Chapter 3 - The Mark Vance Recognized
The two men never reached Maya.
Vance ordered security to hold them at the gate while he verified their credentials.
Ten minutes later, both men were gone.
Their credentials had been fake.
That changed everything.
Maya sat inside Vance's office while military investigators reviewed gate footage.
“They came because of me,” she said.
Vance didn't disagree.
“How?”
“Someone saw what happened.”
“The entire platoon saw it.”
“Exactly.”
Maya thought about Miller.
“No.”
Vance understood.
“Miller made a reckless choice. That doesn't mean he's connected to this.”
“Then who is?”
“We don't know.”
Maya hated those words.
She had spent eleven years living with unanswered questions.
She wanted certainty.
Instead, she had received more mysteries.
The next morning, Vance requested access to the archived report concerning Ethan Brooks.
The response came quickly.
RESTRICTED.
He escalated.
DENIED.
He contacted an old friend in military intelligence.
Two hours later, the friend called.
“Daniel, stop asking.”
Vance stood by the window.
“Why?”
“Because that file isn't supposed to exist.”
Vance's expression darkened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone reopened it yesterday.”
Vance looked toward Maya.
“Who?”
A pause.
“That's the problem.”
The voice lowered.
“According to the system, you did.”
Vance went still.
“I haven't accessed that file in eleven years.”
“I know.”
“Then somebody used my credentials.”
Another pause.
“Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Whoever did it has clearance above mine.”
The call ended.
Vance stared at the phone.
Behind him, Maya spoke.
“They're watching us.”
“Yes.”
“What do we do?”
Vance looked at the nineteen-year-old recruit whose father had once saved his life.
“We stop waiting for them to make the next move.”
He placed Ethan's photograph on the desk.
“We find out what your father left behind.”
Maya looked at the pendant.
The numbers engraved on the back suddenly seemed less like decoration.
They looked like coordinates.
And when Vance entered them into a secure mapping system, a location appeared.
A small town.
Two hours from Fort Moore.
Maya recognized the name.
Her childhood home was there.
More specifically, the coordinates pointed toward an abandoned storage facility three miles from the house where she had lived after the fire.
Vance stared at the screen.
“Did your father ever take you there?”
Maya shook her head.
Then stopped.
A memory surfaced.
A blue door.
Her father kneeling beside her.
His voice:
If you ever forget where home is, follow the bird.
Maya's eyes widened.
“I think he did.”
Vance looked at her.
“When?”
“The day before the fire.”
And suddenly, for the first time in eleven years, Maya remembered what her father had placed behind that blue door.
A metal box.
And she remembered something else.
He had made her promise never to open it unless a man named Daniel came looking for her.
May you like
Maya slowly turned toward Vance.
“My father left something for you.”
