Chapter 13 - the officer behind the code
Victor ordered his security team to contact the base.
Every military channel failed.
Commander Hayes controlled the communications network around Victor’s office.
On the phone screen, Hayes walked behind the kneeling staff members.
“You have twelve minutes.”
Victor’s voice remained calm.
“If you harm anyone, there will be nowhere on earth you can hide.”
“I have been hiding beside you for sixteen years.”
Hayes ended the call.
Douglas laughed.
“Now you understand, Admiral. Meridian was never outside your command. It grew inside it.”
Victor turned to his security chief.
“Prepare transport.”
Rachel caught his arm.
“You cannot give them the file.”
“He has twelve hostages.”
“If Hayes receives the list, he will destroy it and the hostages.”
Mara nodded.
“My mother designed a false copy for this situation.”
She opened the M-14 case and removed a thin divider. Inside was a second file.
One contained real records.
The other contained altered names and tracking codes.
Victor studied her.
“Which is real?”
“I am not telling you.”
He almost smiled despite the crisis.
“You are definitely Margaret’s daughter.”
Rachel touched the pendant.
“The emergency code transmitted to your response team. Can it reach the base another way?”
Victor looked at the secure tablet.
“The transmitter uses a naval disaster network separate from normal communications.”
“Then Hayes may not control it.”
Nora approached the tablet and connected the crystal wafer from Lily’s wooden ship.
A map appeared.
The emergency signal had been received by multiple stations.
One response unit was already approaching Victor’s base.
But Hayes could see it too.
“He will move the hostages,” Nora said.
Rachel remembered Margaret’s message.
The house hears what the family hides.
“Does the mansion system connect to the command office?”
Victor shook his head.
Elaine looked toward the family portrait.
“Margaret’s original network did.”
They returned to the archive.
Behind the medical capsule, Mara found an old communications terminal. The screen displayed a list of remote Hale locations, including Victor’s command office.
ACCESS REQUIRES TWO SUCCESSORS.
Rachel placed her palm on one scanner.
Mara placed hers on the second.
The terminal activated.
Camera feeds from the command office filled the archive walls.
Hayes had moved the hostages into a secure conference room. Explosive devices had been attached to the doors.
Rachel covered her mouth.
Victor examined the feeds.
“He has six armed men.”
Nora enlarged an image.
“One of them is wearing a Meridian signal receiver.”
Mara opened the false M-14 file.
“The tracking code can overload that receiver.”
“Will it trigger the explosives?” Rachel asked.
“No. But it may disable their private communications long enough for the response unit to enter.”
Victor took the false file.
“I will deliver it personally.”
Rachel blocked the door.
“You are the person Hayes wants.”
“Exactly.”
“He may kill you before checking the file.”
“He will check it. Hayes spent sixteen years hiding. He needs to know whether Margaret identified him.”
Rachel looked at her father and understood that she could not stop him.
“Then I am going with you.”
“No.”
“This began with my inheritance.”
“It began before you were born.”
“It reached my daughter tonight. I am no longer staying outside the decisions that control my life.”
Mara stepped beside her.
“Neither am I.”
Victor looked from one daughter to the other.
For the first time that night, he seemed uncertain.
Then Lily appeared in the archive entrance.
“I’m coming too.”
Rachel immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“But the compass only works with me.”
Mara crouched beside her.
“The compass works because you are brave enough to carry it. You have already done your part.”
Lily looked at Victor.
“Bring everyone home.”
Victor knelt and kissed her forehead.
“I will.”
Before they left, Rachel approached Ethan, who was waiting in a security vehicle under guard.
“I need to know how Hayes contacts Adrian.”
Ethan looked at the false file in Victor’s hand.
“You are going to the base.”
“How does he contact him?”
“Through the Meridian receiver.”
“Can Adrian warn Hayes?”
“If he still has the transmitter.”
An officer searched Adrian again.
They found a thin device hidden beneath the skin-colored covering on his wrist.
It displayed one outgoing message.
THE FILE HAS TWO COPIES.
Hayes already knew.
Victor’s twelve-minute deadline had been a distraction.
On the archive cameras, the hostages were no longer in the conference room.
A convoy of black vehicles was leaving the base through a maintenance gate.
Mara enlarged the route.
“They are heading toward the coastal research facility.”
Rachel recognized the name on the map.
It was the same facility near which Margaret disappeared fourteen years earlier.
Victor looked at the clock.
“They are not waiting for the file.”
“What do they want?” Rachel asked.
Mara’s expression darkened.
“They want the only person who can verify which copy is real.”
May you like
Rachel understood before anyone spoke.
“They found my mother.”
