Chapter 3 - The Thirteenth Prisoner
Evelyn moved before anyone else.
She stepped beside the door instead of standing in front of it.
Cole caught the signal and moved to the opposite wall.
General Hale remained behind the archive console.
The handle turned.
The door opened six inches.
No one entered.
Evelyn waited.
Then a small object slid across the floor.
Not a weapon.
A phone.
The door slammed shut again.
Cole stared at it.
"What is this?"
Evelyn picked it up.
The screen illuminated automatically.
A video began.
Daniel Reyes appeared.
Alive.
He sat in a dim room, looking directly into the camera.
Evelyn felt three years collapse in a heartbeat.
Daniel was thinner now. Gray touched his beard. The scar near his ear remained.
"If you're seeing this," Daniel said, "they finally opened Lantern-13."
Hale whispered:
"Damn it."
Evelyn looked at him.
Daniel continued.
"Evelyn, you didn't leave Rebecca Sloan behind."
She stared at the screen.
"You were ordered away from her."
The video cut to drone footage.
A different angle showed Evelyn's team moving through the compound.
Daniel's voice continued.
"The rescue package you received listed twelve Americans. But thirteen were alive."
Cole looked toward Hale.
"Who removed her?"
Hale said nothing.
Daniel answered through the recording.
"Rebecca Sloan discovered a compromised intelligence network operating inside our own government. She was captured before she could identify everyone involved."
Evelyn gripped the phone.
"Somebody decided leaving her in enemy custody was safer than bringing her home."
The image changed.
An authorization order appeared.
Most names were blacked out.
Except one.
MARCUS HALE.
Evelyn slowly raised her eyes.
The general closed his eyes.
Cole whispered:
"Sir?"
Hale looked suddenly older.
"I can explain."
Evelyn held up a hand.
Daniel's video continued.
"Hale signed the order."
The room turned colder.
"But he didn't create it."
Evelyn looked at the screen again.
Daniel leaned closer to the camera.
"If Hale is still alive, make him tell you about Director Gray."
The video ended.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Evelyn looked at Hale.
"Who is Director Gray?"
Hale sat down.
"Thomas Gray."
Cole shook his head.
"Deputy Director Thomas Gray?"
"At the time, yes."
"He retired."
Hale looked at Evelyn.
"Officially."
Evelyn crossed her arms.
"Start talking."
Hale did.
Three years earlier, Rebecca Sloan had discovered unauthorized intelligence transfers from highly classified systems. Information about American field assets was being passed through private contractors to foreign intermediaries.
She identified several participants.
Before she could deliver the evidence, her vehicle exploded.
Her death was announced.
But Rebecca wasn't dead.
She had been abducted.
"Gray told us she had defected," Hale said.
"You believed him?"
"I believed the evidence I was shown."
"And when Lantern found her alive?"
Hale looked ashamed.
"I received an order stating Sloan had been compromised and posed an immediate counterintelligence threat."
"So you ordered us to leave her."
"I ordered you to recover the twelve names on your package."
"That's the same thing."
"Yes."
Evelyn's voice hardened.
"And Daniel?"
Hale looked at the phone.
"He discovered the discrepancy."
A terrible understanding moved through Evelyn.
"Daniel knew Rebecca was there."
"Yes."
"That night?"
"Not until the extraction."
Evelyn remembered him grabbing her at the blue door.
We have twelve. That's the package.
Had he been protecting her?
Or stopping her?
"Why did I watch him die?"
Hale hesitated.
"You didn't."
Evelyn's face went blank.
Cole whispered:
"What?"
"The explosion you saw destroyed Daniel's vehicle. But he had exited seconds earlier."
Evelyn stepped closer.
"You knew?"
"Not immediately."
"When did you learn?"
"Two weeks later."
Three years.
Three years of believing she'd watched her friend die.
"You let me think he was dead."
"I was trying to keep him alive."
"From Gray?"
"From everyone."
The anger Evelyn had suppressed all day finally surfaced.
"You don't protect someone by destroying everyone who cares about them."
Hale accepted the blow without answering.
The lights returned.
The archive system rebooted.
Cole looked toward the door.
"Whoever dropped this phone can access secure corridors."
Evelyn picked it up again.
A message appeared.
COME ALONE.
Beneath it was an address.
An abandoned warehouse twenty miles outside the base.
Hale immediately said:
"No."
Evelyn looked at him.
"If Daniel is there—"
"It's a trap."
"Probably."
"Then you're not going."
Evelyn slipped the phone into her pocket.
Hale laughed once without humor.
"I remember that expression."
"What expression?"
"The one you had before disobeying the abort order."
Cole almost smiled.
Evelyn didn't.
"I need the truth."
"So do I."
"You had three years."
That silenced Hale.
Evelyn left.
Cole followed her into the corridor.
"You're going, aren't you?"
"Go home, Captain."
"No."
She stopped.
"This is not your fight."
Cole looked at her.
"Maybe not. But this morning I humiliated you because I thought experience was something a person had to advertise."
Evelyn waited.
"I was wrong."
"That doesn't mean you need to follow me into a trap."
