Chapter 6 - Reaper One Comes Home
I ran toward the chapel before anyone could stop me.
Nathan caught up.
“Rachel.”
“Stay with your sister.”
“No.”
“Nathan—”
“I spent my whole life being protected with lies. I'm done waiting in safe rooms.”
I looked at him.
He meant it.
“Stay behind me.”
He gave me a tired smile.
“Marriage is romantic.”
The chapel door stood open.
Inside, someone sat in the last pew.
Gray hair.
Thin shoulders.
A cane resting beside one leg.
For fourteen years, I had imagined Elias Voss frozen at thirty-eight.
Strong.
Bleeding.
Ordering me to run through smoke.
The man who turned toward me was fifty-two and dying.
But his eyes were the same.
“Rachel.”
I couldn't move.
He smiled.
“You got old.”
I laughed.
Then I started crying.
Not quietly.
Not gracefully.
Fourteen years collapsed.
I crossed the aisle and embraced him.
Elias held me with one weak arm.
“You survived,” I whispered.
“So did you.”
“You idiot.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“I hated myself for leaving you.”
“I know.”
I stepped back and hit his shoulder.
Not hard.
He laughed.
Then coughed until he had to sit again.
Nathan remained near the door.
Elias studied him.
“Franklin's boy.”
Nathan's jaw tightened.
“Everett's son.”
Elias smiled.
“Good answer.”
Hale and Samuel entered next.
The reunion between the three men was quieter.
Hale simply put a hand on Elias's shoulder.
Samuel looked ashamed.
“You weren't supposed to come.”
Elias shrugged.
“I've never followed instructions well.”
I wiped my face.
“Who betrayed Reaper?”
Elias's smile vanished.
He looked toward Samuel.
Samuel closed his eyes.
“No.”
Hale stared at him.
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“Samuel?”
Elias shook his head.
“Not Samuel.”
Samuel opened his eyes.
Relief.
Then confusion.
Elias looked at Hale.
“No.”
Marcus Hale stared.
“Then who?”
Elias took a breath.
“There were six of us.”
I remembered.
Elias.
Me.
Samuel as commander.
Hale liaison.
Operations specialist Lena Ortiz.
Technical officer Peter Grant.
Lena died at Vatra.
Peter supposedly did too.
“Peter,” I whispered.
Elias nodded.
“Peter Grant survived.”
Samuel sat down heavily.
“He was beside Lena when the building collapsed.”
“No. Lena discovered what he was doing. Peter killed her before the explosion.”
My hands went cold.
Lena had been my closest friend.
“What was he doing?”
“Selling operational intelligence to Wade's network.”
Hale cursed.
“Where is he now?”
Elias looked toward the headquarters building visible through the chapel windows.
“Fort Bellamy.”
Everett entered with Emily.
“What name?”
Elias answered.
“Colonel Peter Grant became Peter Graves after Vatra.”
Everett froze.
I saw recognition.
“Graves?”
Hale looked at him.
“You know him?”
“He's my civilian chief of staff.”
Everything snapped into place.
The archive transfer.
The public ceremony.
The envelope.
My confrontation.
Someone had been close enough to Everett for years to manipulate every decision.
“Where is he?” Hale demanded.
Everett reached for his phone.
No answer.
Then Emily spoke.
“He was at the ceremony.”
We turned toward her.
“He stood behind Dad during the anthem.”
I remembered.
A man in sunglasses near the reviewing stand.
Older.
Heavier.
But yes.
Peter.
I hadn't recognized him.
He had been twenty-nine when I last saw him.
Elias struggled to stand.
“He knows Margaret was captured.”
“Then he'll run,” Nathan said.
“No,” I answered.
Peter had never run.
“He'll finish the job.”
Everett looked toward the reception building.
“The civilians.”
We moved fast.
Security had already begun evacuating families.
But Peter Graves was missing.
His office empty.
Vehicle still parked.
Hale locked down Fort Bellamy.
No one entered.
No one left.
Elias stayed with medics despite protesting.
I searched Peter's office with Nathan and Brooks.
Nothing obvious.
Then Nathan noticed a framed photograph.
Fort Bellamy command staff.
Peter stood beside Everett.
On the back, written in tiny letters:
R2 RETURNS / PHASE END.
“He knew you'd come,” Nathan said.
“Yes.”
“Before the envelope?”
“He probably arranged it.”
Brooks opened a drawer.
Inside was a stack of ceremony programs.
One had my name circled.
We found a second phone taped beneath the desk.
Recent message.
TARGET MOVING TO SITE C.
Nathan looked at me.
“Who's the target?”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Peter's voice.
“You're slower than you used to be, Rachel.”
“Peter.”
Nathan's eyes widened.
“You finally recognized me.”
“You killed Lena.”
