Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN THEY TOOKPatricia’s transport had been compromised with terrifying precision.
The federal agents assigned to move her received authenticated instructions redirecting them to a different holding location.
The credentials were legitimate.
The orders were not.
Halfway there, a vehicle collision blocked the road.
Two masked men approached under the appearance of local law enforcement.
Within ninety seconds, Patricia was gone.
No shots.
No witnesses who could identify anyone.
Professional.
At 11:30 a.m., Ethan stood in the operations center staring at traffic-camera footage.
“This is my fault.”
I didn’t look at him.
“Stop saying that.”
He turned.
“It is.”
“Self-pity is useless.”
His expression tightened.
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself.”
“Then help.”
“I’m trying.”
“Good. Keep trying.”
He swallowed whatever response he wanted to make.
Six years earlier, he would have argued.
Maybe even six hours earlier.
Now he nodded.
“What do you need?”
“Everything your mother did outside her normal routine.”
“When?”
“Last two years.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s difficult.”
He sat at a terminal.
That was the first real sign that something in him was changing.
Cross approached me.
“We analyzed Mercer’s known network.”
“And?”
“Three former intelligence officers. Two defense consultants. One retired State Department security specialist.”
“Any local?”
“One.”
He handed me a file.
Rebecca Sloan.
Former DIA operations officer.
Retired eight years ago.
Current address outside Pinehurst.
I knew the name.
“She served with my father.”
“Yes.”
My pulse sharpened.
“Bring her in.”
Cross shook his head.
“She disappeared this morning.”
Of course.
“Vehicle?”
“Found at home.”
“Phones?”
“Off.”
“Financial movement?”
“None.”
I stared at her photograph.
Late sixties.
Silver hair.
Calm eyes.
I remembered her vaguely from childhood.
Christmas party.
My father laughing in the kitchen.
Rebecca handing me a wrapped model airplane.
Another ghost from a life I hadn’t understood.
“Search the house.”
“Team en route.”
My secure phone rang.
Unknown.
I answered.
A video appeared.
Patricia.
She sat tied to a chair in a dark room.
Tape covered one side of her mouth.
Her hair was disheveled.
One cheek was bruised.
Ethan saw.
“Mom!”
I lifted one hand to silence him.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Colonel Walker.”
Not Mercer.
Different cadence.
Different pattern.
“Show me she’s alive.”
The camera moved closer.
Patricia blinked rapidly.
Terrified.
The voice continued.
“Bring the authentication device to the coordinates that will follow.”
“What guarantee do I have she survives?”
“None.”
“Then you have no leverage.”
Ethan stared at me.
Patricia started crying.
The voice paused.
“You would let your husband’s mother die?”
I kept my face still.
“If I give you the device, how many others die?”
Silence.
“You’re colder than they said.”
“No. I understand math.”
The screen went black.
Coordinates arrived.
An abandoned rural property outside Rockingham.
Cross was already tracing.
Holloway entered.
“Did we get anything?”
“Voice isn’t Mercer.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Cross nodded.
“I agree.”
Ethan stood.
“So there are two groups?”
“Likely.”
He looked at me.
“My mother is caught between them.”
“Yes.”
His face twisted.
“She won’t survive this.”
I stepped closer.
“Listen to me.”
He did.
“We are going to get her back.”
“How can you promise that?”
“I didn’t promise.”
That hurt him.
But false hope kills judgment.
“I said we are going to get her back.”
He nodded.
Then he looked toward the blank screen.
“I spent years choosing her over you.”
I said nothing.
“She insulted you, and I told you to ignore it.”
“Yes.”
“She undermined you, and I called it family tension.”
“Yes.”
“I thought keeping the peace made me a good husband.”
“No.”
“I know that now.”
Something in his voice was different.
Not dramatic.
Not begging.
Just broken certainty.
“I was a coward.”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
He accepted it.
For the first time, I felt something other than anger.
Not forgiveness.
But recognition.
Cross interrupted.
“We have movement at Rebecca Sloan’s house.”
We switched to live body-camera feed.
Agents entered the home.
Empty rooms.
Old photographs.
Books.
Then one agent called out.
“Basement.”
Camera descended.
A hidden room behind shelving.
Wall maps.
Communication equipment.
Photographs covering one entire board.
Me.
Ethan.
Patricia.
Holloway.
Vanessa.
Thomas Mercer.
And several people I did not recognize.
At the center, written in marker:
SHEPHERD IS NOT MERCER.
I stopped breathing.
“Zoom.”
The agent moved closer.
Below the sentence was another note.
MERCER BELIEVES HE CONTROLS ORPHEUS.
HE DOES NOT.
Holloway swore quietly.
“Then who is Shepherd?”
Cross scanned the board.
A photograph showed Mercer entering a warehouse.
Another showed him meeting Rebecca Sloan.
Several strings connected them to different people.
One red line led to a photograph partly hidden beneath another page.
“Move that paper.”
The agent shifted it.
General Marcus Holloway.
My head snapped toward him.
He stared.
“That isn’t possible.”
I looked back at the board.
A handwritten note beneath his photo:
ORIGINAL SHEPHERD?
Holloway looked furious.
“This is disinformation.”
“Maybe.”
“You believe this?”
“I believe everything needs to be tested.”
His face hardened.
“Grace.”
“Don’t.”
He went silent.
Trust had become dangerous.
A second agent called from upstairs.
“Found a safe.”
Inside were three encrypted drives and a paper file.
