Chapter 7
Lieutenant Emily Ross approached Margaret’s neighborhood in an unmarked sedan just before sunset.
She wasn’t alone.
Colonel Carter sat beside her.
Federal agents followed at a distance.
Margaret remained at the hospital with James, exactly where Vale expected fear to keep her.
The plan was simple.
Which meant everyone assumed it would go wrong.
Emily slowed near Margaret’s street.
Police had quietly evacuated neighboring homes under the excuse of a gas leak.
No lights showed inside Margaret’s house.
Vale’s people had disappeared thirty minutes earlier.
One security officer had been found unconscious in the garage.
The second, Officer Daniels, was missing.
The drive beneath the workshop floor remained untouched.
At least according to a fiber-optic camera inserted through an exterior vent.
Vale had entered the house.
But he hadn’t found what he wanted.
“Stop here,” Carter said.
Emily parked two blocks away.
“What exactly am I looking for?”
“Someone looking for you.”
“That narrows it down.”
Carter almost smiled.
Then Emily saw a woman across the street.
Brown hair.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
Watching Margaret’s house.
Emily whispered, “There.”
Carter followed her gaze.
The woman turned.
For one second, her face was visible.
Emily’s breath caught.
“I know her.”
“Who?”
“Captain Laura Ross.”
Carter looked at Emily.
“Relative?”
“No.”
Emily stared.
“She used to work for Mason.”
Three years earlier, Laura Ross had been transferred after an internal conflict.
Emily had never met her personally, but people joked about the identical surname.
Then Laura had disappeared from official unit records.
Carter spoke into her radio.
“Target moving east.”
Agents closed in.
Laura noticed immediately.
She ran.
Emily jumped from the car.
“Laura!”
The woman looked back.
That hesitation cost her.
Two agents blocked the alley ahead.
Laura stopped.
Raised her hands.
“Don’t shoot.”
Carter approached.
“Captain Ross.”
“Former captain.”
“Why were you impersonating Lieutenant Emily Ross?”
Laura looked at Emily.
“Because Derek said Vale’s people knew my face.”
“So you used mine?”
“You were new enough to the larger network that nobody recognized you.”
Emily’s anger rose.
“You walked into a secret medical facility wearing my name.”
“Yes.”
“You could have destroyed my career.”
Laura laughed bitterly.
“If I hadn’t, James Bennett would be dead.”
Emily stopped.
Carter stepped closer.
“Where is Derek Mason?”
Laura’s face changed.
“I don’t know.”
“You said you owed him.”
“I do.”
“For what?”
Laura looked toward Margaret’s house.
“Derek helped me disappear.”
Emily frowned.
“Why?”
“Because I discovered Vale’s network.”
Carter studied her.
“Start talking.”
They moved into a secure vehicle.
Laura told them everything.
Three years earlier, she had audited shipping records.
She noticed that certain military cargo routes repeatedly intersected with Northstar Medical Logistics and Halcyon Strategic Solutions.
When she asked questions, Derek threatened her.
Exactly as he had threatened everyone else.
But later that night, he came to her apartment.
He handed her cash.
A new identification packet.
And one sentence.
“If you stay, Vale will kill you.”
Emily listened.
“Why didn’t Derek report Vale then?”
Laura’s expression hardened.
“Because Derek was a coward.”
No hesitation.
“He wanted to save individual people without destroying the system that gave him power.”
That sounded painfully accurate.
Laura continued.
“He helped me escape. Then he returned to his office and kept bullying everyone beneath him.”
Carter asked, “When did he contact you again?”
“Five months ago.”
“What did he want?”
“He had seen James.”
Margaret was listening through a secure line from the hospital.
Her grip tightened on the phone.
Laura continued.
“Derek told me James was still alive. He wanted help moving him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“We tried.”
“What happened?”
“Vale moved James first.”
“Then yesterday?”
“Derek messaged me. He said General Bennett had appeared on base unexpectedly.”
Margaret frowned.
Unexpectedly.
That was true.
She had visited the installation to meet Whitaker for lunch.
Nobody outside his office should have known.
Laura said, “Derek believed it was the only chance we would ever get.”
Emily looked at Carter.
“So he provoked her.”
“Yes.”
“Why the cafeteria?”
“Public witnesses.”
Laura looked toward the house.
“He needed Margaret to expose him in front of enough people that Vale wouldn’t suspect they were cooperating.”
Margaret spoke through the phone.
“We weren’t cooperating.”
Laura heard her voice.
“I know, ma’am.”
“Then what did Derek expect?”
“That once investigators opened his records, they’d find breadcrumbs.”
“The cabinet?”
“Yes.”
“But he emptied it.”
“Not Derek.”
Everyone went silent.
Laura continued.
“One of Vale’s people reached the office first.”
Carter frowned.
“Who?”
Laura looked directly at her.
“I don’t know.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s true.”
“What was in the cabinet?”
“Copies of transport orders. Photographs. A ledger.”
Margaret said, “And a Bennett file.”
Laura nodded.
“Yes.”
“What was in it?”
“Every record Derek could gather about James.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
Derek had spent years collecting proof.
Quietly.
Secretly.
While publicly becoming more cruel.
It didn’t absolve him.
But it made him harder to understand.
Carter asked, “Where is Vale’s master archive?”
Laura’s expression changed.
“Derek never told me.”