"No. But I'm still your captain in this command structure, and I'm not letting one of my officers walk into an unsecured location alone."
Evelyn almost laughed.
"You were calling me inexperienced six hours ago."
"Today has been educational."
Against her better judgment, she nodded.
"Fine."
They left in separate vehicles.
The warehouse stood beside an abandoned rail yard.
No lights.
No visible vehicles.
Evelyn entered first.
Cole remained ten yards behind.
Inside, a single lamp illuminated a folding table.
A man stood beside it.
Evelyn stopped.
Daniel Reyes turned around.
For three years she had remembered his face through smoke.
Now he stood ten feet away.
Alive.
"Evelyn."
She crossed the distance and struck him.
Hard.
Cole blinked.
Daniel rubbed his jaw.
"I deserved that."
She hit him again.
"Probably that too."
Then Evelyn grabbed him and pulled him into an embrace.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
When she stepped back, tears stood in her eyes.
"You let me bury you."
"I know."
"I spoke at your memorial."
"I watched it."
Her expression changed.
"You watched?"
"From a safe house."
She nearly hit him again.
Daniel raised both hands.
"Before you do that, we don't have much time."
Cole stepped forward.
Daniel studied him.
"Who's Captain America?"
Cole frowned.
"Evelyn's new admirer?"
"Absolutely not," Evelyn and Cole said simultaneously.
Daniel almost smiled.
Then his face became serious.
"Rebecca Sloan is alive."
Evelyn stared at him.
"Where?"
"Until yesterday, I knew."
"What happened yesterday?"
"Gray moved her."
"Why now?"
"Because someone accessed Lantern."
Evelyn's eyes narrowed.
"You accessed Lantern."
"Once."
"The logs showed four sessions."
Daniel's face changed.
"I only logged in once."
Cole looked at Evelyn.
"Then who made the other three?"
Daniel stepped toward the table.
He unfolded a map.
Three red circles marked locations.
"The twelve people you rescued are being watched."
"By Gray?"
"We think so."
"We?"
Daniel hesitated.
"A small group that's been trying to expose the network."
"Who?"
"People who still remember what oath they took."
Evelyn didn't appreciate the dramatic answer.
"Names."
"Later."
"Now."
Daniel pointed at the map.
"Three of the twelve have disappeared."
Evelyn went cold.
"When?"
"Past month."
"Why wasn't I told?"
"Because officials classified each disappearance separately."
Cole leaned over the map.
"Making sure nobody connected them."
"Exactly."
Evelyn looked at Daniel.
"And Rebecca?"
"She has the original evidence."
"Evidence of what?"
Daniel met her eyes.
"Gray didn't just sell intelligence."
He paused.
"He arranged operations to fail."
Cole stopped moving.
"What?"
"Operations that benefited certain contractors, certain politicians, certain foreign interests."
Evelyn stared at him.
"Lantern?"
Daniel nodded.
"The twelve Americans weren't captured by accident."
The warehouse suddenly felt very quiet.
"Their convoy route had been leaked."
"By Gray?"
"Through someone close enough to know the exact schedule."
Evelyn thought of everyone involved.
Planning staff.
Commanders.
Intelligence personnel.
Hale.
Daniel.
And herself.
"Why keep Rebecca alive?"
"Because she encrypted the evidence. Gray needs her to unlock it."
"Then why hasn't he killed her afterward?"
"He plans to."
Daniel looked at his watch.
"And unless we move fast, he may already have."
A vehicle stopped outside.
All three froze.
Daniel turned off the lamp.
Darkness.
Footsteps approached.
Cole whispered:
"Friends?"
Daniel drew a handgun.
"No."
The warehouse side door opened.
A flashlight beam cut through the dark.
Then another.
Evelyn moved behind a concrete pillar.
Three men entered.
One spoke quietly into a radio.
"Target confirmed."
Evelyn looked toward Daniel.
He mouthed:
Back exit.
They moved.
A shot cracked.
Metal sparked above Evelyn.
Cole ducked.
Daniel returned fire.
They reached the rear corridor.
Evelyn shoved open the emergency door.
Outside was another black SUV.
Engine running.
The driver's door stood open.
Nobody inside.
Daniel stopped.
"That's mine."
Evelyn looked through the windshield.
A white envelope rested on the dashboard.
Her name was written on it.
EVELYN HART.
She grabbed it.
Inside was a photograph.
General Marcus Hale stood beside Thomas Gray.
The timestamp was from three days earlier.
On the back:
HALE NEVER STOPPED WORKING FOR HIM.
Cole stared at it.
Daniel whispered:
"I didn't know about this."
Evelyn looked toward the distant road.
Her phone rang.
General Hale.
She answered.
"Evelyn, listen carefully."
She said nothing.
"I know where Rebecca Sloan is."
Evelyn gripped the photograph.
"How?"
Hale's voice became urgent.
"Because Gray just contacted me."
"Why would he contact you?"
A long pause.
Then Hale said:
"Because he wants me to trade you for her."
Evelyn's face hardened.
May you like
Before she could respond, Hale added:
"And Evelyn... he's sitting in my office right now."
