Chapter 7 - What Their Fathers Built
The room inside contained no torture chamber.
No prisoners.
No weapons stockpile.
It contained records.
Thousands of them.
Kessler sat across from Ryan and opened a file dated 1998.
"Your father, Captain Andrew Cole."
Ryan stared at the photograph.
He hadn't seen that face in years.
"He died in Afghanistan."
"No."
Ryan's jaw tightened.
"Don't."
"He died in Virginia."
Ryan stood.
"Don't you dare."
Kessler pushed a document across the table.
Death certificate.
Andrew Cole.
Location redacted.
Date identical to the date Ryan had always known.
Country different.
United States.
Ryan slowly sat again.
"What was he doing?"
Kessler looked toward Elena.
She had entered behind them.
"Tell him," Kessler said.
Elena didn't.
Kessler sighed.
"Fine."
He opened another file.
PROJECT SENTINEL.
"It began as a behavioral resilience program."
Ryan stared at him.
"English."
"We studied how military personnel responded to humiliation, social pressure, authority, fear, loyalty conflicts."
Ryan thought about the bar.
"You tested people."
"Initially volunteers."
"Initially?"
Kessler looked tired.
"Then powerful people realized behavioral prediction had other applications."
Elena spoke.
"Recruitment."
Kessler nodded.
"Selection. Intelligence. Counterintelligence. Command assessment."
Ryan looked between them.
"And my father?"
"Opposed expansion."
"Michael too," Elena said.
Ryan looked at her.
Kessler nodded.
"Michael Graves discovered personnel were being enrolled without consent."
Ryan remembered the boxes.
The colored classifications.
Red.
Amber.
Green.
"What does red mean?"
Kessler didn't answer immediately.
"High resistance to authority under social pressure."
Ryan almost laughed.
"Sounds flattering."
"It isn't."
Kessler's expression darkened.
"Red subjects were considered dangerous."
"To whom?"
"To anyone trying to control them."
Silence.
Ryan leaned forward.
"Who killed my father?"
Kessler looked toward the door.
"I don't know."
Ryan slammed both hands onto the table.
"Wrong answer."
"It's the truth."
"You ran this."
"No."
Kessler shook his head.
"I inherited part of it."
Elena stepped closer.
"Who runs it now?"
Kessler looked at her.
"Someone above me."
Elena stared.
"Name."
"I don't have one."
Ryan laughed bitterly.
"A brigadier general doesn't know?"
Kessler reached into his jacket.
Ryan tensed.
Kessler removed a small black key.
He placed it on the table.
"Your brother found this eighteen years ago."
Elena froze.
"He mailed it to me the night he disappeared."
"Why?"
"Because he thought I was still trustworthy."
Elena picked up the key.
"What does it open?"
Kessler looked at her.
"Room Seven."
"Where?"
Before he could answer, the lights died.
May you like
A gunshot cracked through the darkness.
Ryan heard Elena fall.
