Chapter 7 - The Body in the Hangar
Rachel screamed when she saw the jacket.
Ethan caught her before her knees hit the floor.
For one terrible moment, she fought him, clawing toward the body as if she could reach through plastic and reverse time.
"No. No, no, no."
Vega entered and immediately ordered everyone back.
"Nobody touches the body."
Rachel buried her face against Ethan's chest.
He held her because grief required something larger than anger.
The medical examiner arrived before dawn.
The dead man was not Luke Hayes.
He was twenty-five, unidentified, with a tattoo of a black spiral behind his right ear. Luke's jacket had been put on him deliberately.
A message.
Or bait.
Rachel sat on the ambulance bumper wrapped in a blanket.
"They wanted me to see that," she said.
Ethan crouched in front of her.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"To make you believe Luke is dead."
"What if he is?"
Ethan did not lie to her.
"Then we'll prove it."
She looked at him through swollen eyes. "You don't say things to make people feel better."
"No."
"Sometimes I hated that about you."
"I know."
She gave a broken laugh.
Then her face collapsed again.
"I thought Travis could hurt Luke. I never thought he could touch you. You always seemed... untouchable."
Ethan looked toward Cole, now handcuffed in the back of a state vehicle, his injured hand bandaged.
"Nobody is untouchable."
Rachel whispered, "I betrayed you."
"Yes."
She flinched.
"You were afraid," he added. "That explains it. It doesn't erase it."
"Can you forgive me?"
"Not tonight."
She nodded, tears falling again.
That answer hurt both of them, but Ethan would not build a second lie to repair the first.
At sunrise, Vega searched Bell's coat and found a brass key.
It matched the one June had given Ethan.
Same shape.
Different teeth.
Daniel examined both.
"Safe-deposit keys?"
June, brought to the airstrip by an agent, shook her head.
"No. Old county archive keys. Before the courthouse remodel, records were stored in underground vaults. Thomas had access."
Vega frowned. "Those vaults were sealed twenty years ago."
June looked at her. "That's what the county said."
They went to the old courthouse at eight in the morning.
Bell refused to speak.
Cole demanded a lawyer.
The basement archive door sat behind shelves in a maintenance room. Ethan used Bell's key first.
It opened the outer lock.
His father's key opened the inner one.
Cold air rolled out.
The vault had electricity.
Rows of metal shelves disappeared into darkness.
On them sat hundreds of boxes labeled with dates, names, and county departments.
But one section had no government labels.
Only numbers.
Daniel walked down the aisle.
"These are operation codes."
Ethan recognized some.
Afghanistan.
Iraq.
Somalia.
Yemen.
His entire military life reduced to boxes in a Montana courthouse basement.
He opened one labeled RAVEN-6.
Inside were photographs of him.
Hundreds.
Ethan at airports. Ethan at his mother's funeral. Ethan entering a VA clinic. Ethan marrying Rachel. Ethan sleeping in a chair beside a teammate's hospital bed.
Rachel stared over his shoulder.
"Oh my God."
Daniel opened another box.
Inside were profiles of men from Ethan's unit.
Some were dead.
Some had disappeared.
Some had been ruined by scandals that never made sense.
Vega whispered, "This is surveillance."
Daniel's face had gone gray.
"No."
He lifted a page.
"It's selection."
Ethan took it.
At the top was a Helix document marked CANDIDATE RETENTION PROGRAM.
Below were names.
His was first.
Daniel's was second.
May you like
And beside Daniel's name was a handwritten note.
SIMULATED DEATH SUCCESSFUL.
