Chapter 13 - THE MAN WHO NEVER CAME HOME
The outskirts of Baltimore smelled of salt water, rust, and diesel. The old shipbreaking yard on the Patapsco River was a graveyard of decommissioned naval hulls, their hollow iron bellies towering over the dark water like prehistoric leviathans.
Rebecca navigated the truck through the maze of stacked shipping containers, headlights turned off, relying only on the green phosphor glow of night-vision goggles. Samir sat in the passenger seat, an encrypted radio scanner pressed to his ear.
"No civilian police frequencies active in this sector," Samir whispered. "Private security chatter on frequency four-six-two. Heavily encrypted. Sounds like ex-DevGru or Special Activities Division. Professional."
"They're guarding him," Rebecca said.
The man they were looking for was Harlan Cross. Officially, Chief Warrant Officer Cross had been listed as Missing in Action during the siege of Firebase Vega in 2018. But three weeks ago, during the forensic audit of Charles’s Swiss shell accounts, an anomaly had surfaced: a monthly stipend of fourteen thousand dollars wired to a maritime salvage corporation registered to an abandoned dry dock in Maryland.
Cross hadn't died. He had been bought off, stashed away in a gilded cage to keep his mouth shut about the coordinates he had transmitted on the night the sky fell.
Rebecca killed the engine a hundred yards out from a corrugated steel warehouse at the edge of Pier 4. The rain had turned into a steady, freezing drizzle that masked the sound of their combat boots as they crossed the gravel lot.
They approached the side entrance. The heavy padlock had been breached recently; fresh grease coated the hasp. Rebecca held up two fingers, signaling Samir to take the low corner while she breached high.
She eased the rusted metal door open. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of cheap bourbon, stale tobacco, and the ozone tang of high-end surveillance hardware.
"Step into the light, Ghost," a voice rasped from the darkness above.
Rebecca didn't move. She tracked the sound to a steel catwalk suspended twenty feet overhead. Sitting on an upturned industrial crate, a battered twelve-gauge shotgun resting across his knees, was a man with a graying beard and an eye patch covering his left socket. Harlan Cross looked less like an elite military specialist and more like a ghost who had forgotten how to haunt the living.
"You’re late, Captain," Cross said, lowering the shotgun slightly, though his single bloodshot eye remained pinned on her chest. "Your father's cleaners were here two hours ago."
"If they were here, you’d be floating in the harbor, Cross," Rebecca said, keeping her weapon lowered but ready.
"They weren't here to kill me," Cross barked a harsh, wheezing laugh. "They were here to pay me the final tranche. Fifty million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds to board a cargo freighter bound for South America at dawn. All I had to do was leave behind a signed confession stating that you ordered the retreat at Vega and left your men behind to cover your own extraction."
Samir took a step forward, his fists shaking. "You son of a bitch. We dug graves for three days while you were counting Charles Vance’s money!"
Cross looked down at Samir, the cynicism in his face suddenly cracking to reveal an abyss of hollow, rotting guilt. "You think I wanted that blood money, kid? You think anyone says no to Charles Vance when he has your wife's hospice facility surrounded by private contractors? He didn't give me a choice. He owned the base commander. He owned the resupply line. And he owned the satellite relay."
"Who gave the final authorization?" Rebecca demanded, stepping directly beneath the catwalk, her eyes burning through the shadows. "My father was a civilian contractor. He didn't have the authority to alter a battlefield satellite uplink without a military flag officer’s biometric key. Who gave him the key, Harlan?"
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Cross leaned forward over the steel railing, his hand trembling as he reached into his flannel shirt. "Your father wasn't running Prometheus Defense, Rebecca. He was just the banker. The man who signed the order to blackout your radio... is the man sitting on the Armed Services Committee tomorrow morning."
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