“James says Derek knows.”
“He probably does.”
“Then we need Derek.”
Laura nodded.
“Yes.”
A radio call interrupted.
Agents searching Margaret’s house had found the missing security officer.
Officer Daniels was alive.
Locked inside a pantry.
Margaret exhaled.
Then another call followed.
A vehicle had been detected approaching the neighborhood.
Registered owner: Derek Mason.
Everyone stiffened.
Carter looked through the window.
“Positions.”
The vehicle stopped outside Margaret’s house.
Derek stepped out.
Hospital gown beneath a stolen jacket.
One arm in a sling.
He looked exhausted.
Emily stared.
“He came here?”
Laura whispered, “No.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t.”
Derek walked toward the front porch.
Laura leaned closer to the window.
“That isn’t Derek.”
Carter looked at her.
“It looks exactly like him.”
“The way he walks.”
Laura shook her head.
“Derek damaged his right knee in Afghanistan. He always favors it when he’s tired.”
The man outside was limping on the opposite leg.
Carter grabbed the radio.
“Do not engage. Possible impersonator.”
The fake Derek reached the porch.
Then suddenly dropped a bag.
And ran.
Agents pursued.
The bag remained.
Bomb squad was called.
Inside they found no explosive.
Only Derek Mason’s hospital identification bracelet.
Covered in blood.
Margaret heard through the phone.
“Is it his blood?”
“We’ll test it,” Carter said.
Laura went pale.
“Vale has Derek.”
Margaret looked at James.
He had been listening from the hospital bed.
His expression was grim.
“Then Vale wants him for the same reason he wanted me.”
“The archive,” Margaret said.
James nodded.
Carter asked Laura, “How do we find it?”
Laura hesitated.
“There may be one person.”
“Who?”
“Vale’s daughter.”
Silence.
Emily stared.
“Thomas Vale has a daughter?”
“Rebecca Vale.”
Margaret knew the name.
“Dr. Rebecca Vale?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca was a respected neurologist.
She had testified before Congress about traumatic brain injuries among service members.
Margaret’s stomach turned.
“Was she involved with Ravenwood?”
Laura nodded.
“She designed the treatment program.”
James suddenly stopped breathing normally.
Margaret noticed immediately.
“James.”
His eyes had fixed on nothing.
“No.”
Margaret moved closer.
“What?”
“Rebecca.”
His hands began shaking.
“She was there.”
Margaret touched his face.
“You’re safe.”
James shook his head.
“She wasn’t like them.”
Margaret froze.
“What do you mean?”
“She helped me remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Everything.”
James looked at his mother.
“Vale kept ordering doctors to increase medication.”
His breathing quickened.
“Rebecca secretly lowered it.”
Margaret glanced at the phone.
Carter was listening.
James continued.
“She told me never to trust her in front of him.”
Emily whispered, “She was working against her father?”
James nodded.
“I think so.”
Carter immediately searched for Rebecca.
Her home was empty.
Hospital badge unused for three days.
Phone disconnected.
Bank activity stopped.
Laura looked alarmed.
“If Rebecca vanished, Vale knows she turned.”
Margaret asked James, “Did Rebecca know where the archive was?”
James thought.
“She once said her father kept insurance against everyone.”
“Where?”
James closed his eyes.
“She called it the church.”
Carter frowned.
“A church?”
“No.”
James shook his head.
“She said, ‘He keeps his sins in the church.’”
Laura suddenly looked toward Margaret’s house.
“Oh no.”
Carter turned.
“What?”
“Vale owns an old chapel.”
“Where?”
“On his family estate.”
Carter was already searching.
Thomas Vale’s estate sat two hours away.
The property included a restored nineteenth-century chapel.
Margaret stood.
“That’s it.”
Carter responded, “Possibly.”
Laura shook her head.
“No. That’s where Derek would go.”
Emily frowned.
“If he was free.”
“If he wanted Vale’s archive.”
Margaret understood.
“The hospital escape.”
Maybe Derek hadn’t been kidnapped.
Maybe he had escaped intentionally.
Then whose blood was on the bracelet?
Laura’s phone suddenly vibrated.
She stared at the screen.
Unknown number.
One image had arrived.
Derek Mason sat tied to a chair.
Blood covered his shirt.
Behind him stood Thomas Vale.
And beside Vale was a woman.
Dr. Rebecca Vale.
Margaret looked at the photograph.
Rebecca did not appear restrained.
She stood calmly beside her father.
Emily whispered, “James was wrong.”
James stared at the image through the video connection.
His face drained.
“No.”
Margaret looked at him.
“What?”
James pointed at Rebecca’s left hand.
Her fingers were folded strangely against her leg.
Three fingers down.
Two up.
Again.
Three down.
Two up.
James whispered, “She taught me that signal.”
“What does it mean?”
His eyes locked onto his mother’s.
“Pretend.”
Margaret looked back at the photograph.
Rebecca Vale was standing beside her father.
But she was secretly telling them not to believe what they saw.
Then a second message appeared.
MIDNIGHT.
BRING JAMES.
OR DEREK DIES.
Margaret checked the time.
They had four hours.
She looked at Carter.
“No more waiting for Vale to make the next move.”
Carter nodded.
Margaret’s expression became cold.
“He wants James.”
May you like
She looked toward her son.
“He’s going to think he got him.”
