Chapter 6 - The Dead Man in the Briefing Room
Barrett stopped breathing in my earpiece.
“Kerr?”
Samuel Kerr looked alive.
Bruised.
Thin.
But alive.
Vale laughed.
“You should see Chief Barrett’s face.”
My eyes went to the ceiling cameras.
They knew Barrett was listening.
“Cole,” Kerr said toward the camera, “don’t do anything stupid.”
Barrett whispered in my ear.
“Little late for that.”
I stayed focused.
“Samuel, explain.”
Kerr placed the archive on the table.
“I wasn’t killed.”
“We recovered your body.”
“A body.”
“Identified by DNA.”
“Manipulated.”
Rennick smiled.
“Our systems are wonderfully convenient when you control the right people.”
Kerr looked ashamed.
“I went undercover.”
“For whom?”
“Voss.”
That surprised me.
“He sent you after Vale?”
“Three years ago.”
“Barrett thought you were his friend.”
Kerr looked toward the camera.
“I am.”
Barrett said nothing.
Vale walked behind the restrained Sentinel members.
Ortiz glared at him.
Briggs had blood near his eyebrow.
Everyone was alive.
For now.
“You came alone,” Vale said.
“Obviously not.”
He smiled.
“You always were terrible at following instructions.”
“You always were terrible at staying dead.”
He laughed.
There he was.
The man I remembered.
Charming.
Calm.
Dangerous.
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“I don’t have it.”
“But now you know where it is.”
My expression must have changed.
Vale noticed.
“Thank you.”
Damn it.
He had been watching me.
Reading me.
I shifted tactics.
“If you knew I remembered, why bring me here?”
“To verify it.”
“You could have followed me.”
“I intend to.”
Rennick stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Vale looked at him.
Rennick didn’t like that.
Interesting.
Their partnership wasn’t stable.
“Commander Cross,” Rennick said, “you have spent your career protecting classified systems you barely understand.”
“I understand corruption.”
“You understand missions.”
“And dead operators.”
His expression hardened.
“Necessary losses.”
My anger became ice.
“Say their names.”
“What?”
“Ellis. Cho. Reed. Harper.”
Vale stopped smiling.
Rennick looked annoyed.
“They were soldiers.”
“They were people.”
“They knew the risks.”
“Not from their own command.”
Vale said quietly, “Charles.”
Rennick ignored him.
“The world you protect exists because men like me make decisions people like you are too sentimental to make.”
There it was.
Arrogance.
The kind that eventually made powerful men careless.
I let him talk.
“Selling mission routes was a decision?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Financing networks requires capital.”
“Ten dead operatives.”
“Preventable collateral.”
Ortiz looked ready to kill him with her bare hands.
I kept him speaking.
Because my earpiece was transmitting everything.
Barrett had it.
And if Barrett had it, so did Voss.
Proof.
Rennick realized a second too late.
He looked at my collar.
“Search her.”
Vale didn’t move.
Rennick turned.
“Thomas.”
“No.”
The room shifted.
“You work for me.”
Vale smiled.
“That was always your mistake.”
Kerr stepped away from them.
Rennick’s hand moved toward his weapon.
Vale drew first.
One shot.
Rennick collapsed.
Everyone froze.
Vale looked down at him without emotion.
Then he looked at me.
“I never liked him.”
“You killed my people.”
“Yes.”
No denial.
No shame.
“Why?”
“Because they discovered what Lantern really was.”
“And that justified murder?”
“To me.”
I wanted to shoot him.
But Ortiz and the others were still restrained.
Kerr moved toward them.
Vale raised his weapon.
“Don’t.”
Kerr stopped.
“Thomas.”
“You’ve played your part.”
“You said no one else would die.”
“I lie.”
Kerr’s expression hardened.
Barrett whispered, “I’m inside.”
Good.
“Where?”
“North stairwell.”
“Wait.”
“I hate waiting.”
“I know.”
Vale approached me.
