Chapter 3 - Site 17
I drew the pistol from the kitchen drawer before the door opened.
General Shaw stepped inside and immediately saw the weapon.
He stopped.
“Put that down.”
“Tell me about Site 17.”
His expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“Who contacted you?”
I held up Thomas’s letter.
“Wrong question.”
He closed the door behind him.
Daniel emerged from the guest room, also armed.
Shaw looked between us.
“You both need to understand that the person feeding you information may be Halcyon.”
“Then give me the truth before they do.”
He stared at me for a long moment.
Then slowly removed his sidearm and placed it on the entry table.
“Site 17 was a Halcyon relay station.”
I lowered my pistol slightly.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you redirect us?”
“Because Thomas warned me the building was rigged.”
“Who was inside?”
Shaw looked away.
“General.”
“Elias Ward’s former intelligence partner.”
My grip tightened.
“Name.”
“Samuel Kane.”
I knew that name.
Everyone in military intelligence did.
Kane later became deputy director of a major private defense consortium.
He retired as a national hero.
He had delivered the keynote speech at my father’s memorial.
“You’re telling me Kane worked for Halcyon?”
“I’m telling you he helped build it.”
“Did he die at Site 17?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Shaw sat down.
“People Halcyon wanted erased.”
The story unfolded slowly.
Site 17 had contained servers documenting two decades of illegal operations.
Thomas intended to expose them.
Shaw had been part of his plan.
Victor Hale’s father, Robert Hale, had handled legal channels.
Samuel Kane discovered the plan.
Hours before my unit arrived, Halcyon moved the data.
Then the building exploded.
Seventeen people were listed as dead.
Only twelve bodies were recovered.
“What happened to Kane?”
“He disappeared for six months.”
“And then?”
“Returned with a new position and federal protection.”
“Why didn’t you expose him?”
“We tried.”
“We?”
“Thomas. Me. Your mother.”
I looked toward the photograph on my phone.
“That explains why she was there.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she believes talking gets people killed.”
After Elias, Thomas, and the threats against me, I could understand how that belief formed.
I still could not forgive what she had done.
Not yet.
Daniel asked, “What does the number 7314 mean?”
Shaw’s face tightened.
“Vault location.”
“Where?”
“Fort Bellamy.”
The brass key suddenly mattered.
Fort Bellamy was a decommissioned military intelligence facility two hours west.
Closed for nineteen years.
Or supposedly closed.
Shaw looked at me.
“Thomas must have put something there.”
“The ledger?”
“Possibly.”
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
DON’T GO TO BELLAMY WITH SHAW.
I showed Daniel.
Not Shaw.
Shaw noticed.
“You received another message.”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
“That someone really wants me confused.”
He almost smiled.
“Welcome to counterintelligence.”
But I had learned something.
Whoever was texting knew about the key.
That meant either they were watching us, or they knew Thomas’s plan.
Both possibilities were dangerous.
By morning, Agent Cole arranged transportation.
I refused.
If Halcyon had compromised federal channels once, I was not handing them our route.
Daniel drove.
I made Shaw ride separately with Cole.
My mother asked to come.
I said no.
She did not argue.
Before I left, she touched my arm.
“Rebecca.”
I stopped.
“Thomas loved you more than anything.”
I looked at her.
“Then why did he leave me a mystery instead of the truth?”
“Because the truth killed almost everyone who touched it.”
Two hours later, Fort Bellamy appeared beyond a rusted perimeter fence.
The facility looked abandoned.
Broken windows.
Weeds growing through asphalt.
Old guard towers.
Yet the front gate opened electronically.
That was the first warning.
The second was the power.
Inside, lights glowed behind supposedly dead buildings.
Cole called for backup.
No signal.
Porter checked his phone.
Nothing.
Shaw swore.
“Jammer.”
We moved carefully.
Building C housed the old intelligence archives.
Room 7314 was underground.
The brass key fit an elevator control panel.
The elevator descended farther than the old blueprints showed.
When the doors opened, cold white lighting illuminated a narrow corridor.
At the end stood a steel vault.
No keypad.
Just a keyhole.
I inserted Thomas’s key.
The door unlocked.
Inside were shelves of paper files.
Hard drives.
Photographs.
Boxes.
And one chair.
Someone sat in it.
I raised my weapon.
The man lifted both hands.
He was thin.
Gray-haired.
Late sixties.
A scar crossed his jaw.
Shaw whispered, “My God.”
I looked at him.
“You know him?”
The man smiled sadly.
“He should.”
He stood slowly.
“Rebecca Mercer.”
I kept the pistol aimed.
“Who are you?”
“Samuel Kane.”
Everything inside me went cold.
Shaw drew his weapon.
Kane laughed.
“Nathaniel. Still dramatic.”
“You’re under arrest.”
“No, I’m not.”
Agent Cole raised her badge.
“Yes, you are.”
Kane looked amused.
“Agent Cole, your authorization was revoked six minutes ago.”
Her radio crackled.
A voice ordered her to stand down.
She stared at the device.
Kane smiled.
“Halcyon did not survive by hiding in basements.”
I stepped forward.
“Did you kill Elias Ward?”
His expression shifted.
“No.”
“Thomas?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Someone who has been standing much closer to you.”
I thought of my mother.
Victor.
Shaw.
Daniel.
Kane walked toward a metal table.
Shaw shouted, “Stop.”
Kane stopped.
“There is a drive there,” he said. “Thomas left it for her.”
I saw it.
A black drive.
My name handwritten across the label.
REBECCA.
I picked it up.
Kane said, “Before you watch it, understand something. Thomas spent thirty years trying to protect you from the wrong person.”
Shaw stepped forward.
“You don’t get to rewrite history.”
Kane’s eyes hardened.
“You’re the one who rewrote it.”
I looked at Shaw.
“What does he mean?”
Shaw said nothing.
Kane nodded toward the drive.
“Play it.”
There was an old laptop on the table.
I inserted the drive.
One video file.
THOMAS_FINAL.
I clicked.
My father appeared on the screen.
Older.
Tired.
Alive.
Recorded eleven days before his death.
“Becca,” he began, “if you found this, then Nathaniel Shaw brought you to Bellamy.”
Shaw froze.
My father continued.
“That means he still believes he is protecting you.”
I looked at Shaw.
His face had gone white.
Thomas leaned toward the camera.
“But Nathaniel has never known the whole truth.”
Static interrupted the recording.
The image returned.
“If Samuel Kane is alive, listen to him. He did not betray Elias.”
I stared at Kane.
Shaw whispered, “Thomas, what did you do?”
The video continued.
“The person who betrayed Elias was the person who gave Halcyon access to his final flight plan.”
My mother’s face flashed through my mind.
Thomas took a breath.
“And that person was—”
The screen went black.
The power died.
A gunshot exploded in the corridor.
Agent Porter fell.
May you like
Then a woman screamed my name from outside the vault.
It was my mother.
