Chapter 10 - THE SIXTH PERSON
Emergency lights flashed red.
Sabrina screamed.
Amelia dropped behind the metal box cabinets and drew her weapon.
“Everyone stay down.”
A second gunshot struck the vault wall.
Major Cross returned fire toward the entrance.
Metal rang.
Footsteps retreated.
Amelia moved after them.
She reached the corridor in time to see one of Vanessa’s security officers collapse. The other officer ran toward the stairwell.
Marcus tackled him.
They struck the floor together.
The man pulled a knife.
Marcus blocked the blade, but it cut across his arm.
Amelia kicked the weapon away and forced the attacker facedown.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed.
“You still think this is about the money.”
Then his jaw tightened.
Foam appeared at his lips.
“Poison,” Cross shouted.
Within seconds, he stopped breathing.
The other security officer was dead from a gunshot wound.
Vanessa stood over him.
“I did not hire these men.”
Marcus pressed a hand against his bleeding arm.
“They came through Shaw’s security company.”
Gabriel Shaw.
The candidate for attorney general.
The former military lawyer.
The man who had signed Amelia’s false death declaration.
Police secured the bank.
The ledger, photograph, and cassette were transferred into military custody.
Amelia refused to leave without a copy.
Cross supported her.
Vanessa objected until Amelia turned on her.
“You no longer control what I know.”
Vanessa looked suddenly exhausted.
“You believe knowledge makes you powerful.”
“It makes me difficult to manipulate.”
“It makes you a target.”
“I already was.”
At the hospital, Arthur Vale regained consciousness.
Amelia entered his room with Cross.
Arthur looked older than he had at the manor.
“Who is the sixth person in the photograph?” Amelia asked.
Arthur closed his eyes.
“Your father cut out the face.”
“You knew who it was.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Arthur looked toward the door.
“Is Jonathan safe?”
“For now.”
“And Sabrina?”
“Yes.”
He nodded slowly.
“The sixth person was not military.”
“Then who?”
“A representative of a private intelligence contractor called Dominion Strategic.”
Cross frowned.
“Dominion was dissolved fifteen years ago.”
“No. It changed names.”
“To what?”
Arthur swallowed.
“Northstar Global Security.”
Amelia knew the company.
Northstar held federal contracts across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It provided logistics, cybersecurity, and private protection for diplomatic missions.
It had also supported several of Amelia’s classified deployments.
“Who was the representative?” she asked.
Arthur’s monitor began to pulse faster.
“His name was Adrian Kane.”
Cross looked at Amelia.
She knew the name too.
General Adrian Kane was the current deputy commander of the joint task force to which Amelia had been attached for the last four years.
He had signed her deployment orders.
He knew her locations.
He knew when she was unreachable.
“He ordered the killing?” Amelia asked.
Arthur stared at the ceiling.
“Robert believed so.”
“Whose killing?”
Arthur’s voice weakened.
“Thomas Bell’s.”
Robert’s attorney.
The man who died in a boating accident.
Cross asked, “Why?”
“Bell discovered that Kane had inserted false beneficiaries into the extraction network. People who did not exist were receiving millions.”
“Did Robert confront him?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Robert became ill a month later.”
Amelia’s hands went cold.
Her father had died from an aggressive neurological disorder. Doctors called it rare but natural.
“Was he poisoned?”
Arthur turned toward her.
“We never proved it.”
“Did Vanessa know?”
“She suspected.”
“Then why did she work with Kane?”
“She didn’t.”
“But the transfers continued.”
“Because Kane had Sabrina.”
Amelia froze.
Arthur’s eyes filled with shame.
“Not physically. Financially. Legally. He created evidence that made it appear Sabrina had participated in the original theft. Vanessa moved money to keep that evidence sealed.”
“How old was Sabrina?”
“Twenty.”
Amelia thought of her sister signing documents at the bank.
Vanessa had not merely used her.
She had placed Sabrina exactly where Kane needed her.
Cross moved closer.
“What evidence?”
“A video.”
“Showing what?”
Arthur looked at Amelia.
“Your sister standing beside a dead man.”
Amelia felt the room tilt.
“Who?”
May you like
Arthur’s answer was almost a whisper.
“Thomas Bell.”
