Chapter 3 - The Man in Seat 12A
I turned.
An elderly woman sat one row behind us.
She wasn't looking at me.
Neither was the college-aged kid beside her.
Nobody seemed to have spoken.
"Ethan?"
Daniel whispered.
I raised one finger.
Listen.
Aircraft engines.
Ventilation.
A baby fussing farther back.
Then—
"Hayes."
Not behind us.
My encrypted device.
The speaker had activated by itself.
"Do not give Price the drive."
Daniel stared at me.
"He already has it."
The voice continued.
"Then don't let him connect it to anything."
I pressed the transmit button.
"Identify yourself."
Static.
"Identify yourself."
Nothing.
Then the connection terminated.
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
"I want off this plane."
"So does everybody."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
The captain announced that we were diverting to an unspecified military-capable airport because of a "security coordination issue."
That phrase caused another wave of frightened whispers.
Daniel leaned closer.
"There's something else."
Of course there was.
"What?"
"I wasn't supposed to be in 12A."
I looked at him.
"My original seat was 7C."
"Why'd you move?"
"I didn't."
He showed me his boarding pass.
7C.
"Gate agent changed it ten minutes before boarding. Said there was an equipment adjustment."
I stared at 12A above him.
Someone had placed Daniel beside me.
Someone who knew who both of us were.
"Did you tell anyone you were carrying the drive?"
"No."
"Anyone know you were going to Washington?"
"My wife. My attorney."
"Your company?"
"They think I'm attending a compliance conference."
"Are you?"
"There is a conference."
"Convenient."
"I planned it that way."
I looked down at the silver drive.
"Don't plug that into anything."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Give it to me."
He hesitated.
"You just got a message saying I've been compromised."
"I also got one telling me not to trust the military call. At this point, I'm collecting contradictions."
He handed it over.
I wrapped it in a paper napkin and slipped it into an empty eyeglass case Daniel gave me.
Then I put that case inside my jacket.
Not my tactical bag.
The fighters stayed with us.
Twenty minutes passed.
Nobody relaxed.
I called Jake again.
This time, he didn't answer.
That worried me.
Jake answered everything.
Especially from me.
I tried again.
Voicemail.
Then my civilian phone received a photograph.
No message.
Just a picture.
It showed Jake standing outside what looked like an office building.
Timestamp: seventeen minutes earlier.
He was talking to a woman in a dark coat.
Her face was turned away.
Behind them was a black government SUV.
A second image arrived.
Closer.
The woman had turned.
I recognized her.
Rear Admiral Rebecca Sloan.
She had overseen the review after our mission.
She was also the person scheduled to present my medal.
Daniel saw my face.
"Who is she?"
"Someone I trust."
"You don't sound convinced."
"I trust very few people absolutely."
"That's comforting."
"It kept me alive."
Another message arrived.
SLOAN KNOWS ABOUT MERCER.
I typed back.
WHO ARE YOU?
No response.
Daniel looked through the window.
"Why would anyone go through all this?"
"Depends what's on your drive."
"I told you, I don't know."
"Then tell me about the cabinet."
He took a breath.
"It was in the restricted records room at our Virginia office. I'd been asked to certify a batch of archived contracts before they were transferred to government investigators."
"Why you?"
"I'm senior vice president for regulatory compliance."
"So you are important."
"On paper."
"And the cabinet?"
"It wasn't listed in the archive manifest."
"Locked?"
"Biometric lock."
"How'd you open it?"
"I didn't. It was already open."
That bothered me.
"Someone wanted you to find it."
"I considered that."
"What was inside?"
"Six folders. A hard drive. The flash drive."
"What names?"
"Most were coded."
"Most?"
He looked at me.
"One said MERCER."
Noah again.
"What else?"
"Another said ORTEGA."
Luis.
I looked away.
For a moment, the airplane disappeared.
I saw Luis sitting on an ammunition crate, laughing because Noah had burned coffee for the third morning in a row.
I saw Noah holding up both hands.
"It's tactical coffee."
Luis had grinned.
"It tastes like tactical motor oil."
They'd been alive then.
