Chapter 6 - My Father’s Other LifeI spent thirty-four years believing my father’s greatest flaw was arrogance.
For a man with one arm, he moved faster than most people I knew with two.
Three others followed.
Julian started after them.
I grabbed his jacket.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“You’re not chasing somebody into the dark.”
“He threatened you.”
“Which is exactly why you’re not giving him a second target.”
Agent Mercer was already speaking into his phone.
“Local law enforcement is on the way.”
Julian stared toward the trees.
His breathing had changed.
Short.
Controlled.
I recognized it.
I had seen him breathe that way once when a car backfired outside a restaurant.
At the time, he claimed he had choked on water.
Another lie explained.
I stepped in front of him.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“I’m okay.”
“You could have been standing alone.”
“But I wasn’t.”
His eyes moved toward the darkness again.
I touched his face.
“Julian.”
Finally he looked back.
A minute later, Reyes returned holding something in his gloved hand.
A disposable phone.
“He dropped it.”
Mercer took it.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
Reyes grinned.
“I’ve been yelled at by professionals before.”
The phone contained only one sent message.
Mine.
No contacts.
No history.
The photographer had escaped through a service lane behind the chapel.
Security cameras captured a dark SUV leaving at 9:42 p.m.
The license plate was stolen.
By eleven, our wedding had become a crime scene.
Dad and Mom left separately.
I didn’t ask where either went.
Sophie refused to leave us.
“You are not getting murdered on your honeymoon while I go home and watch Netflix.”
“That is a very specific objection.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Agent Mercer arranged federal transport to Washington the following morning.
Julian and I spent our wedding night inside a hotel room with two armed agents in the hallway.
Romantic.
At 2:13 a.m., I woke to find Julian sitting beside the window.
Fully dressed.
“What time is it?”
“Go back to sleep.”
I pushed myself upright.
“You first.”
He smiled without humor.
I joined him.
For a while we watched Charleston sleep.
Then I asked, “Why haven’t you spoken to your mother in nine years?”
He was quiet.
“She blamed me.”
“For Laura?”
“Yes.”
“But she didn’t even know you met Laura.”
“She found out after the attack.”
“How?”
“I told her.”
He rubbed his hands together.
“I thought she deserved to know that I had met her daughter before she died.”
“And she blamed you?”
“She asked why I came home and Laura didn’t.”
My chest tightened.
“Julian.”
“She apologized later.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you forgive her?”
“I did.”
I frowned.
“Then why—”
“I couldn’t forgive myself.”
There it was.
The real answer.
I leaned against him.
“You’re carrying a lot of dead people for a man who supposedly never served.”
He stared out the window.
“I was supposed to get her out.”
“You were twenty-four.”
“So was she.”
“You were shot.”
“So was she.”
“You didn’t abandon her.”
His jaw flexed.
“I got on the helicopter.”
“Because you were told she was dead.”
“I should have checked.”
“Four miles through enemy territory?”
He didn’t answer.
“You hold yourself to an impossible standard.”
“I hold myself to the standard she deserved.”
I took his hand.
“Then find the truth.”
He turned toward me.
“Not punishment. Truth.”
Something in his expression softened.
At eight the next morning, we flew to Washington.
The Inspector General’s office occupied a building nobody would photograph for a postcard.
Gray walls.
Security glass.
Fluorescent lighting.
Inside a secure conference room, Agent Mercer introduced us to Deputy Inspector General Elaine Cross.
She placed an evidence timeline across a table.
“Over the past eleven days, our office received four anonymous packages.”
“From whom?”
“We don’t know.”
“The same person?”
“We believe so.”
She tapped the first date.
“Package one contained copies of original communications from Darash.”
Package two contained financial transfers linked to Harrow Strategic.
Package three contained the photograph showing Bell, Kim, and Holt alive after the convoy attack.
Package four was the flash drive delivered at our wedding.
Julian looked at Mercer.
“You said forty-seven seconds of video.”
Cross nodded.
She activated a monitor.
The image shook badly.
