Chapter 3 - Seven Men Who Never Came Home
Nathan raised one hand.
Walter stopped moving.
Another creak sounded overhead.
Then silence.
Nathan whispered, "Behind me."
Walter whispered back, "I've been hearing that sentence since 1967."
"This time listen."
Nathan moved toward the stairs.
Walter followed anyway.
They reached the landing.
Walter's bedroom door stood open.
Nathan entered first.
Empty.
The window was raised.
Curtain moving.
Whoever had been there was gone.
On Walter's bed lay another photograph.
Seven men.
Same team.
Different day.
On the back:
YOU WERE NEVER THE ONLY SURVIVOR.
Walter sat heavily.
Nathan watched him.
"Who could have written that?"
Walter didn't answer.
He was staring at one face.
Raymond Sloan.
His closest friend.
The man Walter had watched disappear behind an explosion.
Nathan saw his expression.
"Which one?"
Walter pointed.
"Ray."
"What happened?"
"I watched him die."
"Did you see a body?"
Walter looked at him.
"No."
By midnight Hale's people had secured the house.
The six pins were taken into evidence.
Walter kept his.
No argument changed his mind.
The next morning, Hale brought Walter and Nathan to a restricted archive.
A historian named Dr. Evelyn Shaw met them.
She was seventy-four and had spent forty years studying classified naval operations.
When Walter entered, she stopped breathing for a second.
"Mr. Mercer."
"You know me?"
"I know your file."
"Apparently everyone does except me."
She placed a folder on the table.
Operation Lantern.
Walter hadn't heard the name in fifty-eight years.
His team had been sent to retrieve intelligence from a compromised coastal facility during a war Washington preferred not to acknowledge.
Officially, the mission never occurred.
Unofficially, seven men entered.
Walter came out.
Or so he had believed.
Evelyn showed them a document dated six months after Walter returned home.
Six signatures appeared at the bottom.
Briggs.
Turner.
Webb.
Sloan.
Keller.
Price.
Walter stared.
"Impossible."
"They were alive," Nathan said.
Walter's hands began trembling.
"Why didn't they contact me?"
Evelyn turned the page.
Because Walter had been deliberately excluded.
A directive stated:
MERCER MUST REMAIN UNAWARE. HIS SURVIVOR STATUS PROVIDES COVER.
Walter read it three times.
He had spent fifty-eight years carrying six ghosts.
They had been alive.
Hale looked furious.
"Who authorized this?"
Evelyn pointed to a signature.
Vice Admiral Charles Voss.
Hale frowned.
"Voss died in 1989."
Evelyn shook her head.
"His son didn't."
Nathan looked up.
"Who is his son?"
"Senator Andrew Voss."
The room became quiet.
A sitting United States senator.
Former chair of a defense intelligence oversight committee.
Walter understood immediately.
"This isn't about history."
"No," Evelyn said. "It's about whatever those pins open."
They examined Operation Lantern.
The seven men had recovered a package.
Not weapons.
Not gold.
Records.
Names.
Bank accounts.
A network involving defense contractors, intelligence officials, and foreign intermediaries.
The information had been too politically explosive to release.
So it was sealed.
Seven physical keys were created.
No one person could access it.
Walter's team became the custodians.
Except Walter had never been told.
"Why give me a key if I didn't know?" he asked.
Evelyn answered quietly.
"Because you were the failsafe."
Walter looked at her.
"If the other six were compromised, you were the only man outside the system."
Nathan understood.
"Nobody could force him to reveal something he didn't know."
Walter touched the pin.
All those years.
He thought it was simply a memorial token.
It had been a key.
Evelyn brought up another record.
The vault had never been opened.
Until someone attempted access three weeks earlier.
Six keys accepted.
Seventh key missing.
Walter.
Nathan stood.
"They need him."
Hale ordered Walter moved immediately.
But Walter had another concern.
"David Keller's son disappeared."
Hale nodded.
"Michael Keller. Sixty-three."
"Find him."
They did.
Or rather, Michael found them.
At 2:14 p.m., Nathan's secure phone rang.
A distorted voice said, "Put Walter Mercer on."
Nathan refused.
Walter took the phone.
"This is Mercer."
A man breathed on the other end.
"My father said you'd come."
"Michael?"
"Yes."
"Where are you?"
"Not safe."
"Who took you?"
"They didn't take me. I ran."
"From whom?"
Michael paused.
"Senator Voss."
Walter looked at Hale.
Michael continued.
"He has people inside the Navy."
Hale's face changed.
"How do you know?"
"Because one of them is standing in the room with you."
The call ended.
Everyone froze.
Walter slowly looked around.
Hale.
Nathan.
Evelyn.
Two security officers.
Hale's aide.
Captain Daniel Cross.
Nobody moved.
Then the lights went out.
Emergency illumination flickered red.
A gunshot cracked in the hallway.
Nathan pushed Walter behind the archive table.
Another shot.
Someone shouted.
Walter heard footsteps running.
The emergency lights returned.
Captain Cross was gone.
So was the case containing the six pins.
Hale swore.
Nathan rushed to the door.
A security officer lay wounded outside.
Alive.
"Cross took them," he gasped.
Hale grabbed his phone.
"Lock down the installation."
Walter looked toward the elevator indicator.
Descending.
Nathan ran.
Walter followed.
They reached the underground garage seconds too late.
A black sedan tore toward the exit.
Nathan memorized the plate.
Hale's security teams mobilized.
Walter stood breathing hard.
His age was finally showing.
Nathan put a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?"
"No."
Nathan expected him to mean physically.
Walter looked at him.
"I trusted Cross."
"So did Admiral Hale."
Walter shook his head.
"That's not what I mean."
He reached into his jacket.
His pin was gone.
Nathan's face drained.
"What?"
Walter searched every pocket.
Nothing.
Then he remembered the darkness.
Someone had bumped him.
A hand against his chest.
Nathan called Hale.
"Sir, they have the seventh key."
Silence.
Then alarms began sounding throughout the installation.
Evelyn appeared at the garage entrance.
She was pale.
"Hale just received an automated alert."
Walter already knew.
"The vault."
She nodded.
"All seven keys were authenticated thirty seconds ago."
Nathan looked toward Walter.
"Where is it?"
Evelyn answered.
"Under a naval facility decommissioned in 1974."
Walter stared.
He knew the place.
He had been there once.
Fifty-eight years earlier.
Nathan asked, "What happens when the vault opens?"
Evelyn swallowed.
"We find out what six men spent their lives hiding."
Walter's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A photograph appeared.
Captain Cross stood beside the vault door.
Next to him was an elderly man with an oxygen tube beneath his nose.
Walter recognized him instantly.
Raymond Sloan.
Alive.
A second message arrived.
COME ALONE, WALT.
May you like
Then a third.
OR THIS TIME, YOU'LL REALLY WATCH HIM DIE.
