Chapter 6 - The Confession
At 0900 Brennan sat before Rear Admiral Simon Rourke and confessed to everything.
She admitted falsifying manifests, selling restricted processors, coercing Ortiz, and attacking Garrett's team when confronted. Her appointed attorney stared at her in disbelief. Rourke listened without interrupting.
He was a celebrated officer with thirty-four years of service and a reputation for rescuing troubled commands. His photograph hung in buildings across Meridian.
"Why confess now?" he asked.
"Because I lost."
Rourke leaned forward. "Who purchased the equipment?"
"I never knew his name. The broker called himself Harbormaster."
The smallest tension left Rourke's face.
Brennan saw it.
Price's instruction had been a test. An innocent admiral would have reacted to the scale of the theft. Rourke cared only whether Brennan knew Harbormaster's identity.
He offered a deal: identify foreign contacts and receive a reduced sentence. Brennan invented two names and watched him recognize one.
After the interview, she was returned to her cell. That night a ventilation failure filled the block with smoke. Guards evacuated every prisoner except Brennan.
She wrapped a wet shirt over her face and used a metal bed bracket to break the narrow window. When the first assassin entered wearing a respirator, Brennan trapped his arm through the food slot and pulled until his shoulder struck steel. She took his access card and escaped into the service corridor.
Price waited behind a laundry cart.
"The confession is already spreading," Price said. "Garrett thinks he won. Rourke thinks you're disposable."
"Ortiz?"
"Alive. Federal protective custody under a false name. Her daughter too."
Relief nearly weakened Brennan more than the injuries.
Price drove her through an abandoned utility tunnel to a safe house. There, Daniel waited with bandages on his hands and fury in his eyes.
"You confessed on television," he said.
"A recording of a sealed interview reached television in three hours. That tells us who controls the leak."
Price revealed the next move. Brennan would remain officially detained while a body double occupied the infirmary. She had seventy-two hours to find the original ledger and connect Rourke to the sale.
The tracker had last signaled from a private office above headquarters. The office belonged to Captain Voss.
Daniel placed a set of old brass keys on the table.
"Dad kept these after he retired from Meridian," he said. "One opens the command archive. Before he died, he told me never to give it to anyone wearing an admiral's stars."
Brennan looked at him.
May you like
Their father had died in what the Navy called a boating accident fifteen years earlier.
Daniel swallowed. "Claire, I think Dad knew Harbormaster."
