Chapter 8 - THE AGENT WITH TWO LOYALTIES
Agent Mara Keene’s hand hovered near her holster.
Three federal officers immediately aimed their weapons at her.
“Hands where we can see them,” one ordered.
Keene raised both hands.
“I am not working for Elias Voss.”
I moved away from her.
“My brother just said you were.”
“Your brother abducted a federal prisoner.”
“Or rescued him.”
“Christopher Adams is a fugitive suspected of financial fraud, identity theft, and conspiracy.”
“He was also trying to protect my daughter.”
Keene looked at the officers around her.
“Check my credentials. Contact the Minneapolis field office.”
“We already did,” an officer said. “Your assignment code returned restricted.”
“Because I work internal counterintelligence.”
“That is convenient.”
Keene’s jaw tightened.
“Elias Voss compromised federal agencies years ago. Restricted credentials are standard for anyone investigating his network.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
“Because Horizon may identify corrupted personnel. I could not know whether you, your brothers, or Christopher had been turned.”
A laptop on the command table chimed.
Files from the Horizon drive began disappearing.
Someone was deleting them remotely.
Keene lowered her hands toward the keyboard.
An officer shouted at her to stop.
“If you arrest me now, you lose everything,” she said.
The deletion advanced rapidly.
Ten percent.
Twenty-two percent.
I looked at the officers.
“Let her work.”
They hesitated.
“Do it,” I snapped.
Keene moved.
She disconnected the vehicle from external networks, but the deletion continued.
“The drive contains a self-destruct command,” she said. “It activated when we entered the password.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Not here.”
Forty-six percent.
She opened a diagnostic panel.
“The command is tied to a biometric confirmation.”
“Whose?”
A prompt appeared.
WILLIAM HARRINGTON AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
“My father.”
Daniel leaned closer.
“If he is alive, the system may be contacting him.”
Keene shook her head.
“It is searching for a stored biometric signature.”
A microphone icon appeared.
VOICE AUTHORIZATION REQUESTED.
Below it was a phrase:
THE CALM HORIZON HIDES THE DEEPEST STORM.
My father’s voice would be needed.
We had recordings.
Daniel searched the files, but the system required a live response.
Seventy-one percent deleted.
I remembered my father teaching me to imitate his deep, formal voice when I was a child.
At family dinners, I made my brothers laugh by copying the way he announced dessert.
It was ridiculous.
It was also our only chance.
I pressed the microphone.
“The calm horizon hides the deepest storm.”
The computer analyzed my voice.
ACCESS DENIED.
Eighty-three percent.
“Again,” Keene said. “Lower your tone. Slow the final words.”
I closed my eyes.
I imagined my father standing at the end of the dock, hands in his coat pockets.
He never rushed.
Even when angry, every word arrived with deliberate weight.
“The calm horizon hides the deepest storm.”
The computer paused.
BIOMETRIC MATCH: 94 PERCENT.
AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.
The deletion stopped at ninety-one percent.
Most of Horizon was gone.
Only nine percent remained.
Keene opened the surviving folders.
The FAMILY directory had vanished.
Financial records remained, along with a file named ARK.
Inside was a map of underground storage facilities across Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Ontario.
One location was highlighted beneath an abandoned psychiatric hospital outside Duluth.
Daniel stared at it.
“That hospital was funded by our grandfather.”
A message appeared.
THE WITNESSES ARE HELD IN ARK SEVEN.
“Witnesses?” I asked.
Keene studied the records.
“Voss did not simply blackmail people. He may have imprisoned those who could expose him.”
“My parents?”
“Possibly.”
The radio crackled.
An officer announced that Emily’s armored vehicle had arrived at a secure federal building.
Relief lasted less than a second.
The transmission broke apart.
Then Camille’s voice came through.
“We have a breach!”
Gunfire erupted.
I grabbed the radio.
“Camille?”
No response.
“Emily?”
Static.
Keene tried to contact the escort team.
Every channel failed.
My phone rang from an unknown number.
I answered.
Emily was crying.
“Mommy?”
“I’m here. Where are you?”
“I don’t know. The car stopped. Miss Camille told me to hide.”
“Are you still hiding?”
“Yes.”
“Can you see anything?”
“Shoes.”
“What kind?”
“Black boots. There’s blood on one.”
My throat closed.
“Stay quiet, sweetheart.”
A man’s voice sounded in the distance.
“Find the girl.”
Emily covered the phone, but I could hear her breathing.
Keene began tracing the call.
I forced my voice to remain calm.
“Remember the game we play when the lights go out?”
“The listening game?”
“Yes. Tell me what you hear.”
“A train.”
Keene searched nearby rail crossings.
“A bell.”
“Church bell or crossing bell?”
“Crossing.”
“A dog is barking.”
Daniel opened a map.
The armored convoy had last reported near an industrial district north of the city.
Emily whispered, “Mommy, someone’s coming.”
“Don’t move.”
A door creaked.
Footsteps approached.
Then another voice spoke.
“Emily Adams?”
My daughter gasped.
“I’m your uncle Nathan.”
I heard her crawl from hiding.
“No!” I shouted.
But she had already called his name.
The phone shifted.
Nathan came onto the line.
“Abby, she’s safe.”
“Why are you there?”
“Because I tracked the attack team.”
“Put Emily back on.”
“In a moment.”
His voice became urgent.
“The people who attacked the convoy were not sent by Voss.”
“Who sent them?”
“Thomas.”
I stared at Daniel.
“That’s impossible.”
Nathan continued.
“Thomas has spent eleven years controlling the investigation. He kept Christopher out of prison, blocked searches of Sinclair accounts, and prevented us from learning the coffin was empty.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Thomas was not supposed to die on Dad’s plane.”
A vehicle door slammed on Nathan’s end.
“He arranged the crash.”
The call disconnected.
Daniel shook his head.
“Nathan is manipulating you.”
I looked at my eldest brother.
“Everyone says that about everyone else.”
Keene’s laptop displayed a recovered security photograph from the night of the plane crash.
Thomas stood beside the aircraft.
He was not alone.
May you like
Christopher stood behind him.
And between them was a young Mara Keene.
