Chapter 10 - THE FILE I NEVER KNEW I HAD
“I took nothing.”
Dustin shrugged.
“That’s what Victor believes.”
Operation Lantern had happened overseas long before my beard turned gray.
I wasn’t proud of everything connected to those years, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
I had not stolen anything.
Harris disagreed.
“Maybe not intentionally.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember the debrief archive?”
I did.
Reports.
Photographs.
Mission logs.
Everything was copied, cataloged, and buried beneath classifications and bureaucracy.
Harris continued.
“Briggs handled the final transfer.”
“So?”
“So one archive disappeared.”
I stared at my phone.
“When?”
“The week you retired from field operations.”
Coincidences were becoming expensive.
Rick looked confused.
“What was in it?”
Harris said, “Records connecting contractors to smuggling operations.”
Dustin whispered, “Victor.”
“Possibly.”
“And Briggs?”
“Possibly.”
I thought back sixteen years.
Boxes had been shipped to my house after reassignment.
Personal effects.
Old manuals.
Plaques.
Photographs.
I hadn’t opened half of them in years.
Then I remembered something.
A metal case.
Gray.
No labels.
Briggs himself had handed it to me.
He told me it contained duplicate training materials.
I had never checked.
My blood went cold.
“Harris.”
“You remembered something.”
“I have a locked case in my attic.”
Nobody spoke.
“I’ve had it for sixteen years.”
Harris cursed softly.
“Where is your house?”
“Twenty minutes away.”
“Do not go there.”
Too late.
Rick pointed through the windshield.
A dark sedan had entered the supermarket parking lot.
Then another.
Dustin ducked.
“Victor’s men.”
They had found us.
“Tracker,” I said.
Dustin checked his clothes.
Rick checked the DVR.
Then Dustin froze.
“My phone.”
I had taken it.
It was still in the truck.
I removed the battery.
Too late again.
The sedans moved closer.
Harris said, “Federal teams are heading toward you.”
“We’re leaving.”
I started the engine.
Rick clutched the evidence recorder.
“Where?”
“Somewhere they won’t expect.”
Dustin looked at me.
“Your house?”
“No.”
I smiled without humor.
“Victor wants the case?”
“Yes.”
“Then we give him the case.”
Rick stared at me.
“You just said—”
“Not the real one.”
For the first time that night, a plan began forming.
Then my phone received a photograph.
My house.
Front door open.
Lights on.
Someone was already inside.
Beneath the image was a message.
May you like
TOO SLOW, FRANK.
And standing in the upstairs window was Colonel Nathan Briggs.
