Chapter 6 - Owen Price Was Still Watching
Rebecca flew to Arizona with Mark and two investigators.
Anna Raines opened Daniel’s box at her kitchen table.
Mark touched the letters but did not read them immediately.
Rebecca understood.
Sometimes the truth could be wanted for years and still arrive too fast.
Daniel’s notebooks described Station Grey.
No dramatic torture chambers.
No theatrical villains.
Something more believable.
Isolation.
Interviews.
Pressure.
Threats framed as national security.
He was told his family would be safer if he disappeared.
He was shown photographs proving they knew where his wife and infant son lived.
Eventually, Daniel agreed to a new identity.
He spent the rest of his life unsure whether the threat remained real.
Rebecca found a page about Owen.
Owen knew I survived.
Mark looked up.
“Owen knew?”
Rebecca continued.
Owen had been released from Station Grey after agreeing never to discuss Daniel.
Years later, he secretly found Daniel.
They met three times.
Owen believed Arthur Voss had preserved the original ledger instead of destroying it.
Why?
Insurance.
The ledger implicated private contractors, intelligence intermediaries, and foreign partners.
Possessing it gave Voss leverage.
After Arthur died, Owen believed Elaine inherited his private files.
Rebecca asked Anna whether Daniel ever found the ledger.
“No.”
“Then why did he write that?”
Anna pointed to another notebook.
Daniel believed the ledger was hidden inside an object connected to Winter Lantern.
Not a safe.
Not a computer.
Something nobody would discard because it looked ceremonial.
Mark’s hand moved to his pendant.
Rebecca noticed.
“No.”
He removed it.
The silver compass rose was too small to hold a ledger.
But perhaps it held a key.
Rebecca examined the engraved R.
The lower point looked thicker than the others.
An investigator used a magnifier.
A seam.
Mark stared.
He had worn it for twelve years.
Inside the pendant was a tiny rolled strip of film.
Microfilm.
Daniel had mailed the pendant eleven months after his official death.
Not merely as a keepsake.
He had sent evidence home.
The microfilm contained only a partial image.
Rows of names and coded payment numbers.
At the bottom:
MERIDIAN / W.L. / VOSS AUTH.
Rebecca felt thirty years collapse into one second.
Daniel had possessed part of the ledger.
Mark whispered, “My mother had this the whole time.”
“She couldn’t have known.”
“I wore it through basic training.”
“You couldn’t have known either.”
Mark laughed once.
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
Rebecca understood the bitterness.
Ignorance did not feel innocent when it lasted decades.
A second strip contained coordinates.
Montana.
Near Owen Price’s home.
They flew north.
Owen’s house remained empty.
But the coordinates led to an abandoned fire lookout in national forest land.
Inside, beneath a loose floorboard, investigators found a weatherproof case.
No ledger.
Only a recorder.
Rebecca pressed play.
Owen’s voice filled the small room.
“If Rebecca Hale is hearing this, I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes.
Owen said he had spent decades afraid.
When Daniel died, Owen decided to finish what they started.
He located Arthur Voss’s private archive.
He stole the original ledger.
But before he could deliver it to authorities, Major Ellis contacted him.
Ellis had independently discovered the casualty discrepancies.
They agreed to work together.
Then someone began following them.
Owen hid the ledger.
Ellis created the anonymous package.
That explained why Rebecca was summoned.
The package was never intended to accuse Mark.
It was designed to bring Rebecca and Mark into the same room.
Mark stared.
“Ellis set us up to meet.”
Rebecca nodded.
Owen’s recording continued.
“The ledger is safe. But there’s a problem. It doesn’t only contain old names.”
Rebecca frowned.
“Old names?”
Owen explained that Meridian never truly disappeared.
It changed corporate identities.
Its successor still held defense-support contracts.
And someone currently serving on the installation was protecting those contracts.
Mark’s face hardened.
“Who?”
Owen did not say.
Instead:
“Rebecca, look at who approved Mark Reagan’s transfer to Fort Briar.”
Mark went still.
He had requested Fort Carson.
His orders changed unexpectedly.
Fort Briar placed him exactly where Ellis and the archives were located.
Rebecca asked Mercer to pull the transfer authorization.
The approving officer appeared on screen.
Major General William Cross.
Rebecca knew him.
He had risen through military intelligence.
He was also scheduled to arrive at Fort Briar the next morning.
Official reason:
To review security concerns caused by Rebecca’s unexpected visit.
Mark stared at her.
“He’s coming to investigate us.”
Rebecca looked at the recorder.
“No.”
May you like
She understood now.
“He’s coming to find out what we found.”
