Chapter 2 - The Man on the Security Camera
At 1:57 p.m., Cole Barrett walked into Sentinel headquarters exactly three minutes early.
I was waiting.
He wore a dark tactical shirt, utility pants, and the same black watch I had seen in the airport lounge.
That watch bothered me.
I stood inside the briefing room while six other members of Task Group Sentinel took their seats.
Captain Lena Ortiz, intelligence.
Major Aaron Briggs, operations.
Staff Sergeant Marcus Hale, communications.
Lieutenant Noah Grant, surveillance.
Dr. Rebecca Sloan, behavioral analysis.
And Barrett.
He noticed me immediately.
The arrogance from the airport had vanished.
“Commander.”
“Chief.”
He remained standing.
“I owe you an apology.”
Every person in the room became suddenly fascinated with not looking at us.
“Sit down,” I said.
“I’d rather say it first.”
I waited.
Barrett took a breath.
“What I did this morning was unacceptable. I made an assumption. I escalated unnecessarily. I put my hands on you without justification.”
No excuses.
Interesting.
“I embarrassed the uniform,” he continued. “And myself.”
“Yes, you did.”
His jaw moved slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
I studied him.
Some apologies were attempts to escape consequences.
This one didn’t sound like that.
“Accepted,” I said.
Several heads lifted.
Barrett seemed surprised too.
“That doesn’t mean forgotten.”
“Understood.”
“And if you ever grab me again without permission, you’ll discover whether those stories about me are exaggerated.”
A tiny smile threatened the corner of Ortiz’s mouth.
Barrett nodded.
“Understood, Commander.”
“Sit.”
He did.
Mercer entered and locked the door.
A digital map appeared on the wall.
I began the briefing.
“Sentinel exists because somebody has been compromising classified special operations networks for at least eighteen months.”
Nobody moved.
I clicked the remote.
Names appeared.
Seven American operatives.
Two British.
One Canadian.
Every one of them dead.
“All ten casualties occurred after mission information was exposed,” I said. “Different locations. Different units. Different communication systems.”
Briggs leaned forward.
“You’re saying we have a mole.”
“I’m saying somebody knows things they shouldn’t.”
Another image appeared.
A burned safe house.
“Four months ago, an extraction team entered this building outside Kraków. The enemy was waiting.”
Next.
An overturned vehicle.
“Six weeks later, a convoy in Jordan was rerouted onto a road containing a buried explosive.”
Next.
A photograph of a man.
“This is CIA field officer Samuel Kerr.”
Barrett’s posture changed.
I noticed.
“Kerr disappeared eleven days ago,” I continued. “He was investigating the breaches.”
“Was?” Ortiz asked.
“His body was recovered yesterday.”
Silence.
Barrett stared at Kerr’s photograph.
“You knew him,” I said.
Everyone looked at Barrett.
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Chief?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“We worked together in Syria.”
“How long?”
“Eight months.”
“You were friends?”
Barrett looked at the table.
“Yes.”
That explained something.
Someone hadn’t placed Barrett on Sentinel randomly.
Samuel Kerr.
I changed slides.
A black encrypted drive appeared.
“Before Kerr died, he transmitted part of a file.”
“What file?” Grant asked.
“We don’t know. The transmission corrupted.”
I walked toward the screen.
“One fragment survived.”
A code appeared.
17-CROSS.
My surname.
And the same number stamped on Barrett’s airport folder.
Seventeen.
Briggs stared at me.
“Commander?”
“I don’t know what it means.”
That was the truth.
Mercer watched me carefully.
I continued.
“This operation begins internally. No external communication. Nobody discusses Sentinel outside this room.”
Barrett raised his hand slightly.
“Even command?”
“Especially command.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Someone inserted you onto this team using executive authorization,” I said.
Every head turned toward him.
Barrett slowly sat straighter.
“I didn’t request this assignment.”
“I know.”
“Then who did?”
“That’s one of the questions we’re answering.”
He looked at Mercer.
Mercer shook his head.
Barrett leaned back.
“So somebody wanted me here.”
“Yes.”
“And somebody apparently wanted you to notice.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
I clicked the remote again.
The airport security image appeared.
Barrett walking through Sentinel headquarters at 11:08 that morning.
Barrett stared.
“What the hell?”
“Where were you at 11:08?”
“Sea-Tac.”
“Can anyone verify?”
“About fifty people.”
