Chapter 7
Midnight at the Baltimore shipyards was exactly what you’d expect.
Dark.
Cold.
Desolate.
The old warehouses loomed like sleeping giants along the water.
The only sound was the lap of the harbour against the rotting pilings and the distant wail of a train whistle.
Sarah parked the Subaru three blocks away.
“Twenty minutes,” she said, handing me a second gun. “Then I start sending emails. Every network. Every paper. Every human rights organisation on the planet. Understood?”
“Understood.”
I slipped the canvas bag over my shoulder.
The guns were heavy at my waist.
The USB drive was tucked into an inner pocket, taped to my chest. Even if they took the bag, they wouldn’t get the drive.
I walked toward Pier 17.
Every shadow looked like a man with a gun.
Every sound made me flinch.
Warehouse 17 stood at the end of the pier.
One door.
One dim light bulb swinging above it.
I stopped twenty yards away.
Watched.
Waited.
The door opened.
Reed stepped out.
Alone.
Just like he’d promised.
He held his hands up where I could see them.
No gun.
“I’m alone,” he called. “You can come in. But keep your hand on your weapon. We aren’t the only ones here.”
I moved forward.
Kept my gun raised.
When I reached him, I frisked him quickly.
Clean.
“Inside,” he said.
The warehouse was enormous.
Rows of empty shipping containers stretched into the darkness.
In the centre, under a single bare bulb, was a folding table.
Two chairs.
A laptop.
A bottle of water.
“I had the place swept an hour ago,” Reed said. “But Hale has resources. He could have put someone here since then. Stay alert.”
He sat at the table.
I remained standing.
Gun still up.
“You first,” I said. “Tell me everything you know. Starting with who put the tracker on my uniform.”
Reed sighed.
“Victoria,” he said.
My stepmother.
I felt the blood drain from my face.
“Victoria?”
“Your father married her for a reason,” Reed said. “She’s ex-CIA. Left under a cloud of suspicion about ten years ago. She’s the one who runs the dirty side of Vance Industries. Arthur makes the deals. Julian schmoozes the clients. Victoria handles the… problems. She planted the tracker on your uniform during the receiving line at the church. You hugged her. Remember?”
I did.
She’d been the only member of my family who hadn’t insulted me.
She’d even cried.
And all along, she’d been sticking a tracker to the back of my neck.
“She’s also the one who ordered the hit at the summer house,” Reed continued. “Arthur hesitated. He still thinks of you as his daughter, in his own twisted way. But Victoria? She doesn’t hesitate. She’s killed before. She’ll kill again. And she won’t stop until she has those files.”
My mind reeled.
I’d always thought Victoria was just a pretty social climber.
The woman who’d replaced my mother.
I’d hated her for that.
But I’d never feared her.
I did now.
“What about Hale?” I said.
“Worse,” Reed said. “He doesn’t just take bribes. He’s built an entire network. Three other senators. Two generals. At least a dozen senior Pentagon officials. They’ve been skimming from defence contracts for twenty years. Your father’s little scam is just the tip of the iceberg. If we take down Hale, the whole thing comes down. If we don’t—he’ll be president one day. And then nobody will be able to stop him.”
I lowered the gun slightly.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked. “What’s in it for you?”
Reed reached into his pocket.
Pulled out a photo.
Slid it across the table.
A young man in Army uniform.
Nineteen.
Smiling.
“My son,” Reed said. “Ethan. He was at Kandahar in 2021. Wearing one of Arthur’s plates. Took a round from an AK-47. It went right through. He died on the table. Three days before he was supposed to come home.”
I stared at the photo.
I didn’t remember Ethan Reed.
But I remembered so many just like him.
Nineteen.
Twenty.
Babies.
Dying because of greed.
“I’ve spent four years trying to build a case,” Reed said. “Four years of hitting dead ends. Four years of witnesses disappearing. Four years of evidence being destroyed. And then your grandfather came to me. Told me he had the files. Told me he was dying. Told me you were the only one he could trust to finish it.”
He looked me in the eye.
“I didn’t salute you at that funeral for show, Colonel. I did it because every soldier in that room owes you their life. And because my son would have wanted someone like you holding the evidence that gets his killers.”
I believed him.
I didn’t know why.
But I did.
I lowered the gun completely.
Slid the USB drive from my pocket.
Set it on the table.
