Chapter 4 - The CaveThere are truths you spend years praying to hear.
At least according to the folded flag her mother received.
According to the memorial wall.
According to every classified file I had managed to steal, borrow, photograph, or reconstruct.
Yet there she stood.
Alive.
Scarred.
Older.
And furious.
I crossed the room before anyone could stop me.
Rebecca opened her arms.
I hit her first.
My fist caught her shoulder.
Then I grabbed her and held on like I was afraid she might disappear.
“You were alive.”
“So were you.”
“You knew?”
“Not until six months ago.”
I pushed away.
“Six months?”
Her expression changed.
“Evelyn, listen—”
“You found out I was alive six months ago and didn’t come?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone I contacted died.”
That silenced me.
Rebecca looked around the room.
“We have a problem.”
Mercer holstered his pistol.
“That’s becoming obvious.”
Rebecca placed a flash drive on the table.
“Nightglass never ended.”
Blackwood turned pale again.
“You’re wrong.”
“No. It changed names.”
“To what?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Project Monarch.”
Colonel Mitchell returned carrying a secure tablet.
“Cross’s family is being moved now.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Marine security detail. Location restricted even from us until transfer is complete.”
I nodded reluctantly.
Rebecca opened the laptop.
The flash drive contained financial records.
Shipping manifests.
Satellite photographs.
Personnel files.
And names.
Some were military.
Some corporate.
Some political.
Mercer scanned the screen.
“This could bring down half a dozen agencies.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“It could bring down people inside half a dozen agencies.”
I looked at her.
“Start from Kandahar.”
She inhaled.
“Our mission seven years ago wasn’t what we were told.”
We had been ordered to intercept a convoy moving through a mountain corridor near the Pakistani border.
Intelligence claimed the convoy was transporting radiological materials.
We deployed fourteen operators.
The convoy never arrived.
Instead, three teams of mercenaries hit us from elevated positions.
They knew our frequencies.
Our extraction route.
Our air-support window.
Everything.
“We were sold,” Rebecca said.
“I know.”
“No. You know we were betrayed. You don’t know why.”
She clicked a file.
A photograph appeared.
Metal shipping crates.
American serial numbers.
“We weren’t stopping weapons from entering enemy hands.”
Rebecca pointed toward the screen.
“We were supposed to discover who was selling them.”
Blackwood sat down heavily.
Mercer muttered, “Jesus.”
Rebecca continued.
“Someone inside Nightglass had been diverting seized weapons, surveillance systems, and prototype military hardware into private channels. Your father discovered the network years before we ever deployed.”
I stared at Blackwood.
“You said Voss killed him.”
Blackwood nodded.
“Daniel Cross tried to expose the operation.”
“And you?”
“I helped him.”
“Then why are you still alive?”
That landed.
Blackwood looked away.
Rebecca answered for him.
“Because Blackwood backed out.”
I looked at him.
“Is that true?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My wife was pregnant.”
I laughed without humor.
“So you chose your family.”
“Yes.”
“And my father died.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t defend himself.
That somehow made it worse.
I walked to the window.
Outside, Marines were moving across the flight line.
An ordinary American morning.
Sunlight.
Aircraft.
Orders.
Nobody out there understood that men buried for decades had just returned to life inside a conference room.
Rebecca came beside me.
“There were seven Lazarus tokens,” she said.
“Who had them?”
“Your father created the first one. Later they were issued to Nightglass cell leaders.”
She listed names.
Daniel Cross.
Adrian Voss.
Rebecca Shaw.
Me.
And three others.
Colonel Marcus Dane.
Dr. Samuel Keene.
A civilian intelligence analyst named Jonathan Rook.
“Where are Dane, Keene, and Rook?”
“Dane died in Prague five years ago.”
“Confirmed?”
Rebecca gave me a look.
“Nothing is confirmed anymore.”
“And Keene?”
“Missing.”
“Rook?”
She hesitated.
“Rook is the reason I came.”
She opened another file.
Video footage.
A security camera.
Timestamp: two nights earlier.
A warehouse in Long Beach.
A man entered wearing a maintenance uniform.
He moved with a slight limp.
