Chapter 6 - THE GENERAL
General Reed summoned me to his office.
He looked tired.
“You've gone too far.”
I closed the door.
“Then tell me where I went wrong.”
“You're investigating matters outside your authority.”
“My daughter was assaulted.”
“This isn't about your daughter anymore.”
I stared at him.
“Exactly.”
His expression hardened.
“You need to step back.”
“Why?”
“Because people are going to get hurt.”
“People are already getting hurt.”
Silence.
Then I placed the flash drive on his desk.
His face changed.
He knew.
“You shouldn't have this.”
“I know.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From Nicholas Ferguson.”
Reed stood.
“You need to understand something.”
“What?”
“Your mother didn't discover this network.”
I froze.
“She was part of it.”
“No.”
“She was investigating it.”
“She helped create the foundation structure.”
I refused to believe him.
“You're lying.”
Reed opened a locked drawer.
He pulled out a letter.
My mother's handwriting.
She had created the foundation as a cover to track illegal financial movements.
But the operation had grown beyond her control.
She had spent the final years of her life trying to dismantle it.
And Daniel Cross had helped her.
Reed wasn't the enemy.
He was protecting the remaining evidence.
Then he gave me one final piece.
A name.
Victor Hale.
A former intelligence contractor.
The man who had taken over after my mother's death.
And Victor had one weakness.
His daughter.
Evelyn Mercer.
The woman in the photograph.
May you like
She was alive.
And she had been hiding for twenty years.