A memory can be cruel because it never knows when to stop smiling.
"Ethan?"
Daniel's voice brought me back.
"What was the sixth folder?"
He hesitated.
"HAYES."
My eyes met his.
"Mine?"
"Yes."
"What was in it?"
"I don't know."
"You didn't look?"
"I heard someone entering the archive room. I grabbed the smallest thing I could and left."
"The drive."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I had already seen enough to know something was wrong."
"What?"
He looked down.
"Your mission wasn't the only one."
My stomach tightened.
"Explain."
"There were three other operations over six years. Different countries. Different teams. Same subcontracting network."
"Halcyon?"
"Parts of it."
"What happened?"
"Extraction delays. Communications failures. Incorrect intelligence."
"Casualties?"
His silence answered.
"How many?"
"Enough."
I looked out the window.
The fighter was still there.
Suddenly, this wasn't about one bad night.
Daniel continued.
"I began comparing invoices. The same internal authorization code appeared before each incident."
"What code?"
"RAVEN-17."
"Who owns it?"
"That's the problem. Nobody."
"Codes belong to accounts."
"This one doesn't. It exists only when a transaction is authorized. Then the account disappears."
"Someone built a ghost credential."
"That's what I think."
"Government?"
"I don't know."
"Halcyon?"
"I don't know."
"Then what do you know?"
His face hardened.
"I know three people who started asking questions are no longer employed by my company."
"Fired?"
"One resigned. One disappeared."
"And the third?"
He stared at me.
"Died in a car accident."
The cabin suddenly tilted slightly.
Routine turn.
But every passenger reacted.
The captain spoke.
"We've begun our descent."
No location.
No explanation.
I looked outside.
The fighters descended with us.
My civilian phone rang.
Jake.
I answered immediately.
"Where have you been?"
"Ethan, listen. We have maybe two minutes."
"What's happening?"
"Your diversion wasn't ordered by the Pentagon."
My eyes hardened.
"Then who ordered it?"
"We're trying to determine that."
"The pilots said National Military Command Center."
"That order was spoofed."
Daniel heard.
His face went white.
"Jake, where are we landing?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
"I'm working on it."
"What about the fighters?"
"Those are real."
"Whose orders?"
"Sloan's."
That changed things.
"Why?"
"She received intelligence that someone aboard your flight was carrying evidence connected to your Syria mission."
Daniel looked at the drive hidden inside my jacket.
"Sloan knows about Price?"
"She knows now."
"Did she put him beside me?"
"No."
"So who did?"
"We don't know."
I looked toward the cockpit.
The seatbelt sign glowed.
Flight attendants were strapped in.
We were descending.
"Jake."
"Yeah?"
"If the diversion order is fake, why is the captain following it?"
A pause.
"Because the fake order included valid authentication."
"Whose authentication?"
Another pause.
"Sloan's."
I stared out the window.
Someone had copied an admiral's credentials.
Or the admiral wasn't telling Jake everything.
"There's more," he said.
"Go."
"We pulled the passenger manifest."
My grip tightened.
"Daniel Price wasn't the only passenger reassigned."
"Who else?"
"You."
My eyes moved to my boarding pass.
12B.
"What was my original seat?"
"Twenty-three F."
Daniel and I looked at each other.
Someone had deliberately placed us together.
Jake continued.
"And Ethan?"
"What?"
"There's a third reassigned passenger."
"Who?"
"Seat 14C."
I looked two rows back.
A man sat there wearing a gray jacket.
He had been asleep for most of the flight.
Now his eyes were open.
And he was staring directly at me.
He stood.
The seatbelt sign was still on.
A flight attendant shouted for him to sit down.
He ignored her.
His hand went inside his jacket.
I rose halfway from my seat.
Then the man pulled out a small leather wallet.
He opened it.
Federal credentials.
He looked straight at Daniel.
"Mr. Price," he said. "I need the drive."
Daniel froze.
I didn't move.
The agent took one step toward us.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Jake filled the screen.
ETHAN, 14C IS NOT A FEDERAL AGENT.
May you like
I looked up.
The man was already reaching for us...
