Chapter 11 - The Last TruthMy father confessed before sunrise.
“No.”
Mercer stared at him.
“No what?”
“No exchange.”
“Good.”
“No pretending there might be one.”
“Also good.”
“No using Claire.”
I crossed my arms.
“Stop making decisions involving my name while I’m standing here.”
He looked at me.
“Someone threatened me to manipulate you.”
“Correct.”
“So I get an opinion.”
“You get one. You don’t get veto power.”
Laura watched us from across the room.
Then looked at me.
“I like you.”
“Thank you.”
Julian sighed.
“This is not helpful.”
Mercer placed the ledger inside an evidence case.
“We’re not giving Rourke the original.”
“Then what?”
“We let him think we will.”
My phone rang.
Dad’s number.
Everyone went silent.
Mercer pointed toward the speaker.
I answered.
“Dad?”
Static.
Then Rourke’s voice.
“Hello, Claire.”
Every hair on my arms rose.
“Where is my father?”
“Safe.”
“Let me hear him.”
A pause.
Then Dad.
“Claire, don’t—”
A strike.
Dad grunted.
My heart stopped.
Rourke returned.
“Bring the ledger.”
“You know I don’t have it.”
“Your government friends do.”
“They won’t give it to me.”
“They will if Julian’s life matters.”
Julian mouthed: keep him talking.
I said, “Why Julian?”
“Because he started this.”
“You started it twelve years ago.”
Rourke laughed.
“Your father started it.”
That surprised everyone.
“How?”
“He stole something that wasn’t his.”
“The ledger?”
“Yes.”
“You attacked the convoy.”
“I protected an operation.”
“You imprisoned survivors.”
“I prevented compromised intelligence from spreading.”
Laura closed her eyes.
Rage crossed her face.
“You killed people.”
“War kills people.”
“You weren’t at war with Laura.”
Silence.
Then Rourke asked, “She’s alive?”
Mercer’s head snapped up.
He didn’t know.
Interesting.
I looked at Laura.
She nodded.
“Yes.”
Rourke went quiet.
“She’s with you?”
“Yes.”
The line disconnected.
Mercer stared at me.
“That was risky.”
“He was already looking for her.”
Laura said, “Now he knows he failed.”
Mercer’s agents traced the call.
Rourke had bounced the signal through several towers.
Final probable location: rural West Virginia.
He called again twenty minutes later.
This time he provided coordinates.
An abandoned training facility once leased by Harrow Strategic.
Naturally.
Rourke wanted me and the ledger.
Mercer wanted Rourke.
Julian wanted none of it.
Laura wanted to go too.
That argument lasted fifteen minutes.
We compromised badly.
I would approach under federal surveillance.
A duplicate ledger would be inside the case.
Julian and Laura would remain at a command position two miles away.
“Two miles,” Julian repeated.
“Yes.”
“Not two hundred yards.”
“Two miles.”
“No heroics.”
“From the man who crawled into exploding vehicles?”
“That is exactly why I’m qualified to oppose heroics.”
At sunset, the operation began.
The old facility sat deep among wooded hills.
Concrete buildings.
Broken fencing.
Rusting fuel tanks.
I drove in alone.
At least visually.
A surveillance drone watched overhead.
Agents surrounded the perimeter.
The transmitter beneath my jacket fed every word back to Mercer.
I entered the main warehouse.
Dad sat tied to a chair.
Bruised.
Alive.
Rourke stood behind him holding a pistol.
“You actually came.”
“You kidnapped my father.”
“He kidnapped himself twelve years ago when he stole from me.”
Dad looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
Rourke struck his shoulder.
“Quiet.”
I held up the case.
“The ledger.”
“Open it.”
I did.
He motioned.
“Slide it.”
I pushed the case across the floor.
Rourke picked up the duplicate.
He flipped through several pages.
His expression changed.
“You copied it.”
“No.”
“You think I don’t recognize my own records?”
My heartbeat jumped.
He threw the ledger down.
“You brought a fake.”
Outside, Mercer whispered in my earpiece.
“Hold position.”
Rourke raised his gun toward me.
Dad shouted.
“No!”
Then everything happened at once.
Dad kicked backward.
His chair struck Rourke’s knees.
The gun fired.
The bullet hit the ceiling.
I dropped behind a concrete barrier.
Federal agents breached the side doors.
Rourke ran.
Dad fell sideways.
Mercer shouted in my earpiece.
“Claire, stay down!”
I stayed down.
I had learned enough about heroics.
Gunfire echoed from the rear building.
Then silence.
A minute later, Mercer appeared.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Charles?”
Agents were cutting Dad free.
Alive.
Bleeding from his forehead.
But alive.
“Rourke?”
Mercer looked toward the back exit.
“Gone.”
My stomach dropped.
“How?”
“Tunnel.”
Of course there was a tunnel.
The facility connected to an old emergency drainage system opening half a mile away.
A vehicle was waiting.
Rourke escaped.
But he left something behind.
A laptop.
The drive contained encrypted files.
Federal technicians broke them overnight.
At 3:00 a.m., Mercer entered the command center.
He looked stunned.
“We found Mason Bell.”
Julian stood.
“Alive?”
Mercer turned the laptop.
A financial transfer from Rourke.
Recipient:
Mason Bell.
Issued six days earlier.
Laura stared.
“Mason is working for him?”
“No.”
Mercer opened a second record.
“Rourke paid Mason because Mason has something he wants.”
“What?”
“A video.”
“Of?”
Mercer hit play.
The screen showed Patrick Rourke inside the Darash command center.
Twelve years younger.
He was talking to Charles Montgomery.
And my father said the sentence that changed everything.
“The convoy has the originals.”
Rourke answered:
“Then make sure the convoy never reaches the airfield.”
My stomach turned.
Dad had been lying again.
He hadn’t merely participated afterward.
He had helped trigger the attack.
Julian stared at the screen.
Laura covered her mouth.
My father, sitting under guard across the room, whispered:
“I can explain.”
I turned toward him.
“No.”
For the first time in my life, I did what he had told me to do at my wedding.
May you like
I walked away.
Alone.
