Chapter 7 - WHAT HER MOTHER KNEWEmma refused to believe it.
Not yet.
She had spent too many years believing official stories that turned out to be lies.
She would not replace one unquestioned version with another.
Marcus dragged Mason into an unused recovery room while Emma closed the reopened surgical incision as best she could.
Mason regained consciousness midway through.
He looked down.
“You’re stitching me again?”
“You keep destroying my work.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Stop talking.”
“You like ordering me around.”
“I’m discovering it.”
His eyes closed again.
Emma tied the final suture.
“We need to get to level six.”
Mason opened his eyes.
“No.”
“My mother is there.”
“Hale wants you there.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s usually a reason not to go.”
Emma stood.
“He has my mother.”
Mason pushed himself upright.
“You’re not going alone.”
She looked at him.
“You can’t climb stairs without bleeding.”
“I can use an elevator.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He grimaced.
“Fine. I’ll climb.”
Marcus looked through the doorway.
“Police are searching active floors. We have maybe ten minutes.”
Emma turned.
“How do we reach surgical six?”
“Service corridor.”
They moved.
The hospital was waking into morning around them.
Patients were being moved after the outage.
Staff hurried between units.
Nobody noticed the rookie nurse, security supervisor, and bleeding former Navy chief slipping behind restricted doors.
On the sixth floor, they found an unused operating suite.
The lights were on.
Emma’s mother sat in the center.
Alive.
Unrestrained.
Emma ran to her.
“Mom!”
Eleanor Callahan stood.
Emma wrapped both arms around her.
For several seconds, she was seventeen again.
Then she pulled back.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Who brought you?”
Eleanor looked at Mason.
Her face drained.
“Mason.”
He stopped.
“Mrs. Callahan.”
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
Emma stared between them.
“You knew he was alive.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I didn’t know.”
“But Owen told you about him.”
“Yes.”
“How much did Owen tell you?”
Eleanor lowered her eyes.
“Enough to know danger would follow.”
Emma stepped away.
“Did you know Owen survived?”
Eleanor began crying.
“Yes.”
The word destroyed something.
Emma stared.
“You knew.”
“I thought he died later.”
“For how long?”
“Emma—”
“How long did you know?”
“Almost two years.”
Emma felt hollow.
“Two years.”
“He contacted me three times.”
“And you never told me?”
“He made me swear.”
“He was my brother!”
“He believed people would kill you!”
Emma shouted back.
“So you let me bury him?”
Eleanor’s face broke.
“I buried him too.”
“No, you didn’t. You knew he was breathing somewhere.”
“I didn’t know where.”
“You knew enough.”
Mason stepped away, giving them privacy.
Emma’s anger trembled through her entire body.
“What did he tell you?”
“That he discovered people inside the government selling identities of undercover operatives.”
“Did he create the network?”
Eleanor looked confused.
“No.”
“Were you ever in Room 417?”
Her mother’s face changed.
Emma saw it.
“You were.”
“Once.”
“When?”
“After the memorial.”
Emma stared.
“Owen brought you here?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Victor Hale.”
Mason turned sharply.
Eleanor continued.
“Hale told me Owen survived the convoy. He said Owen was injured and couldn’t contact anyone.”
“What happened when you arrived?”
“I saw Owen.”
Emma’s breathing stopped.
“He was alive. Hurt. Terrified.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That he had made terrible mistakes.”
Emma felt cold.
“What mistakes?”
“He trusted Daniel Cross.”
Mason stepped closer.
“What?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Owen believed Cross was working for Voss.”
Mason frowned.
“Owen told me Voss was controlling Cross.”
“They didn’t know who to trust anymore.”
Emma remembered Hale’s footage.
“Did Owen shoot Cross?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
“Mom.”
“I don’t know.”
A sound came from behind the surgical curtain.
Mason immediately drew his gun.
Dr. Victor Hale stepped out.
Emma grabbed her mother.
Marcus raised his weapon.
Hale lifted empty hands.
“I’m alone.”
Mason aimed at his chest.
“Good.”
Hale looked at Eleanor.
“You told her.”
“Enough,” Eleanor said.
Hale smiled sadly.
“Never enough.”
Emma stepped forward.
“Where is Owen?”
