Chapter 3 - The Missing Colonel
I called the number.
Disconnected.
Nathan took the phone.
“Trace it.”
One of his agents moved immediately.
My father stood beside the abandoned wedding altar while technicians and federal investigators transformed the ballroom into an unofficial command center.
Tessa looked at me.
“You think Shaw is the whistleblower?”
“I think Shaw wanted me to believe he was.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
That was the truth.
Six months earlier, Colonel Peter Shaw had entered my office carrying a blue folder.
He had closed the door.
Then he had told me three contracts were being manipulated.
At first, everything he showed me checked out.
Inflated pricing.
Falsified competitive bids.
Consulting payments routed through shell companies.
All roads eventually led toward Whitmore Strategic Technologies.
But Shaw had controlled what I saw.
That mattered now.
Maybe he wasn't exposing the conspiracy.
Maybe he was steering me through it.
Nathan returned the phone.
“Burner. Signal bounced through three states.”
“Professional.”
“Yes.”
My father spoke.
“Could Shaw have sent it?”
“If he still has access to another phone.”
Tessa shook her head.
“Why tell us he's alive?”
“To make us look for him.”
“Or to lead us somewhere,” Nathan said.
I stared at the final message.
But he won't be for long.
A threat.
Or a warning.
My clean uniform suddenly felt wrong.
I looked across the room at the garment bag containing the destroyed white jacket.
“Where's Evelyn?”
Nathan frowned.
“She left with Daniel.”
“Find them.”
“Maya, they're already under surveillance.”
“Good.”
My phone rang.
Daniel.
Everyone saw the name.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His breathing sounded uneven.
“Maya, listen to me.”
“I am.”
“My mother didn't do what you think.”
“She destroyed my uniform.”
“That's not what I'm talking about.”
“Then tell me what you're talking about.”
Silence.
“Daniel?”
“You need to stop investigating.”
Nathan moved closer, listening.
“Why?”
“Because this is bigger than my company.”
“I already know that.”
“No. You don't.”
His voice cracked.
That frightened me.
Daniel was many things.
Arrogant.
Privileged.
Careless.
But rarely afraid.
Now he sounded terrified.
“Where are you?”
“I can't tell you.”
“Are you with Evelyn?”
Another silence.
“Maya, I loved you.”
Loved.
Past tense.
“Then tell me the truth.”
“I tried.”
“No. You let your mother treat me like garbage while you hid a federal investigation from me.”
“You don't understand.”
“Then explain.”
He breathed out.
“The contracts weren't supposed to hurt anyone.”
Nathan's eyes sharpened.
There it was.
An admission.
“What were they supposed to do?”
“Move money.”
“For whom?”
“I can't say.”
“Daniel.”
“If I say his name, I'm dead.”
His.
I looked at Nathan.
“Who?”
A noise sounded through the phone.
Daniel whispered something.
Then the call ended.
“Daniel?”
Nothing.
Nathan's team moved.
Within minutes they located the phone near Union Station.
Daniel wasn't there.
The device had been thrown into a trash can.
Evelyn's phone was off.
We had lost both of them.
By evening, the investigation had changed completely.
The procurement fraud was no longer merely financial.
One of the inflated contracts involved encrypted battlefield communication devices.
Those devices had failed testing.
The failures had been hidden.
If deployed, soldiers could lose communications during combat.
I stared at the report.
“They knew?”
Nathan nodded.
“Someone did.”
“And approved them anyway.”
“Yes.”
Forty-eight million dollars suddenly seemed secondary.
This wasn't about stolen money anymore.
Lives were involved.
My office at the Pentagon had never felt so small.
Tessa stood at the window.
My father had gone home only after I promised to call him.
Nathan sat across from my desk.
“There's something else.”
I looked up.
“Of course there is.”
“Your authorization appears on one of the approval documents.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He placed a copy on my desk.
There was my name.
Major General Maya Reynolds.
There was my digital authorization code.
And there was a signature that looked almost exactly like mine.
Almost.
“I never signed this.”
“I believe you.”
“Will everyone else?”
“That depends on what we find.”
I examined the date.
November twenty-first.
The day Shaw first came to me.
A trap.
Someone had placed my authorization on the contract before Shaw delivered evidence against Daniel's company.
They had been preparing to make me part of the conspiracy.
I leaned back.
“That's why he came to me.”
Nathan nodded slowly.
“Possibly.”
“He wasn't warning me. He was establishing my knowledge.”
“So later they could claim you approved it knowingly.”
My stomach turned.
Daniel had known.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
He had proposed to me four months before Shaw brought me the file.
Had our relationship been part of this?
No.
I refused to believe that without evidence.
Daniel and I had met two years earlier at a veterans' charity dinner.
He had made me laugh.
He remembered my coffee order.
He called my father every Sunday.
He had sat beside my mother's grave with me on the anniversary of her death.
People could lie.
But could someone lie that completely?
Tessa placed another file on my desk.
“We found Shaw.”
I stood.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Walter Reed.”
“What happened?”
“He walked into the emergency entrance twenty minutes ago.”
Nathan was already moving.
We reached the hospital in twelve minutes.
Shaw was under guard.
Bruises covered his face.
His left wrist was fractured.
When I entered, he looked at me.
Relief crossed his face.
Then shame.
“General.”
“Colonel.”
He tried to sit up.
“Don't.”
He settled back.
Nathan remained near the door.
I approached the bed.
“Were you kidnapped?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know.”
“That's convenient.”
His eyes closed.
“I deserve that.”
“Did you falsify my authorization?”
His eyes opened immediately.
“No.”
“Did you know it existed?”
“Yes.”
Tessa inhaled sharply behind me.
“When?”
“Before I gave you the procurement file.”
I stepped closer.
“You knew someone was framing me.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't tell me?”
“I couldn't.”
“Why?”
“Because they had my daughter.”
The anger stopped.
“What?”
“She was studying in Boston. They sent me photographs. Her apartment. Her campus. Her walking to class.”
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
“Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Vance?”
Shaw looked away.
That was answer enough.
“Charles Vance threatened your daughter?”
“He wasn't alone.”
“Who was above him?”
Shaw's breathing changed.
Nathan moved closer.
“Colonel.”
Shaw looked at me.
“I tried to protect you.”
“You steered me toward Daniel.”
“Because Daniel was involved.”
“How?”
“Money laundering. Shell corporations. He knew the contracts were inflated.”
“And Evelyn?”
“She handled introductions.”
“To Vance?”
“Yes.”
“But neither of them was running it.”
“No.”
I felt the structure forming.
Daniel and Evelyn were corrupt.
But they were not the top.
“Who was?”
Shaw looked toward the door.
Then back at me.
“I never met him.”
“Him?”
“Vance called him the Chairman.”
Nathan frowned.
“Chairman of what?”
“I don't know.”
“Name?”
“I heard one once.”
My phone vibrated.
A message.
Unknown number.
A photograph loaded.
My father was standing outside his house.
The image had been taken minutes earlier.
Underneath it were six words.
STOP NOW OR COLONEL REYNOLDS DIES.
I looked toward Nathan.
“Get people to my father's house.”
Shaw suddenly grabbed my wrist.
His grip was surprisingly strong.
“General.”
“What?”
His eyes were wide.
“The Chairman isn't threatening your father because you're investigating him.”
My blood went cold.
“Then why?”
May you like
Shaw swallowed.
“Because your father knows who he is.”
