Chapter 9 - The Bunker Beneath the Academy
The Secret Dad Tried to Bury
We returned to the academy under armed protection.
Nobody slept.
At 3:00 a.m., General Grant took me beneath the administration building.
The bunker entrance was hidden behind an old storage wall.
The metal key fit a rusted lock.
The door opened.
Inside were rows of old files.
Photographs.
Hard drives.
Boxes.
The room smelled like dust and metal.
Grant found a terminal.
“Let's see what they were protecting.”
We searched for Evelyn Cross.
The first file was her personnel record.
Then came the operation report.
Then the casualty list.
Seven names.
One survived.
Evelyn.
My mother.
Then we found Daniel Lawson.
My father.
The report described him as an embedded officer.
Not a mastermind.
A whistleblower.
He had discovered that senior officials were diverting money from a defense program.
Voss had been responsible for the operation's security.
When Evelyn tried to expose the corruption, the group moved against her.
My father warned her.
They planned an attack.
She survived.
He believed the only way to protect me was to convince everyone she was dead.
I read every line.
Then I found a file marked:
LAWSON, EMMA. CONTINGENCY PROTOCOL.
My heart stopped.
“Why is my name here?”
Grant opened it.
Inside was a legal document.
A trust.
A scholarship fund.
A future appointment clause.
And a letter.
From my father.
I read it.
If Emma reaches the age of eighteen without knowledge of Evelyn's survival, she must be given a choice.
A choice.
Not a command.
A choice about whether to learn the truth.
The letter continued.
If I fail, give her the truth anyway.
I closed my eyes.
Dad had known he might not live long enough to explain.
Then we found another document.
This one was recent.
Dated six months earlier.
It contained one sentence.
The threat is active again because Emma has become visible.
I stared at the page.
“Visible because of my graduation?”
Grant nodded.
“Your performance made you impossible to ignore.”
Then we found a surveillance photograph.
It showed Colonel Voss meeting with three men.
One was my father.
Another was a government official.
The third man had his face blurred.
Under the image was a handwritten note.
The final phase begins at graduation.
My pulse raced.
“What final phase?”
Grant kept scrolling.
There was a second note.
Emma must either disappear voluntarily or be discredited publicly.
My anger returned.
That was why someone altered my ranking.
Why someone tried to accuse me of accessing restricted files.
The humiliation at the entrance.
The stolen records.
Everything had been designed to make me look unstable.
Untrustworthy.
Dangerous.
Grant stared at the screen.
“Your father wasn't trying to keep you out of the academy.”
“He was trying to keep someone else from using me.”
“Exactly.”
Then the terminal chimed.
Incoming connection.
A live feed.
A video appeared.
My father was sitting in a dark room.
His face was bruised.
His hands were tied.
“Emma.”
I stopped breathing.
Dad stared directly into the camera.
“If you're seeing this, they found the bunker.”
I stepped closer.
“Dad?”
He continued.
“Do not trust anyone who tells you I am your enemy.”
A man's hand grabbed his shoulder.
Dad looked toward the camera one last time.
“Your mother was right.”
Then the screen went black.
A voice came through the speaker.
“You have forty-eight hours.”
General Grant reached for his weapon.
“Who is this?”
The voice laughed quietly.
“Ask Colonel Voss.”
Then the connection ended.
I looked at Grant.
“We have forty-eight hours to find my father.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
He stared at the screen.
May you like
“We have forty-eight hours to find who is running this.”
Because if Voss was only a piece of the puzzle, someone much more powerful was still hiding behind him.