“Alive.”
“You know where?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
Hale looked at Mason.
“You still think I’m the enemy?”
Mason fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside Hale’s head.
Eleanor screamed.
Mason said, “Next one won’t miss.”
Hale barely moved.
“Site Blackwater is a Voss facility.”
“Where?”
“Forty miles south.”
Marcus frowned.
“There’s no military facility there.”
“Because it isn’t military.”
Hale reached inside his coat.
Mason raised the pistol higher.
“Slow.”
Hale removed a key card.
“Cross has been running Blackwater for six years.”
Emma stared.
“Daniel Cross?”
“Yes.”
“Why is Owen there?”
“Because Owen spent eight years trying to prove Cross survived.”
Mason’s face tightened.
Hale continued.
“You want the truth? Warren Voss was dirty. Owen was right about that.”
Emma blinked.
“But?”
“But Owen was wrong about who stood above him.”
“Cross.”
Hale nodded.
“Daniel Cross recruited Voss.”
Mason stared.
“No.”
“Cross orchestrated the convoy attack. Voss thought it was an extraction. Owen discovered the truth and shot Voss in Room 417.”
Emma remembered the video.
“And Cross?”
“Owen shot him too.”
“So the footage was real.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you say Owen betrayed everyone?”
“Because I needed to know what Mason believed.”
Mason’s eyes narrowed.
“You were testing us.”
Hale nodded.
“I’ve spent eight years pretending to work for Cross.”
Emma laughed bitterly.
“You expect us to believe that?”
“No.”
Hale pulled up his sleeve.
A long scar ran from wrist to elbow.
“I expect you to ask why Cross tortured me for nine hours after the Room 417 fire.”
Mason lowered his weapon slightly.
Hale continued.
“I survived because I agreed to become his eyes inside Harborview.”
Marcus said, “And the shooters?”
“Cross’s men.”
“The gas?”
“Mine.”
Emma stared.
“You nearly killed us.”
“Nonlethal concentration.”
Mason said, “Your dosage calculation was optimistic.”
Hale almost smiled.
“I underestimated you.”
“Common mistake.”
Emma stepped between them.
“Why take my mother?”
“To make certain Cross believed I was still loyal.”
Eleanor said, “Victor warned me before they came.”
Emma looked at her mother.
“You went willingly?”
“Yes.”
Emma stared.
“Wonderful. Everyone has secrets.”
Hale walked to the table.
“Cross knows Mason recovered Owen’s drive.”
“How?”
“There was a tracker embedded inside the casing.”
Mason swore.
“We kept it offline.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Hale looked at Emma.
“The drive isn’t evidence.”
“Then what is it?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“Owen’s final archive.”
Emma’s heart raced.
“Where?”
Hale looked at her.
“Inside Blackwater.”
Mason said, “Trap.”
“Definitely.”
Emma looked at Mason.
“My brother is inside.”
“Yes.”
“I’m going.”
Mason stared.
Then nodded.
“Then so am I.”
Eleanor grabbed Emma’s arm.
“No.”
Emma turned.
“You had eight years to keep me away from this.”
“Emma—”
“It didn’t work.”
Her mother began crying.
Emma hugged her.
“I love you.”
“That’s why I’m asking you not to go.”
“That’s why I have to.”
Mason watched.
Something painful moved behind his eyes.
Twenty minutes later, Hale gave them vehicle codes and access routes.
Blackwater appeared on no civilian map.
An abandoned naval communications station sat above it.
Underground were six levels.
At sunrise, Mason, Emma, Marcus, and Hale prepared to leave.
Before Emma entered the SUV, her mother called her back.
“There’s something else.”
Emma stopped.
Eleanor looked at Mason.
“Owen said if you ever saw Mason again, you needed to tell him one thing.”
Mason approached.
“What?”
Eleanor’s voice shook.
“He said, ‘Cross knows about the promise.’”
Mason went completely still.
Emma frowned.
“What promise?”
Mason looked away.
“Mason?”
His face had changed.
Eight years of guilt suddenly visible.
“The night before the convoy attack, Owen made me promise something.”
“What?”
Mason looked at Emma.
“That if everything went wrong…”
May you like
He swallowed.
“I would kill him before Cross could take him alive.”