“Everything is on here,” I said. “Senator Hale. Your generals. My father. Julian. Victoria. All of it. Including the email ordering my grandfather’s murder.”
Reed’s hand trembled as he picked it up.
“This changes everything,” he said.
“Then what do we do?”
“We don’t go to the press,” he said. “Not yet. The press can’t arrest anyone. We go to the Attorney General. But not directly. Hale has people there too. We go through a special prosecutor. A woman named Elena Marquez. She’s clean. I’ve worked with her before. She’s the only person in Washington who can take this down without it getting buried.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ll fly to DC. Meet her at her home. No office. No phones. Face to face. If she agrees to take the case, we move on Hale and the Vances by the end of the week.”
He slid the drive into his pocket.
“You should leave the country,” he said. “Tonight. Before Victoria finds you. I can arrange—”
A sound cut him off.
Metal scraping against metal.
From the far end of the warehouse.
Reed was on his feet in an instant.
Gun appearing in his hand from somewhere I hadn’t seen.
“Stay down,” he whispered.
We moved behind a stack of shipping containers.
The sound came again.
Closer.
Footsteps.
Multiple.
Moving fast.
“They found us,” Reed breathed.
He peered around the corner.
“Six men,” he said. “Professional. Victoria’s work. They’re moving to cut off the exit.”
“Sarah is outside,” I said. “In a silver Subaru three blocks over. If they see her—”
“Then we don’t let them see her,” Reed said. He checked his magazine. “I’ve got fourteen rounds. You?”
“Fifteen in the nine. Six in the .38.”
“Not enough for six,” he said. “But we don’t have to kill them all. We just have to get to my car. It’s parked on the north side of the pier. Armoured. Bulletproof. If we can reach it, we’re gone.”
Another sound.
A radio crackled.
“Spread out,” a voice said. “They’re in here somewhere. Victoria says the girl is worth more to us alive for now. But the old man? Reed is dead weight. Shoot him on sight.”
Reed met my eyes.
“Ready?” he said.
I chambered a round.
“Born ready.”
We moved.
Fast.
Quiet.
Between the containers.
Two men were moving down the aisle ahead of us.
Reed signalled.
One.
Two.
Three.
We stepped out together.
“Drop your weapons!” Reed shouted.
The men turned.
Guns came up.
Reed fired twice.
Both men went down.
Not dead.
Kneecaps.
Professional.
“GO!” he yelled.
We ran.
Gunfire erupted behind us.
Bullets ripped through the metal containers inches from our heads.
We rounded a corner.
Three more men blocked our path.
I fired.
Once.
Twice.
One man went down.
The others dove for cover.
Reed was already moving.
He fired as he ran.
Dropping another.
“Almost there!” he yelled.
The exit was fifty feet away.
Reed’s black SUV was visible through the open door.
And then the sixth man stepped out from behind a container directly in front of us.
Gun aimed at Reed’s chest.
He fired.
Reed went down.
I didn’t think.
I raised my gun.
Fired.
The man’s head snapped back.
He fell.
I dropped to my knees beside Reed.
The bullet had hit him in the shoulder.
Blood was pumping out fast.
“Leave me,” he gasped. “The drive… in my pocket… take it… get to Marquez…”
“Like hell I’m leaving you,” I said.
I ripped off my belt.
Made a tourniquet.
Tightened it until the bleeding slowed.
“Can you walk?”
He gritted his teeth.
“Give me a hand.”
I pulled him up.
Half dragged him toward the SUV.
Behind us, the remaining two men were closing in.
I got Reed into the passenger seat.
Slid behind the wheel.
The engine roared to life.
Tires screamed.
Bullets pinged off the back window.
Didn’t even scratch it.
Armoured.
Just like he’d said.
I peeled out of the parking lot.
Spun onto the main road.
Didn’t stop until we were ten miles away.
Reed was pale.
Losing blood fast.
“Hospital,” I said.
“No,” he gasped. “Too dangerous. Victoria will have every hospital in the state watched. Take me to Sarah’s. She’s a doctor. She can fix this.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know about Sarah?”
“I know everything about you, Colonel,” he said, and then he passed out.
I pressed the accelerator harder.
The drive was burning a hole in his pocket.
Reed was bleeding out beside me.
And somewhere behind us, Victoria was already planning her next move.
This wasn’t a war anymore.
It was a race.
May you like
And the losers didn’t just die.
They got forgotten.
