Chapter 5 - The Dead Man in the WoodsI slapped Jonas Vale.
He looked old.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Not guilty.
Not frightened.
Old.
He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a bottle of bourbon.
Mom stared at him.
“You stopped drinking years ago.”
“I know.”
He poured two fingers into a glass.
His hand shook.
I had never seen my father’s hand shake.
“October seventeenth, 1998,” he said. “Northern Macedonia. Officially, I was attached to a stabilization task force.”
Mercer sat down.
Cross remained standing.
Ryan stared at Dad as if seeing him for the first time.
“What was unofficial?”
Dad drank.
“We were looking for a financial courier named Viktor Saran.”
The name meant nothing to Ryan.
It meant something to me.
My stomach turned.
“Saran financed Kandar.”
Dad nodded.
Mom whispered, “How could something you did sixteen years earlier connect to Claire?”
“Because we failed.”
My father opened another hidden drawer.
This one had a lock.
He removed a worn leather notebook.
“We found Saran. We also found something else.”
“What?” I asked.
“A ledger.”
Cross leaned forward.
“Financial?”
“Yes. Payments. Weapons purchases. Bribes. But there were American names in it.”
Mercer’s expression hardened.
“How high?”
Dad stared at him.
“High enough that our orders changed.”
Cross already knew where this was going.
“Destroy the ledger.”
Dad nodded.
Ryan looked horrified.
“And you did?”
“No.”
That surprised all of us.
Dad reached into the notebook and removed a faded photograph.
Four men in military gear.
A younger version of my father stood beside Elias Trent.
On the other side was Nathan Mercer.
And the fourth man was Marcus Shaw.
I looked at Mercer.
“You were there.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Not all of it.”
Dad continued.
“Elias copied sections of the ledger before it disappeared. Marcus argued that keeping copies would compromise national security.”
Cross laughed bitterly.
“National security. Convenient phrase.”
Dad ignored him.
“I believed Marcus.”
That confession hurt him.
I could see it.
“I thought Elias was becoming paranoid. He claimed the names in the ledger were connected to a private network using U.S. operations to move money and weapons through friendly governments.”
“What network?” Ryan asked.
Dad rubbed his face.
“It didn’t have an official name. Elias called it Janus.”
The word sent a chill through me.
Janus.
Two faces.
One looking forward.
One looking back.
I had seen that name in Kandar.
Once.
On the wall of a safe house we destroyed.
I had thought it was a code word.
“Elias used that name with me,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“When?”
“The night he died.”
Dad shut his eyes.
I continued.
“He said, ‘Janus is inside the house.’”
Cross stared at me.
“You never told me that.”
“I didn’t understand it.”
Mercer stood.
“I do now.”
He pointed toward the photograph.
“Marcus.”
Dad shook his head.
“We don’t know that.”
“We know he accessed this house weeks before the medallion disappeared.”
“He was my friend.”
“So was Elias.”
That stopped him.
Mom had been silent too long.
I knew what was coming before she spoke.
“You brought this into our family.”
Dad looked at her.
“What?”
“All these years. All these secrets. And now someone is threatening Claire because of you.”
“Margaret—”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“You let me believe she was lost.”
I stared at her.
Mom turned to me, tears gathering in her eyes.
“I thought you didn’t know what you wanted. I thought you kept changing jobs because you couldn’t commit to anything.”
“I know.”
“I pushed you.”
“Yes.”
“I said terrible things.”
“Yes.”
That answer hurt her.
But I would not rescue her from it.
Not immediately.
She needed to feel some fraction of what I had carried.
Ryan spoke quietly.
“So why recruit Claire?”
Cross answered.
“Because she was exceptional.”
My brother glanced at me.
Daniel continued.
“She tested higher than anyone in her class for adaptive field analysis. Languages, pattern recognition, behavioral assessment. She could walk into a chaotic environment and see structures other people missed.”
Mom looked almost offended.
“She hated school.”
“I hated being bored,” I said.
Ryan gave a strange laugh.
“That actually tracks.”
For half a second, the room relaxed.
Then Dad pointed to the photograph.
“Elias must have recruited you deliberately.”
“He did.”
“Because of me.”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
I remembered my first interview.
Elias sitting behind a plain table.
No uniform.
No résumé questions.
He asked only three things.
What scares you?
Who taught you to lie?
And if your father were wrong, would you tell him?
At the time, I thought it was psychological testing.
Now I understood.
“He knew who I was,” I said.
Dad lowered his head.
Cross began pacing.
“So Elias spent sixteen years tracking Janus. Then he assembled Kandar because he believed Viktor Saran’s network was active again.”
“Exactly,” Mercer said.
Ryan looked between us.
“And Marcus?”
Nobody answered.
My phone vibrated.
Another message.
This time, a photograph.
My parents’ driveway.
Taken from somewhere nearby.
Beneath it:
THE OLD MAN FINALLY REMEMBERS.
Cross moved instantly.
“We’re burned.”
Ryan headed for the door.
“I’ll check outside.”
“No,” I said.
He stopped.
“You don’t give me orders.”
“Tonight I do.”
His eyes flashed.
Then Mercer said, “Listen to her.”
Ryan looked betrayed.
But he stayed.
I zoomed in on the photograph.
Something was wrong.
The angle.
The height.
It wasn’t taken from the street.
It came from across the property.
Higher ground.
Dad’s house bordered a narrow wooded trail leading toward an old service road.
“North ridge,” I said.
Cross understood immediately.
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
Ryan grabbed his jacket.
“I know that trail.”
“So do I,” I replied.
Mom stared at us.
“You are not going outside.”
“Mom.”
“No.”
For thirty-four years, my mother had given instructions and expected obedience.
For the first time in my life, I stepped toward her, touched her shoulders, and said quietly:
“Lock the door behind us.”
Something in my face must have convinced her.
She nodded.
Cross opened Dad’s gun safe.
I shook my head.
“No weapons.”
Ryan stared at me.
“What?”
“If someone is watching us, they want escalation.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know people who send photographs from the dark.”
Mercer gave a faint nod.
“She’s right.”
Dad reached for his coat.
“You’re staying.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I was doing this before you were born.”
“And someone used that fact against you for twenty-eight years.”
He froze.
I softened my voice.
“Please.”
That worked.
Dad sat.
Cross and I went through the side door.
Ryan followed.
Cold night air hit my face.
The party lights still glowed behind us.
For twenty yards, nobody spoke.
Then Ryan whispered, “Were you really good?”
I glanced at him.
“Seriously?”
“I’m trying to understand.”
We reached the tree line.
“Yes.”
“How good?”
Cross answered from behind us.
“She was the best civilian field operative I ever worked with.”
Ryan looked at me.
For the first time in our adult lives, there was no rivalry in his expression.
Only wonder.
Then a branch snapped ahead.
We stopped.
Cross raised one hand.
A shadow moved between the trees.
Ryan started forward.
I grabbed him.
“Wait.”
A figure emerged.
Male.
Dark jacket.
Hands visible.
He walked directly toward us.
Ryan tensed.
I recognized the limp first.
Then the face.
My stomach dropped.
Impossible.
The man stopped beneath the moonlight.
Daniel Cross whispered, “Jesus.”
Ryan looked confused.
“Who is he?”
I could barely speak.
Because the man standing in front of us had been declared dead eleven years earlier.
He looked at me.
And smiled.
“Hello, Claire.”
My eyes filled.
“Jonas?”
Jonas Vale nodded.
“The one and only.”
May you like
Then his smile vanished.
“We have about ten minutes before Marcus Shaw sends people to kill everyone in that house.”
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