Chapter 3 - My Father's Secret
Nobody moved.
The voice came again.
"Mara."
My father.
Hale raised his weapon.
I grabbed his wrist.
"If you shoot before I see who's there, I swear you'll regret it."
"Mara, we don't know—"
"Open it."
Ava positioned herself beside the door.
Rex stood in front of my stretcher.
Hale unlocked it.
An older man stepped into the red emergency light.
Gray hair.
Scar across his cheek.
Thin frame.
Same eyes I saw every morning in the mirror.
Elias Vance looked at me.
For twenty-two years I'd imagined what I would say if I could see my father one more time.
Nothing came.
He whispered my childhood nickname.
"Mouse."
That broke me.
Only three people had ever called me that.
My mother.
My father.
Marcus Hale.
My mother had died six years earlier.
I stared at him.
"You were alive."
His face crumpled.
"Yes."
"You were alive when Mom died."
"Yes."
"You were alive every time I visited your grave."
"Yes."
I slapped him.
Hard.
Nobody stopped me.
My father accepted it.
"You deserved that."
"I deserved a father."
"I know."
"Don't say you know."
My voice cracked.
"You don't get to know."
He knelt beside the stretcher.
"I stayed away because every person who helped me was killed."
"And Hale?"
Elias looked at Marcus.
"He survived because they believed he betrayed me."
I turned.
"What?"
Hale lowered his weapon.
"The night your father disappeared, I gave Unit Thirteen his location."
My stomach dropped.
"You sold him out?"
"No."
Elias answered.
"He saved me."
Hale stared at the floor.
Elias explained.
Unit Thirteen had already identified the safe house where Elias planned to meet an investigator. Hale discovered the surveillance and fed the organization a false location.
But to make the lie convincing, Hale had to publicly appear to betray Elias.
The deception worked.
Barely.
Elias escaped.
The investigator didn't.
After that, Elias disappeared completely.
He spent two decades collecting evidence.
Names.
Accounts.
Operations.
Deaths.
Everything needed to destroy Unit Thirteen.
"Why now?" I asked.
"Because someone restarted the program."
"Kessler?"
"No."
"Who?"
"We don't know."
Hale looked at him.
"You've had twenty-two years."
"I found everyone except the Director."
"There's always a Director?"
"One person controls the thirteen."
Ava crossed her arms.
"And you think they're here?"
Elias looked at me.
"They're close to Mara."
The statement chilled the room.
"How close?"
"Close enough to manipulate her training schedule."
My mind jumped back.
Training Bay Four.
The exercise had been changed that morning.
Who authorized it?
I remembered the email.
Colonel Hale's account.
Hale denied sending it.
Someone had access to military systems.
Someone had placed Kessler in the room.
Someone had ensured twelve soldiers would witness the attack.
"Why witnesses?" I asked.
Elias's expression darkened.
"Because they wanted fear."
"From me?"
"From them."
He pointed toward the ceiling.
"Unit Thirteen recruits through leverage. Those twelve soldiers weren't random."
Ava understood first.
"They were being evaluated."
Elias nodded.
"Kessler was demonstrating what happens when someone refuses."
"Refuses what?"
"Recruitment."
My pulse quickened.
"Me?"
"You were approached six months ago."
"No, I wasn't."
"You were."
He described a classified promotion offer I'd received.
Special operations liaison.
No unit name.
Unusual salary.
Total secrecy.
I'd rejected it because I refused to leave Rex.
That had been Unit Thirteen.
The attack was punishment.
And recruitment.
Break the soldier.
Take away mobility.
Offer restoration, purpose, revenge.
Create dependency.
"Except they forgot Rex," Ava said.
Elias almost smiled.
"They underestimated him."
Rex leaned against my stretcher.
For the first time since the attack, I put my hand on his head.
"That's their problem."
We moved to a civilian trauma center Elias trusted.
My injuries were serious.
But not permanent.
That was the first good news.
Both knees required surgery.
Months of rehabilitation.
Doctors couldn't promise I'd return to active duty.
I didn't care.
Not yet.
Before surgery, Elias handed me a small drive.
"Everything I've collected."
"Why give it to me?"
"Because they're hunting me."
"They're hunting me too."
"Yes."
"Great family tradition."
He laughed.
It sounded exactly as I remembered.
Then his face became serious.
"The drive is encrypted. Rex is the key."
I stared at him.
"You're kidding."
"The chemical marker."
He explained that the final archive could only be located by following a scent compound embedded on an object.
That object was hidden somewhere at Fort Calder.
Rex had encountered the same marker years earlier.
"If we find the archive," Elias said, "we find the Director."
"Then that's what we'll do."
"After surgery."
"You're still my father, apparently."
"And you're still impossible."
"Apparently."
Surgery lasted seven hours.
When I woke, Rex was waiting.
So was Ava.
Hale was gone.
"Where's Marcus?"
Ava hesitated.
"Arrested."
"For what?"
"Military intelligence found evidence connecting him to Kessler's escape."
I stared at her.
"Do you believe it?"
"No."
"Neither do I."
My father was missing too.
He had left the hospital two hours earlier after receiving a message.
Nobody knew where.
Then Ava gave me worse news.
Of the twelve soldiers in Training Bay Four, three had disappeared.
Cole Mercer was one of them.
The other nine were under protection.
"Maybe Cole was Unit Thirteen," Ava said.
"Maybe."
But something bothered me.
Cole had been closest when Kessler attacked.
He could have intervened.
He hadn't.
Yet when Rex moved, Cole had been the first person to issue a proper release command.
He knew Rex.
More importantly, Rex trusted him.
Dogs didn't solve mysteries.
But they noticed things people missed.
Three days later, a package arrived.
No return address.
Inside was the black baton Kessler had used.
XIII still scratched into the handle.
There was something else.
A strip of cloth.
Rex sniffed it.
He immediately stood.
His posture changed.
The chemical marker.
Ava stared.
"Where's he going?"
Rex walked toward the hospital door.
I couldn't walk.
So Ava found a wheelchair.
Against medical advice, we followed.
Rex led us through the parking garage.
Past three levels.
To an abandoned maintenance tunnel.
At the end was a locked steel door.
Rex stopped.
Ava raised her pistol.
I held the baton.
The door had a keypad.
Suddenly it beeped.
Unlocked.
Someone on the other side had opened it.
The handle slowly turned.
A man stepped through.
Cole Mercer.
His shirt was covered in blood.
He looked at me and whispered:
"They have your father."
May you like
Then he collapsed.
Behind him, another set of footsteps began climbing the stairs.
