Chapter 5 - Twelve Names
Nobody trusted anybody after Vance said there were twelve.
That was the point.
His final weapon wasn't the pistol.
It was doubt.
NCIS separated everyone involved.
Reed.
Cole.
Brooks.
Me.
For fourteen hours, investigators questioned us independently.
I didn't object.
If Vance's network reached senior command, trust without verification was stupidity.
At 3:10 the next morning, Brooks entered my interview room carrying two coffees.
“You're cleared.”
“That fast?”
“You've been under passive counterintelligence review for five years.”
I stared at her.
“Excuse me?”
“Cole authorized it after Lantern.”
“Everyone knew except me.”
“Apparently.”
“I am going to punch him.”
“Please wait until my report is filed.”
I took the coffee.
“Reed?”
“Cleared.”
“Cole?”
She hesitated.
My stomach tightened.
“Mostly.”
“What does mostly mean?”
“He approved some communications routing decisions tied to Vance.”
“Did he know?”
“We don't think so.”
“Think?”
“Welcome to investigations.”
I hated investigations.
They rarely provided the clean certainty operations demanded.
Brooks opened a folder.
“We recovered Vance's hard drive.”
“Names?”
“Eleven aliases and one real identity.”
“Whose?”
She slid the paper across.
Commander Brock Sullivan.
I laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
Because Sullivan had been the disposable member.
The only one Vance was willing to name openly.
“Where is Sullivan?”
“Hospital.”
“Condition?”
“Stable.”
“I want to talk to him.”
“So does everyone.”
“I'm asking first.”
Brooks considered.
“You have ten minutes.”
Sullivan looked smaller in a hospital bed.
No uniform.
No medals.
No crowd.
Just a man with a bandaged side and two armed guards outside.
He saw my lip.
“Still hurts?”
“No.”
“Mine does.”
“Good.”
He almost smiled.
“You really aren't what I expected.”
“You expected me to break.”
“I expected you to hit me after the slap.”
“Why?”
“So Vance could paint you as unstable. Remove your access. Discredit anything you said about Lantern.”
“You volunteered to do that?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
He looked toward the window.
“I owed him.”
“For what?”
“My career.”
There it was.
The oldest currency in any corrupt institution.
Ambition.
“He promoted you.”
“He saved me after I made a mistake in Afghanistan.”
“What mistake?”
“Bad intelligence. Civilians were hurt.”
“And he buried it.”
“Yes.”
“So he owned you.”
“Yes.”
“You could have stopped.”
Sullivan laughed bitterly.
“You think these things happen all at once? One day you're a good officer. Next day you're kidnapping mothers?”
I said nothing.
“No,” he continued. “It happens one favor at a time. One report altered because nobody will notice. One credential loaned. One order passed through because the admiral says it's necessary. Eventually you're so far in that honesty feels more dangerous than the crime.”
“Daniel Mercer.”
His face changed.
“What about him?”
“Did you know the canceled helicopter would kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you send the order?”
“Yes.”
“Then you knew it might.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
For five years, I imagined the person responsible for Daniel's death as a monster.
Sitting before me was something more ordinary.
A coward.
That was worse.
“Who are the others?”
“I don't know all of them.”
“Names you do know.”
“Ellis.”
“We have him.”
“Captain Roland Pierce.”
“Where?”
“Pentagon procurement.”
“Anyone else?”
“Colonel Jason Marr.”
“Marines?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Contract evaluations.”
“More.”
He hesitated.
“Rear Admiral Cole.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
“I saw his authorization.”
“For what?”
“Lantern communications package.”
“He approved equipment. That doesn't make him part of the network.”
Sullivan's eyes held mine.
“Ask him why he personally requested your reassignment.”
“I know why.”
“Do you?”
I left before he could enjoy the effect.
Cole was waiting in an empty conference room.
I closed the door.
“You moved me into administration.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“Sullivan says you requested it personally.”
“I did.”
“Before or after Daniel's hidden message was discovered?”
Cole looked confused.
“Before.”
“Did Daniel ever contact you about Vance?”
Silence.
That was enough.
“Nathan.”
Cole sat down.
“Three days before Lantern, Mercer came to me.”
My chest tightened.
“He suspected Vance?”
“He suspected operational data was being accessed improperly.”
“And you did what?”
“I told him to document it.”
“Then?”
“He died.”
I stared at the wall.
“You knew.”
“I knew something was wrong.”
“You let me spend five years thinking I missed everything.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You were protecting yourself.”
His face hardened.
“Careful.”
“No. You were afraid that admitting Mercer warned you would expose your failure.”
Cole stood.
“Yes.”
The honesty stopped me.
He continued.
“Yes, Avery. I was afraid.”
The room went quiet.
“I should have acted before Lantern. I should have listened to Daniel. I didn't have proof, and Vance was my superior, and I told myself caution was professionalism.”
He looked away.
“It was cowardice.”
I said nothing.
“After Daniel died, I reassigned you because I believed whoever compromised Lantern might come after you next.”
“You could have told me.”
“And made you behave naturally?”
“I was trained for that.”
“You were grieving.”
“So you made the choice for me.”
“Yes.”
I hated him for it.
I also understood it.
Those feelings could exist together.
Cole slid a file across the table.
“Before you decide whether to forgive me, see this.”
Inside were eleven photographs.
The suspected network.
Pierce.
Marr.
Three civilian contractors.
Two logistics officers.
One intelligence analyst.
One retired admiral.
Three unknown.
“Where did these come from?”
“Daniel.”
I looked up.
“He sent me an encrypted package before Lantern. We couldn't open it until today because Emily's card contained the key.”
Daniel had divided the evidence.
One half with his daughter.
One half with Cole.
Neither useful alone.
Smart.
Painfully smart.
I studied the photos.
One face caught my attention.
A civilian woman named Rebecca Shaw.
I knew her.
Not personally.
But I had seen her that morning.
At the ceremony.
Standing behind the reviewing platform with press credentials.
I looked at Cole.
“She was on base.”
“When?”
“When Sullivan hit me.”
Cole grabbed his phone.
The base footage came up.
There she was.
Rebecca Shaw.
Forty-two.
Defense technology executive.
No military service.
She watched Sullivan slap me.
Then looked down at her phone.
Three seconds later, my personnel file was accessed.
Brooks entered.
“We have another problem.”
“What?”
“Emily's gone.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“How?”
“Her mother took her home under protection.”
“And?”
“The protective detail received orders to stand down.”
“From whom?”
Brooks looked at Cole.
“Your office.”
Cole went white.
“I gave no such order.”
I looked at Rebecca Shaw's photograph.
She had been standing within twenty feet of the admiral's communications aide.
Close enough to clone a device.
Close enough to impersonate authority.
“Rebecca has Emily.”
Brooks nodded.
“Most likely.”
“Why?”
“To get the original card.”
“She doesn't have it.”
“Emily doesn't know that matters.”
My phone vibrated.
A video message.
Emily sat in a chair.
Unhurt.
Terrified.
Rebecca Shaw stood behind her.
Then Rebecca looked into the camera.
“Captain Hayes, you've spent five years believing Operation Lantern was the crime.”
She smiled.
“It wasn't.”
The video ended.
A second message appeared.
May you like
One sentence.
LANTERN WAS THE TEST.