Removed his cap.
I leaned closer.
Jonathan Rook.
Older.
Gray beard.
Alive.
He walked directly toward the camera and held up a black coin.
Then spoke.
There was no audio.
But I could read his lips.
Evelyn. Find the ship.
“What ship?” I asked.
Rebecca clicked again.
A cargo manifest.
USS Resolute.
The destroyer visible from the parade ground.
My eyes lifted toward the window.
“No.”
Blackwood stood.
“What?”
I turned.
“The ceremony wasn’t the target.”
Rebecca understood immediately.
“The ship.”
Mercer grabbed the secure phone.
“What’s aboard Resolute?”
Blackwood answered.
“She departs tonight for Pacific exercises.”
“What cargo?”
Blackwood froze.
Then swore.
“Prototype autonomous targeting package.”
Rebecca’s face changed.
“Monarch.”
We moved at once.
Mercer ordered the base locked down.
Blackwood called naval security.
I followed Rebecca into the corridor.
“Rook warned us.”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t trust him?”
“I don’t trust anyone carrying one of those coins.”
Including me, she didn’t say.
The USS Resolute sat dockside less than half a mile away.
Its crew had already been ordered to security stations when we arrived.
Captain Michael Reyes met us at the gangway.
“What exactly am I searching for?”
“Unauthorized personnel, packages, electronic devices, anything added in the last forty-eight hours.”
“We’ve already swept twice.”
“Do it again.”
Reyes looked irritated.
Then saw Mercer behind us.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Teams spread through the destroyer.
Rebecca and I headed below deck.
The smell hit me immediately.
Steel.
Oil.
Electrical systems.
Home, in an odd way.
I had started my career aboard ships before Nightglass swallowed my life.
We reached the combat information center.
Technicians reviewed logs.
Nothing.
Then Rebecca touched my arm.
“What?”
She pointed toward a maintenance access panel.
One screw was cleaner than the others.
Recently removed.
I crouched.
Opened it.
Inside sat a black rectangular device.
No labels.
A blinking green light.
My stomach dropped.
“Don’t touch it.”
Reyes called explosives disposal.
While we waited, I noticed something scratched into the inside of the panel.
Three letters.
J.R.R.
Jonathan Reed Rook.
“He put this here?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Rook never uses his middle initial.”
A chill passed through me.
Someone wanted us to think he had done it.
EOD examined the device.
The chief technician’s face became grim.
“It isn’t explosive.”
“What is it?”
“Remote access bridge.”
Captain Reyes frowned.
“For what?”
The technician looked toward the combat systems consoles.
“Potentially everything.”
Mercer arrived.
“Can it be activated?”
“It already has been.”
The room went quiet.
“When?”
The technician checked.
“Thirty-seven minutes ago.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“That’s when the helicopters landed.”
I understood.
The public confrontation.
The coin.
The dramatic arrival.
All of it had drawn senior leadership away from the ship.
Someone had used me.
Then every screen in the combat information center went black.
One second later, white text appeared.
WELCOME HOME, COMMANDER CROSS.
Nobody moved.
A second line appeared.
YOUR FATHER LEFT YOU A MESSAGE.
Then an audio recording began.
Static.
Breathing.
And a voice I had not heard since I was sixteen.
My father.
“Evelyn, if you’re hearing this, Nightglass survived me.”
My legs went weak.
Rebecca caught my elbow.
The recording continued.
“You will be tempted to trust the person who gives you the truth. Don’t.”
Blackwood closed his eyes.
My father’s voice crackled.
“The truth is the bait.”
A pause.
“The person who needs you alive is more dangerous than the person trying to kill you.”
The screens flickered.
A final sentence appeared.
ASK REBECCA WHAT HAPPENED IN THE CAVE.
I slowly turned.
Rebecca was already staring at me.
“What cave?”
She said nothing.
I stepped toward her.
“Rebecca.”
Her eyes filled with guilt.
And suddenly I understood why she had disappeared for seven years.
She wasn’t only hiding from Nightglass.
She was hiding from me.
“What happened in Afghanistan?” I asked.
May you like
Rebecca swallowed.
“I was ordered to leave you behind.”
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