Chapter 2 - Storage Unit 108 sat at the end of a long row of metal doors behind a chain-link fence.The facility looked abandoned.
Half the lights were broken.
The security camera over the entrance pointed at the ground.
I checked my surroundings twice before inserting the brass key.
The lock clicked.
The door rolled upward.
Cold air hit my face.
Inside were stacks of military crates.
Black filing cabinets.
Three hard cases.
A wooden box.
And a photograph.
I stepped closer.
The photograph was of my father.
He was standing beside a woman I didn't recognize.
Behind them was a building marked with a faded insignia.
I picked up the photo.
On the back was one sentence.
She knows why I disappeared.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
“Captain Bennett.”
I froze.
“How do you know who I am?”
“Because your father knew we'd come looking for you.”
“Who is this?”
“You need to leave the storage unit.”
I glanced toward the open door.
“Why?”
“Because you're being watched.”
I immediately moved into the shadows.
A black sedan was parked across the street.
The windows were tinted.
“How long have they been watching me?”
The caller didn't answer.
“Where is my father?”
Another pause.
“Not where they told you.”
The line disconnected.
I stared at the phone.
Then I heard tires.
The black sedan started moving.
I grabbed my pistol from the concealed holster beneath my jacket.
The sedan disappeared around the corner.
I returned to the storage unit.
Whatever my father had hidden here was now more important than ever.
I opened the first black case.
Inside were passports.
Dozens of them.
Different names.
Different photographs.
All my father's.
Robert Bennett.
Elias Grant.
Thomas Reed.
Nathan Cross.
And one name that made my stomach twist.
Daniel Shaw.
Daniel Shaw was the retired intelligence director who had signed the authorization for my last classified deployment.
My father had apparently been operating under his identity.
I opened the second case.
Documents.
Bank statements.
Property deeds.
Corporate records.
All connected to one company.
Northstar Holdings.
I knew the name.
Everyone in Washington did.
Northstar had contracts with defense agencies, intelligence groups, and private security firms.
Its CEO was Victor Hale.
A billionaire who had personally funded several political campaigns.
I opened another file.
My father had highlighted a list of names.
Some were politicians.
Some were military officers.
Some were dead.
At the bottom was one handwritten note.
Northstar is not a company. It is a network.
I turned the page.
There were photographs of military shipments.
Satellite coordinates.
Bank transfers.
Black helicopters.
Then I saw Reagan.
My stepmother stood outside a Northstar building beside Victor Hale.
My blood ran cold.
She wasn't merely living in a house she shouldn't own.
She was connected to the company my father had been investigating.
I kept searching.
Then I found another photograph.
Carter.
He was standing beside a man I'd seen before.
A general.
General Marcus Voss.
The same man who had signed off on the intelligence compartment that erased my identity.
I stared at the photograph.
Suddenly my deployment looked different.
My mission had been described as counterterrorism.
But what if it had been something else?
What if my father had discovered a network inside the military?
What if my disappearance hadn't been collateral damage?
What if someone had needed me gone?
Footsteps sounded outside.
I killed the light.
Three shadows moved past the doorway.
I crouched behind the cabinets.
Someone entered.
A man spoke.
“Check the cases.”
Another voice answered.
“She's already been here.”
My pulse slowed.
Training took over.
I listened.
Three men.
One near the door.
One moving toward the cases.
One outside.
I waited until the closest man passed the cabinet.
Then I struck.
His wrist.
His throat.
His knee.
He fell silently.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
The second man turned.
I threw the metal flashlight.
It struck his temple.
He staggered.
I drove my shoulder into him.
The third man fired.
The bullet hit the wall above my head.
I grabbed the second man's weapon and fired once toward the doorway.
The shooter disappeared.
I didn't chase him.
I had learned a long time ago that surviving the first ambush was often more important than winning it.
I searched the man I had knocked down.
No identification.
No wallet.
Only an encrypted phone.
The screen was locked.
I took it.
Then I saw something else.
A tattoo on his wrist.
A black circle crossed by three vertical lines.
I knew that symbol.
I'd seen it during my last mission.
Not on enemy combatants.
On men inside our own perimeter.
Men wearing American uniforms.
The same men who had told me my extraction route was compromised.
The same men who had disappeared before the rescue team arrived.
My entire body went cold.
My father had been investigating them.
And somehow, I had walked directly back into the same conspiracy.
I packed everything I could carry.
Before leaving, I noticed the wooden box.
There was no lock.
Inside were dozens of cassette tapes.
One was labeled:
FOR CHARLOTTE. LISTEN ALONE.
I took it.
I barely made it outside before I heard sirens.
Not police sirens.
Military.
Two black SUVs came around the corner.
I drove.
Hard.
Three minutes later, the SUVs were still behind me.
I turned onto a narrow road.
One vehicle followed.
The second disappeared.
I knew they were trying to force me somewhere.
I swerved through an industrial district and abandoned my car behind a warehouse.
Then I moved on foot.
Twenty minutes later, I reached a motel.
Room 214.
I locked the door.
Covered the peephole.
Turned on the television for background noise.
Then I found an old tape player in the desk drawer.
I inserted the cassette.
Static.
Then my father's voice.
“Charlie.”
My eyes burned instantly.
“I'm sorry.”
I sat down.
“If you're hearing this, I failed to stop them.”
Static.
“I need you to understand something. I didn't die.”
My heart stopped.
“I disappeared because I discovered a program inside Northstar that reaches into the military, intelligence agencies, and federal government.”
A pause.
“They aren't stealing money.”
I leaned forward.
“They're stealing identities.”
The tape clicked.
My father's voice lowered.
“Your identity was one of them.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the tape.
Then the motel room television went black.
My phone rang.
This time the number was my father's.
I stared at the screen.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Then I answered.
I heard breathing.
And then my father's voice.
“Charlie…”
I couldn't speak.
“Dad?”
His voice cracked.
“Don't trust anyone in uniform.”
The call ended.
A second later, someone knocked on my motel door.
Three slow knocks.
Exactly the rhythm my father had used when I was a child.
My blood froze.
“Charlotte,” a man's voice said from the hallway.
“Open the door.”
I knew that voice.
It was impossible.
May you like
Because I had heard it during every briefing before my last deployment.
It belonged to the officer who had officially declared my father dead.
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