Chapter 4 - The Brother Who Died
Mercer drove.
He did not speak for the first five miles.
Jake watched the side mirror.
No headlights followed them.
“That was your brother.”
Mercer’s knuckles tightened around the wheel.
“I know.”
“You buried him.”
“I buried what they told me was left of him.”
“And now he wants me.”
Mercer said nothing.
Jake held the data device tightly.
“Are you going to give me to him?”
Mercer pulled onto an empty service road.
Stopped.
Turned toward Jake.
“If I intended to do that, you’d already be in their vehicle.”
“Then what now?”
“We take this to Cross.”
Jake looked at the device.
“If Cross knew it existed, why didn’t he retrieve it himself?”
“Maybe he didn’t know where it was.”
“But he told the waitress to trust me.”
Mercer frowned.
That bothered him too.
General Cross had been ahead of events.
Maybe not enough to prevent the danger.
But enough to anticipate pieces of it.
Mercer called the general through an encrypted channel.
No answer.
Colonel Hale.
No answer.
Captain Ellison remained hospitalized.
Mercer tried again.
Nothing.
“That’s wrong,” he muttered.
They returned to base through a secondary entrance.
The guard scanned Mercer’s credentials.
The gate remained closed.
“Sir,” the guard said, “your access has been suspended.”
Mercer stared.
“By whose authority?”
“Brigadier General Rourke.”
Jake felt his stomach drop.
“When?”
“Seven minutes ago.”
Mercer reversed the truck.
Two security vehicles appeared behind them.
“Sir,” Jake said.
“I see them.”
Mercer accelerated.
They escaped through an adjacent service lane before the security vehicles blocked them in.
Jake stared at him.
“We just ran from military police.”
“They weren’t military police.”
“How do you know?”
“Wrong vehicle markings.”
Mercer drove faster.
Jake looked at the data device.
“This thing better be worth it.”
They went to a storage unit Mercer kept off base.
Inside was an old laptop with no network connection.
Mercer inserted the device.
Encrypted files appeared.
One folder was labeled 0417.
They opened it.
Video.
Major Ethan Cross appeared on-screen.
General Cross’s son looked exhausted.
He spoke directly to the camera.
“If you’re watching this, Northbridge found me.”
Mercer leaned forward.
Ethan continued.
“The company isn’t stealing equipment. They’re selling access.”
Documents followed.
Names.
Security clearances.
Foreign shell companies.
Senior military officers accepting payments.
At the top of one list:
THOMAS ROURKE.
Jake stared.
“He’s running it.”
Mercer shook his head.
“Maybe.”
Then another file appeared.
Audio recording.
Rourke speaking with someone unidentified.
“We need Cross contained.”
The second voice replied, “The son or the father?”
“Both.”
Jake stopped breathing.
Mercer played it again.
The unidentified voice sounded familiar.
Jake couldn’t place it.
Then the recording continued.
“And the Mercer situation?”
“Aaron stays useful as long as Daniel believes he’s dead.”
Mercer closed his eyes.
His brother had not merely survived.
He had been working for them.
Jake looked at him carefully.
“You okay?”
“No.”
Fair answer.
The final file contained coordinates.
An abandoned communications bunker thirty miles inland.
Timestamped three days earlier.
Jake pointed.
“That means someone is still using it.”
Mercer nodded.
Then his phone rang.
General Cross.
Mercer answered.
“Sir.”
Cross’s voice sounded strained.
“Where are you?”
“Off base.”
“With Reynolds?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Jake leaned closer.
Cross continued.
“Rourke has assumed temporary control of installation security. Hale has been detained.”
“On what grounds?”
“Compromised investigation.”
Mercer swore.
Cross said, “Do you have the diner device?”
Both men froze.
Mercer looked at Jake.
“Yes.”
“How did you know?” Jake asked loudly enough for Cross to hear.
Silence.
Then Cross said, “Because Ethan hid it.”
Jake frowned.
“But Ethan died four years ago.”
“He visited Harbor Light often.”
“That waitress said you told her to trust me.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
Jake stared at Mercer.
General Cross continued.
“I recognized the diner. When my card failed, I suspected something was wrong. After you left, I remembered Ethan once telling me he kept insurance somewhere ordinary.”
“So you knew the device might be there.”
“I suspected.”
“Then why involve me?”
Cross’s answer came quietly.
“I didn’t.”
Jake almost laughed.
“Sir, respectfully, I’m extremely involved.”
“I mean I didn’t choose you. You chose to pay for my dinner. Everything after that was their reaction.”
Mercer interrupted.
“Sir, we found coordinates.”
Cross went silent.
“To where?”
Mercer gave them.
Cross inhaled sharply.
“I know that facility.”
“What is it?”
“The place Ethan was supposedly killed.”
Jake and Mercer looked at each other.
Cross gave instructions.
“Do not go there.”
Naturally, they went there.
But they did not go alone.
Colonel Hale escaped detention with help from two investigators loyal to Cross.
Captain Ellison, despite medical orders, provided satellite imagery.
General Cross himself remained hidden off base, coordinating with federal authorities he believed were clean.
The bunker sat beneath an abandoned relay station.
Mercer and Jake approached from the east.
Hale’s team entered from the north.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the air smelled of dust and electronics.
Fresh electronics.
Screens glowed in a room that should have been abandoned.
Jake found files detailing movements of senior officers.
Including Cross.
Including Jake.
Photographs of Harbor Light.
Pictures of Jake’s barracks.
His truck.
His parents’ house in Oklahoma.
Jake felt sick.
Then Mercer called from another room.
“Jake.”
He found Mercer standing in front of a wall covered with photographs.
Ethan Cross.
Aaron Mercer.
Eric Voss.
Captain Ellison.
Colonel Hale.
General Cross.
And Jake.
A red circle had been drawn around Jake’s face.
Beside it:
UNPLANNED VARIABLE.
Hale entered.
“We need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Motion sensors just triggered outside.”
Mercer checked the security feed.
Vehicles surrounded the bunker.
A speaker crackled.
Aaron Mercer’s voice filled the building.
“Daniel.”
Mercer stared upward.
“You always were stubborn.”
Hale reached for his weapon.
Aaron continued.
“Send Reynolds outside with the device and everyone else walks away.”
Jake whispered, “He won’t honor that.”
“No,” Mercer said. “He won’t.”
Then another voice came over the speaker.
Older.
Commanding.
Brigadier General Rourke.
“Corporal Reynolds, you’ve caused enough trouble.”
Jake stepped toward the microphone.
“You had me beaten over twelve dollars?”
Rourke laughed.
“No, Corporal.”
A pause.
“We had you beaten because General Cross told you something at that diner.”
Jake frowned.
“He didn’t.”
“That’s what worries us.”
Suddenly, every light in the bunker went out.
Emergency red lamps flashed on.
Hale shouted.
“Movement!”
Footsteps approached from the lower tunnel.
Jake turned.
There was another entrance.
A steel door slowly opened.
A man stood behind it.
He was gaunt.
Older than the photographs.
But General Cross’s eyes were unmistakable in his face.
Mercer whispered, “Ethan?”
The supposedly dead Major Ethan Cross lifted one finger to his lips.
May you like
Then he said:
“If my father is still alive, don’t tell him you found me.”
