his sidearm.
Mercer glanced at me.
“Stay behind us.”
Inside, the reception desk was empty.
A monitor showed static.
Another showed the banquet hall.
The camera feed was still active.
“Someone lied about killing the cameras,” Reed said.
Ross checked the system.
“Or someone turned them back on.”
Mercer pointed at the screen.
“Zoom.”
Ross did.
General Hale stood near the center of the room.
Colonel Price was talking to him.
Forty officers surrounded them.
Then I saw something odd.
A man in a catering jacket moved behind the officers.
I hadn't noticed him during dinner.
“Who is that?”
Ross zoomed further.
The man carried a tray.
Mercer went rigid.
“Freeze it.”
Ross stopped the image.
Mercer leaned closer.
“That's not catering staff.”
“You know him?”
“No. But look at his shoes.”
Black tactical boots.
Not banquet service shoes.
Ross grabbed his radio again.
Still static.
“We need to get back.”
“First Voss,” I said.
Mercer looked torn.
Then Reed pointed toward the hallway.
“Interrogation room is twenty yards.”
We moved.
The door stood open.
The room was empty.
A chair lay on its side.
Blood marked the table.
But Voss was gone.
Ross stared.
“Impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
Mercer examined the door.
“No forced entry.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone opened it.”
Ross looked angry.
“Someone with credentials.”
Reed checked the floor.
He found a broken medal clasp.
“What is that?”
I recognized it.
A general officer's service insignia.
One star.
Ross picked it up with gloves.
“Could have been planted.”
“Probably was,” Mercer said.
“Why?”
“To point us toward Hale.”
That possibility made more sense than I wanted it to.
Then I noticed the wall.
A word had been written in blood.
LANTERN.
Operation Lantern.
Our deployment eleven years earlier.
“This is about all of us,” I said.
Mercer nodded.
“They're closing the circle.”
Reed looked at him.
“Who else was involved in Lantern?”
“Hundreds.”
“Who had authority over the equipment transfers?”
Mercer didn't answer.
I turned.
“You know.”
His face gave him away.
“Jonathan.”
“The task force had a civilian oversight director.”
“Name?”
“Arthur Vale.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Reed reacted differently.
“You mean Deputy Secretary Vale?”
Mercer nodded.
My stomach tightened.
Arthur Vale was now one of the most powerful civilian defense officials in the region.
Not a general.
Above generals in practical terms.
“That's your person above Voss.”
“Maybe.”
“You've suspected him for seven years?”
“No. Aaron suspected him.”
“Why?”
“Because Briar Logistics was founded by Vale's brother-in-law.”
There it was.
The first clean connection.
“Why isn't that enough?”
“Because ownership changed ten years ago.”
“To whom?”
“Shell companies.”
“Controlled by?”
“We never proved it.”
I thought of Aaron Cole.
Dead.
Evelyn Shaw.
Dead.
Bennett.
Missing.
Mercer.
Officially dead.
Me.
Being framed.
Hale.
On the list.
“Maybe the missing officer is the key.”
Mercer looked at me.
“Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“If he's alive.”
“You were.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“I chose to disappear.”
“Maybe he did too.”
Mercer looked unconvinced.
Then Reed's phone buzzed.
We all stared.
It had been off.
“How is that possible?” Ross asked.
Reed pulled it out.
The screen was lit.
No cellular signal.
Yet a message appeared.
CHECK THE LIVE FEED.
Ross ran back to the monitors.
The banquet hall feed was still active.
The catering man was gone.
General Hale stood at the center.
Colonel Price beside him.
Then officers suddenly began turning toward the main doors.
Someone had entered.
Ross enlarged the image.
A tall man in civilian clothes.
Gray hair.
Dark overcoat.
He walked straight toward Hale.
Mercer whispered, “No.”
“Who is he?”
He didn't answer.
“Jonathan.”
The man reached General Hale.
Hale's face showed shock.
Then recognition.
Reed leaned toward the monitor.
“Do you know him?”
Mercer stared.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Mercer swallowed.
“Lucas Bennett.”
The missing officer.
Alive.
Eight years after disappearing.
On the screen, Bennett handed Hale something.
A sealed envelope.
Hale opened it.
Read one page.
Then looked directly toward the camera.
As if he knew we were watching.
He held the page up.
Three words were written across it.
MARA IS NEXT.
My phone rang.
Everyone jumped.
I stared at the screen.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Mercer shook his head.
“Don't answer.”
I did.
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then Colonel Voss whispered:
“Mara, listen carefully. Hale isn't the man you should fear.”
A door slammed somewhere behind him.
Voss lowered his voice.
“The person running this has been sitting beside you all night.”
May you like
I slowly looked at Major Daniel Reed.
And Reed's hand moved toward his jacket.