“Including me.”
He stood.
“That isn’t me.”
“It looks like you.”
“I can see that.”
“The credential used to enter belonged to me.”
His anger vanished.
Now he understood.
Someone had copied both of us.
My clearance.
His appearance.
“What did he do inside?” Barrett asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
Hale answered from his laptop.
“He bypassed internal tracking.”
“How long was he inside?”
“Twelve minutes.”
Barrett looked at the security photograph again.
“Show me his wrist.”
I enlarged it.
The watch.
Barrett removed his own.
“Look at the bezel.”
I stepped closer.
A narrow scratch ran diagonally across his watch face.
The man in the photograph had no scratch.
Small detail.
Good observation.
“When did yours get scratched?” I asked.
“Three years ago.”
“Where?”
“Mosul.”
“Can anyone verify?”
He looked irritated.
“Kerr could.”
The room became quiet again.
I handed the watch back.
“Then whoever impersonated you didn’t know everything.”
Barrett sat down.
For the first time since the airport, we were thinking in the same direction.
Someone wanted suspicion placed on him.
And someone wanted my credentials implicated.
That meant the message from the airport was correct.
Barrett wasn’t my real problem.
He was bait.
After the briefing, I assigned teams.
Ortiz and Hale would audit network traffic.
Grant would reconstruct surveillance footage.
Briggs would review personnel access.
Barrett would come with me.
He frowned.
“Where?”
“The room you supposedly entered.”
Sentinel headquarters occupied an unmarked government building near Tacoma.
The secure lower level required biometric access.
My palm opened the steel door.
Inside was a narrow corridor.
Barrett walked beside me.
“You really believe I wasn’t here?”
“If I believed you were, you’d already be in custody.”
“That’s reassuring.”
“Don’t get comfortable.”
We reached the archive room.
The lock had been opened at 11:11.
I entered first.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Metal cabinets.
Secure terminals.
Document safes.
Barrett scanned the room.
“What would someone want?”
“Anything.”
He walked slowly along the cabinets.
Then stopped.
“Commander.”
I joined him.
A narrow dust line showed where something had recently been removed from the top shelf.
A box.
Approximately twelve inches wide.
I checked the inventory.
Archive package 6A.
Classification: Obsidian.
My stomach tightened.
“What?” Barrett asked.
“I know what was inside.”
He waited.
I hadn’t seen that file in nine years.
I had hoped never to see it again.
“Operation Lantern.”
Barrett’s expression changed.
He had heard the name.
Most special operators had heard rumors.
Very few knew what actually happened.
Lantern had been my mission.
My team.
My failure.
Seven operators entered northern Iraq.
Three returned.
I was one of them.
“What did the archive contain?” Barrett asked.
“Everything.”
“Mission reports?”
“Yes.”
“Names?”
“Yes.”
“Identities?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the empty shelf.
“And somebody took it.”
I nodded.
My phone vibrated.
A secure internal alert.
Grant.
We found another camera angle.
I opened the video.
The man impersonating Barrett entered the archive corridor.
For three seconds, his face was visible.
Then he looked directly into the camera.
Barrett leaned closer.
“That isn’t me.”
“No.”
The resemblance was extraordinary.
Same haircut.
Same build.
Similar jaw.
But not identical.
The impostor smiled.
Then he held something toward the camera.
A photograph.
Grant enhanced the frame.
My heart stopped.
It showed seven people standing beside a military helicopter.
Operation Lantern.
My old team.
Four of them were dead.
Three survived.
Me.
Daniel Rourke.
And—
Barrett pointed.
“Who is that?”
I stared at the third survivor.
A man I hadn’t seen for nine years.
Someone officially declared dead six months after Lantern.
“Thomas Vale,” I whispered.
Barrett looked at me.
“You said three survived.”
“We did.”
“But he’s dead.”
“He’s supposed to be.”
The archive door suddenly locked behind us.
Barrett spun.
The lights went out.
Emergency red illumination filled the room.
My phone lost signal.
Barrett moved toward the door.
“Someone triggered lockdown.”
A speaker crackled overhead.
Static.
Then a male voice filled the room.
“Hello, Evelyn.”
I froze.
Nine years disappeared in an instant.
I knew that voice.
Barrett looked at me.
“Who is it?”
The speaker clicked again.
The man laughed softly.
May you like
Then he said:
“You should have made sure I was dead.”
