Chapter 7 – The Ghost of the Commander
Chapter 7 – The Ghost of the Commander
The phone felt heavy against my ear. The quiet of the lakeside house suddenly shattered. Outside, the mountain lake was calm. Inside, my world shifted once more. "Agent Bennett," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "Say that name again." "General Marcus Vance," Bennett replied through the speaker. "He was your father’s commanding officer in the 10th Mountain Division." "The official record says he died in a helicopter crash in Germany. Twenty-two years ago." I gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. "And the unofficial record?" "The unofficial record is that the crash was staged." "Vance was under investigation for trafficking black-market military hardware." "The man who was building the case against him..." "...was your father." My breath hitched in my throat. Claire looked up from the sofa, her eyes wide with immediate concern. She could read the tension in my spine. James Carter stopped cleaning his tactical gear, his eyes locking onto mine. "Daniel," Bennett continued, "Vance didn't just communicate with Kevin Lawson." "He financed him." "He used Kevin's gambling debts to manipulate him into leaking your deployment schedules." "But why?" I asked, my teeth clenched. "Why me? Why now?" "Because of your grandfather's trust." "Vance didn't just steal military hardware twenty-two years ago." "He laundered the proceeds through your family’s old accounting firm." "The firm your grandfather’s brother stole." The circle was closing. The past wasn't behind me. It was waiting for me. "Vance knows the grandfather left an archive," Bennett warned. "An archive that contains the original, unedited banking metadata from 1983." "If that file goes public, his entire shadow empire collapses." "He's cleaning house, Daniel." "And you are the last loose end." I slowly hung up the phone. James stepped forward, his expression grave. "We have a perimeter problem," he said quietly. "We're isolated out here." I looked across the warm, beautifully furnished living room. At the family photographs. At my son sleeping peacefully in his cradle. "No," I said, a dangerous calm settling over me. "We aren't isolated." "We're dug in."
