Chapter 13 - THE RIVER TUNNEL
The sound came through the damaged transmitter.
“Anna.”
My mother’s voice was weak, but it was real.
Federal agents rushed the loading dock.
Mark had been hit in the shoulder.
His protective vest stopped most of the impact.
He fell behind a concrete barrier and remained conscious.
Dane pulled my mother toward the boat.
General Reed’s team blocked the canal exit from above.
Dane had nowhere to go.
Still, he refused to surrender.
He held the gun near my mother and demanded the microfilm.
I spoke through Mark’s transmitter.
“Victor.”
He froze.
“You wanted me there.”
“I am listening.”
“You should have obeyed your grandfather.”
“He spent twenty-six years undoing your lies.”
“And died without finding his daughter.”
My mother lifted her head.
“I was never lost.”
She looked directly at Dane.
“I remembered everything.”
Dane’s confidence cracked.
The medication had not erased her memory.
It had only made her unable to prove who she was.
For years, she listened while he discussed accounts, judges, contractors, and officials.
She memorized names.
Laura Mercer helped her record them.
The restaurant photograph had not been surveillance.
It had been a planned signal.
My mother had allowed herself to be photographed beside Laura because she knew the image would reach the vault.
Dane had controlled her body.
He had never controlled her mind.
Agents closed in.
Dane dragged her toward the edge of the dock.
Mark pushed himself upright.
“Take me instead.”
Dane laughed.
“You are worth nothing.”
“That never stopped you from using me.”
Mark stepped into the open.
For one second, Dane’s gun moved away from my mother.
General Reed fired.
The bullet struck Dane’s weapon and knocked it across the dock.
Agents tackled him before he reached it.
My mother was pulled to safety.
The boat drifted away empty.
I watched the rescue on the screen with tears covering my face.
Grace slept in the protected room next door.
My mother was alive.
Dane was in custody.
The nightmare should have ended there.
It did not.
The offshore account pattern in Maria’s blanket revealed one final transfer.
Twenty-four hours before my labor began, ten million dollars moved from North Lake into a company registered to Mark.
Mark claimed he knew nothing about it.
Prosecutors found his electronic signature on the transfer.
If the account belonged to him, he had not only conspired to control my inheritance.
He had accepted payment from the network attacking Operation Meridian.
Mark looked at the record from his hospital stretcher.
“I never opened this company.”
Evelyn was brought in for identification.
She studied the signature.
“That is not Mark’s.”
Rachel disagreed.
“The certificate is valid.”
Evelyn pointed to a small number in the transaction code.
“This authorization came from Anna’s command office.”
I checked the number.
She was right.
Someone had used my classified command credentials to create a company in Mark’s name.
The transfer was designed to frame him if Dane was captured.
Only four officers had access to those credentials.
Evelyn was one.
General Reed was another.
I was the third.
The fourth officer had led the rescue team.
Brigadier General Paul Mercer.
May you like
Dr. Mercer’s older brother.
At that exact moment, Paul Mercer disappeared from the river tunnel with my mother.