Pause.
“I've done many regrettable things.”
“That isn't regret.”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
He laughed.
“Come find me.”
A picture arrived.
Everett Shaw.
Bound to a chair.
I spun around.
Everett had been with security two minutes earlier.
Peter continued.
“Your father-in-law and I have unfinished business.”
Nathan grabbed the phone.
“If you hurt him—”
“Hello, Nathan.”
Nathan's face tightened.
“You wanted me. Take me instead.”
“No.”
Peter sounded almost amused.
“You aren't important anymore.”
That frightened me.
The entire network had revolved around Nathan's biometric access.
If he no longer mattered, Peter had obtained something else.
“What did you take?” I asked.
Peter went silent.
Then I understood.
“The archive wasn't deleted.”
Samuel had believed it was.
But Peter had initiated the deletion.
Maybe it wasn't deletion.
Maybe it was transfer.
“You copied it.”
Peter laughed.
“Still Reaper Two.”
The line disconnected.
Brooks traced the transmission.
“Old airfield.”
Site C.
Fort Bellamy had a decommissioned runway on its southern edge.
We mobilized security.
Hale insisted on coming.
Nathan too.
When we reached the hangar, Everett sat alone beneath a work light.
Unconscious.
Alive.
Nathan ran to him.
I looked around.
Too easy.
“Trap.”
Hale nodded.
Then the hangar doors closed.
Emergency lights came on.
Peter stepped onto an upper catwalk.
He looked nothing like the young technical officer I remembered.
But his smile did.
“Rachel.”
I stared up.
“Come down.”
“You always were direct.”
“Lena trusted you.”
His smile disappeared.
“That was her mistake.”
Nathan checked Everett.
“Dad!”
Everett stirred.
Peter held a small drive above the railing.
“Everything Caroline collected. Everything Elias found. Every name. Every account.”
Hale looked up.
“What do you want?”
“To disappear.”
“You won't.”
Peter smiled.
“I already did once.”
He had explosives wired to the hangar doors.
Not enough to destroy the building.
Enough to create confusion.
“I leave,” he said, “or this evidence disappears forever.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“You don't want to destroy it.”
Peter's eyes narrowed.
“You've spent fourteen years building leverage. Evidence is power. Destroying it leaves you with nothing.”
He smiled faintly.
“You did always understand me.”
“So the drive you're holding isn't the only copy.”
Silence.
Hale understood.
Security teams moved discreetly outside.
Peter saw them through a window.
He raised a detonator.
Nathan stood in front of Everett.
I climbed the first catwalk stair.
“Rachel,” Hale warned.
I kept going.
Peter watched me approach.
“You know what I always hated about you?”
“Long list.”
“You made loyalty look noble.”
I reached the upper landing.
“And you made cowardice look complicated.”
His face hardened.
He pressed the detonator.
Nothing happened.
Brooks smiled from below.
“We disabled the receiver.”
Peter looked down.
That half second was enough.
I took the drive from his hand.
Hale's security officers reached him seconds later.
No dramatic fight.
No explosion.
Peter simply stood there as handcuffs closed around his wrists.
Fourteen years of fear ended with a click.
Or so I thought.
The drive contained the full archive.
Names.
Payments.
Recorded meetings.
Caroline's files.
Elias's reports.
Enough to dismantle what remained of Wade's network.
Peter was taken away.
Margaret was in custody.
Everett was alive.
Emily was safe.
Nathan held my hand outside the hangar as sunset spread over Fort Bellamy.
Then Elias's doctor approached.
His face told me everything.
“How long?” I asked.
“Not long.”
I went to Elias.
He was sitting inside an ambulance, refusing transport until he spoke to me.
“You always were stubborn,” I said.
“Learned from you.”
I sat beside him.
He gave me a sealed letter.
“Read it later.”
“I hate mysterious envelopes now.”
He smiled.
“This one won't explode.”
I looked at him.
“Don't leave again.”
His eyes softened.
“This time you know where I'm going.”
I held his hand.
For several minutes we said nothing.
Then Elias looked toward Nathan.
“He's good for you.”
“He is.”
“Tell him everything.”
“I will.”
“No more classified wife?”
“No more secret husband either.”
Nathan overheard.
“I'm comfortable promising that.”
Elias laughed.
Then he whispered something only I heard.
“Rachel, Peter wasn't the last secret.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He pointed weakly toward the letter.
“Caroline knew.”
“Knew what?”
His eyes closed.
The medical monitor changed.
Doctors rushed forward.
I was pushed aside.
Nathan caught me.
The ambulance doors closed.
May you like
In my hand, Elias's letter had one sentence written across the front.
RACHEL—BEFORE YOU FORGIVE EVERETT, ASK HIM WHY HE CHOSE YOU FOR NATHAN.