Night vision.
Three people were being pushed toward a building by armed men.
Julian leaned forward.
“That’s Laura.”
I could barely distinguish faces.
He recognized her instantly.
The timestamp showed 02:41.
Almost six hours after Julian had been told she was dead.
A voice off camera said, “Three packages confirmed.”
Then another voice replied.
“Rourke wants them held until transfer.”
Julian stood so quickly his chair hit the wall.
Mercer paused the video.
Nobody spoke.
Julian stared at the frozen screen.
“She was alive.”
“Yes.”
“He knew.”
“We don’t know whether the voice meant Patrick Rourke.”
“Come on.”
Cross spoke carefully.
“We need evidence that survives court.”
Julian pressed both hands to the table.
“Where were they transferred?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
Cross changed the display.
A map appeared.
“We traced Harrow Strategic aircraft activity during the forty-eight hours after Darash.”
Three flights had departed nearby airfields.
“One went to Germany.”
Julian shook his head.
“Medical evacuation?”
“Officially.”
“Other two?”
“One to Cyprus.”
“And the third?”
Cross looked at Mercer.
Mercer answered.
“Jordan.”
Julian stared at the map.
“Then what?”
“The aircraft was sold three weeks later.”
“To whom?”
“A shell company.”
“Owned by?”
“We’re still tracing it.”
I looked at the financial diagram.
Names, arrows, corporations.
One company name caught my attention.
Montgomery Mobility Group.
My stomach dropped.
“Wait.”
I pointed.
“That’s my father’s company.”
Julian looked at me.
Mercer became still.
Cross leaned toward the monitor.
“You recognize it?”
“My father owns it.”
Mercer’s expression changed.
“You told us Charles Montgomery owns dealerships.”
“He does.”
“What is Montgomery Mobility Group?”
“A holding company.”
“Do you know what it does?”
“No.”
Cross typed something into a terminal.
Records appeared.
“Founded eleven years ago.”
I stared at the date.
One year after Darash.
Cross continued reading.
“Vehicle import. Fleet leasing. Government procurement.”
Julian slowly turned toward me.
My skin went cold.
Mercer asked, “Has your father ever mentioned Harrow Strategic?”
“No.”
“General Rourke?”
“He called him a business associate yesterday.”
Cross and Mercer exchanged looks.
“Claire, when did they meet?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could it have been overseas?”
“My father never worked overseas.”
I paused.
At least, I didn’t think he had.
Then I remembered something.
A photograph in Dad’s study.
He stood beside a military transport plane.
Younger.
Maybe fifteen years ago.
When I was a teenager, he had called it “a supplier trip.”
“Actually…”
Everyone looked at me.
“He traveled to the Middle East when I was in high school.”
“How often?”
“Several times.”
“Which countries?”
“I don’t know.”
Julian’s face tightened.
Mercer opened another database.
“Charles Montgomery received a federal transportation subcontract twelve years ago.”
“What?”
“He provided civilian vehicles to Harrow Strategic.”
My stomach dropped.
“How much?”
Mercer scanned the numbers.
“Initial contract was approximately eight million dollars.”
I sat down.
Dad had always described his success as starting with one dealership and expanding through good investments.
He never mentioned military contracts.
Cross leaned toward me.
“When does your father say he became wealthy?”
“After 2014.”
Darash happened in 2014.
Nobody needed to say it.
The room went silent.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Mom.
Claire, please call me. Your father emptied our accounts this morning. I don’t know where he is.
I looked up.
“He’s gone.”
Mercer stood.
“Who?”
“My father.”
He reached for his phone.
I read the next message.
Mom had sent a photograph.
A safe in Dad’s office.
Open.
Empty.
Beneath it she wrote:
He took his passport, two guns, and something he has kept hidden for twelve years.
Julian leaned over my shoulder.
“What something?”
Another image arrived.
It showed an empty rectangular space inside the safe.
On the shelf beside it was an old luggage tag.
Faded.
May you like
But the printed destination was still readable.
AMMAN, JORDAN.
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