“Where is the ledger?”
“Prague.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Where in Prague?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Maybe.”
He pressed the pistol against my stomach.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Behind him, Kerr looked toward the left doorway.
A tiny movement.
Barrett.
I saw his shadow.
Vale didn’t.
“You’re willing to die for a notebook?” Vale asked.
“No.”
“Then talk.”
“I’m willing to die to make sure you don’t get it.”
His smile faded.
“You always were stubborn.”
“And you always mistook that for weakness.”
The lights went out.
Barrett.
Gunfire erupted.
I moved.
My elbow hit Vale’s wrist.
The pistol fell.
Kerr tackled Briggs’s guard.
Ortiz kicked another man.
Emergency lights flashed.
Barrett entered like a storm.
Within seconds, three guards were down.
Vale disappeared through the rear door.
I chased him.
“Commander!” Barrett shouted.
I ignored him.
Vale ran through the service corridor.
I followed.
He reached the underground garage.
A black SUV accelerated toward the exit.
I fired twice.
Missed.
The vehicle vanished.
Barrett reached me.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I looked down.
Small cut.
“Not mine.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
We returned upstairs.
Kerr freed the team.
Rennick was alive.
Barely.
Federal tactical units arrived fifteen minutes later.
Voss had transmitted Rennick’s confession to multiple oversight offices simultaneously.
No one could bury it now.
Rennick was arrested under armed guard.
Sentinel was compromised but alive.
Vale remained free.
And he knew about Prague.
Kerr approached Barrett.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Then Barrett punched him.
Hard.
Kerr hit the wall.
“Ow.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You let me attend your memorial.”
“I know.”
“I carried your mother out of the chapel.”
Kerr’s face broke.
“I’m sorry.”
Barrett grabbed him.
For one dangerous second, I thought he would hit him again.
Instead he hugged him.
Briefly.
Angrily.
Then shoved him away.
“Still mad.”
“Fair.”
It was the first human moment any of us had enjoyed in days.
It didn’t last.
Grant called from the briefing room.
“Commander.”
We entered.
He had accessed Prague municipal archives.
Locker 317 no longer existed.
But the diplomatic dead drop connected to it had been transferred seventeen years earlier to an American embassy archive.
“Where is it now?” I asked.
Grant swallowed.
“Seattle.”
Of course.
“Where?”
He turned the screen.
Sea-Tac Airport.
The original diplomatic container had been relocated during renovations and placed inside a secure customs vault beneath the international terminal.
The same airport where this began.
Barrett stared.
“You hid the ledger where we met?”
“Apparently.”
Then an alarm appeared.
VAULT ACCESS REQUESTED.
Someone was already there.
Vale.
We moved immediately.
Sea-Tac was locked down quietly.
No public panic.
We entered through a service corridor.
Customs vault below Terminal A.
Barrett beside me.
Kerr behind us.
Margaret and Voss coordinated remotely.
The vault door stood open.
Inside were rows of sealed diplomatic containers.
317 sat on the floor.
Empty.
My stomach sank.
Vale had beaten us.
Then Barrett noticed something.
“Commander.”
A small envelope remained inside the box.
My name was written on it.
Not Evelyn Cross.
Evelyn Marie Cross.
Only my mother used my middle name.
I opened it.
Inside was a handwritten note.
My handwriting.
Seventeen years old.
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, THEY FOUND THE FALSE LEDGER.
I stared.
Barrett read over my shoulder.
“False?”
I turned the note over.
One more sentence.
THE REAL ONE IS WHERE MOM TAUGHT ME NEVER TO LOOK.
My phone rang.
Margaret.
I answered.
“Mom.”
It was the first time I had called her that.
Silence.
Then she whispered:
“Oh no.”
“What?”
“I know where you put it.”
“Where?”
A crash sounded on her end.
Then Voss shouted.
The line filled with gunfire.
“Mom!”
Margaret breathed into the phone.
May you like
“He’s here.”
The call disconnected.
