Chapter 8 - The Threat Leads Back Inside
The message was traced through disposable relays.
No useful origin.
But the photograph contained clues.
A painted cinderblock wall.
A yellow safety stripe.
A partial equipment label.
Rebecca enlarged it.
Fort Briar property code.
Ellis was somewhere on the installation.
Mercer locked down selected facilities without announcing why.
Cross objected immediately.
“On whose authority?”
Mercer answered, “Mine.”
Cross demanded access to the search plan.
Mercer refused.
Rebecca watched Cross’s reaction.
Too much anger.
Too little concern for Ellis.
Teams searched maintenance buildings.
Old bunkers.
Storage annexes.
Nothing.
Mark stared at the photograph again.
“The newspaper.”
Rebecca looked.
“What?”
“It’s folded.”
A corner exposed a handwritten number.
14-6.
Mercer recognized it.
Building 14, sublevel 6.
There was no sublevel 6 on current maps.
But older maps showed a communications shelter beneath Building 14.
Sealed twenty years earlier.
The entrance had been covered during renovation.
A second access tunnel remained through utilities.
Security entered.
They found Major Ellis alive.
Dehydrated.
Bruised.
But conscious.
Beside him lay boxes of historical files.
The room had been used recently.
Whoever held him had left less than an hour earlier.
Ellis was taken to the hospital.
Rebecca sat beside his bed.
“You sent the package.”
He nodded.
“Owen and I.”
“Where is Owen?”
Ellis’s eyes filled.
“I don’t know.”
“Who took you?”
“A man wearing a mask.”
“Voice?”
“Distorted.”
“Height?”
“Average.”
“Anything?”
Ellis closed his eyes.
“He knew the installation.”
Mark asked, “Cross?”
“I never saw him.”
Ellis remembered one detail.
His captor wore an old unit ring.
A black stone with a gold border.
Rebecca knew it.
Members of Arthur Voss’s intelligence cell received those rings.
Many officers had one.
Cross did.
So did Mercer.
Rebecca looked at Mercer.
He saw the thought immediately.
“Rebecca.”
“Show me your hand.”
Mercer slowly raised it.
No ring.
“I stopped wearing it years ago.”
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
“Can anyone verify?”
His expression hardened.
“You think I kidnapped my own major?”
“I think thirty years of assuming I knew people is enough.”
Mercer nodded after a moment.
“Fair.”
His home was searched with consent.
The ring was found in a drawer.
Dusty.
No immediate evidence connected him.
Cross refused a voluntary search.
A warrant followed based on other evidence.
His ring was missing.
Cross claimed he lost it.
Investigators found a key card in his temporary quarters.
It opened the utility tunnel to sublevel 6.
Cross was detained.
Mark looked almost relieved.
Rebecca was not.
It felt too easy.
Cross insisted the card was planted.
Then forensic review showed it had been issued three years earlier to someone else.
Major Ellis.
His own access card.
It had been stolen when he was abducted.
Someone placed it in Cross’s room.
Rebecca’s suspicion shifted again.
The person behind the current operation wanted Cross blamed.
Maybe Cross was guilty of threatening Daniel years ago.
That did not prove he kidnapped Ellis now.
Ellis remembered another detail.
His captor had a slight limp.
Cross did not.
Mercer did.
An old parachute injury.
Mark looked toward the chief of staff.
Mercer laughed bitterly.
“Here we go.”
Rebecca refused to choose.
“Who else?”
Records showed twenty-seven retired members of Voss’s old cell.
Nine were dead.
Eleven lived elsewhere.
Seven were within driving distance.
One worked on Fort Briar as a civilian contractor.
Elaine Voss’s nephew.
Graham Voss.
Fifty-eight.
Facilities systems consultant.
He had access to sealed infrastructure.
He had a documented knee injury.
And his access logs showed he entered Building 14 twice the week Ellis disappeared.
Security went to his office.
Empty.
His computer had been wiped.
Inside a locked cabinet they found old photographs.
Winter Lantern.
Station Grey.
Daniel Reagan.
Owen Price.
Major Ellis.
Mark.
Rebecca.
Every person in the mystery had been cataloged.
Then they found a fresh photograph.
Taken through the cafeteria window.
Rebecca pinning Mark across the metal table.
Someone had photographed their confrontation.
On the back, handwritten:
THEY FINALLY MET.
Rebecca understood.
The package sender wanted that meeting.
But Graham had been watching to see what happened after.
He was not merely covering the past.
He was tracking the investigation.
Then security found Graham’s vehicle leaving the installation thirty minutes before lockdown.
Passenger seat empty.
Rear cargo area hidden.
Rebecca asked for traffic-camera footage.
One image showed the vehicle at a gas station.
The rear door opened.
A man stepped out.
Older.
Gray beard.
Rebecca recognized him.
Owen Price.
May you like
But Owen did not look like a prisoner.
He climbed into the front passenger seat willingly.