The file contained old Orpheus personnel rosters.
My father.
Mercer.
Holloway.
Rebecca Sloan.
And one name highlighted.
ELIAS VANE.
I had never heard it.
Holloway had.
His reaction was immediate.
“No.”
“Who is he?”
Holloway sat down.
“Elias Vane ran Orpheus.”
My pulse sharpened.
“You told me Orpheus was an unauthorized review.”
“It started that way. Vane turned it into something larger.”
“What happened to him?”
“Officially? Died in 2004.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Apparently nobody in this program stays dead.”
Cross searched the internal database.
His eyebrows lifted.
“Death certificate. No body recovered.”
“Cause?”
Holloway answered without looking.
“Private aircraft crash over the Atlantic.”
I stared.
Mercer died in a boat explosion.
Vane in a plane crash.
Bodies conveniently missing.
“We’ve been chasing dead men for decades.”
Holloway whispered, “Samuel thought Vane survived.”
My chest tightened.
“My father knew?”
“Yes.”
“And Mercer?”
“Probably.”
I looked at the hostage coordinates.
“What if Mercer has spent sixteen years hunting Vane?”
Cross glanced at me.
“Then Vanessa?”
“Mercer recruited her to penetrate Nightglass.”
“To fight Vane?”
“Or control him.”
Holloway’s face darkened.
“And Vane took Patricia.”
Likely.
Two rogue networks fighting each other.
Both convinced they were protecting national security.
Neither caring who got destroyed.
I checked the clock.
1:12 p.m.
The message demanded the pin at 4:00.
Mercer wanted me at my father’s grave at 6:00.
Different times.
Perfect.
“We can use this.”
Cross frowned.
“How?”
“Vane thinks I have the pin.”
“You do.”
“No. He thinks it’s physically on me.”
Holloway understood.
“Decoy.”
“Exactly.”
“And Mercer?”
“We let him think I’m going to meet him at six.”
Cross shook his head.
“You’re proposing simultaneous operations.”
“Yes.”
“Against two unknown networks.”
“Yes.”
“With Patricia in the middle.”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood.
“I’ll take the pin.”
“No.”
“It makes sense.”
“No.”
“Grace, listen.”
“I said no.”
“If they think I have it—”
“They’ll kill you.”
“They already think I’m weak.”
I stared at him.
“So?”
“So let them.”
The room went quiet.
Ethan stepped closer.
“Vanessa used me because I was insecure. My mother used me because I wanted approval. Whoever is behind this probably thinks I’m still the easiest person in the room to manipulate.”
He looked at me.
“Use that.”
It was the smartest thing he had said in years.
I hated it.
Because it might work.
“You would carry a decoy.”
“Yes.”
“You follow every instruction.”
“Yes.”
“If I tell you to run, you run.”
“Yes.”
“If I tell you to leave your mother, you leave her.”
Pain crossed his face.
He hesitated.
I shook my head.
“Then no.”
He swallowed.
“Yes.”
“You mean it?”
“If leaving her is what keeps the device away from them, yes.”
I studied him.
This was not the Ethan from the promotion ceremony.
That Ethan wanted admiration.
This one was finally learning responsibility.
“Fine.”
We planned for two hours.
At 3:37 p.m., Ethan drove alone toward Rockingham.
A decoy silver pin sat inside his jacket.
Tracking fibers embedded in the clasp.
Microtransmitter in his belt.
Tactical teams followed at distance.
I watched from mobile command.
The coordinates led him to an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by pine trees.
He entered.
Camera feed transmitted from his jacket button.
Dark hallway.
Patricia’s muffled crying.
“Mom?”
“Ethan!”
He found her tied to the chair.
A man stepped from the shadows.
Tall.
Gray hair.
Late seventies.
I had seen his photograph from 1998.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
Elias Vane.
My father’s ghost.
“Major Walker,” Vane said.
Ethan’s voice stayed steady.
“I brought what you wanted.”
“Place it on the table.”
Ethan did.
Vane examined the pin.
Then smiled.
“This is fake.”
My pulse stopped.
How did he know?
Vane looked directly into Ethan’s hidden camera.
Not accidentally.
Directly.
“Grace,” he said.
Everyone in command froze.
“I know you’re watching.”
He lifted a pistol and pressed it against Patricia’s head.
Ethan moved.
“Don’t!”
Vane smiled.
“Bring me the real device.”
I grabbed the radio.
“Teams prepare entry.”
Vane continued.
“And Grace?”
I stared at the screen.
“If you send your people through that door, Patricia dies before they cross the porch.”
Ethan looked toward the nearest window.
I saw calculation in his face.
Then he did something I never expected.
He laughed.
Vane frowned.
“What’s amusing?”
Ethan looked at his mother.
Then back at Vane.
“You think Grace sent me here to deliver a pin.”
Vane’s expression changed.
“She didn’t.”
Neither had I said that.
Ethan was improvising.
Dangerous.
“What did she send you for?”
Ethan looked straight into the camera.
“To keep you talking.”
Behind Vane, Patricia suddenly threw herself sideways with the chair.
Vane turned instinctively.
Ethan attacked.
They slammed into the wall.
Gunshot.
The camera spun.
I shouted into the radio.
“GO! GO!”
Tactical teams stormed the property.
The feed became chaos.
Then silence.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
“Status!”
Finally Ortiz’s voice:
“Vane in custody.”
I closed my eyes.
“And Ethan?”
Pause.
May you like
My heart stopped.
“Ethan is hit.”
