Chương 10
“Nationality?”
“American, I think.”
“Where can we find her?”
“I only met her at places she chose.”
“Last contact?”
“Tuesday.”
“What did she say?”
Marcus looked at Chloe.
“Say it,” Chloe told him.
“She said this would be the last task.”
“People like her say that often,” Priya said.
“She said Mercer had lost control of Vanguard and needed the briefing location before an internal review.”
Sarah turned to the communications analyst beside her. “What internal review?”
The analyst shook his head. “None scheduled.”
Unless Mercer expected one.
Or knew something they did not.
Sarah entered the interview room before Priya could stop her.
Wells, watching remotely, immediately demanded the interview end, but Marcus waved toward the camera.
“I want to talk.”
Sarah remained near the door. “Why did Mercer choose you?”
Marcus looked exhausted. “Because I needed money and wanted people to think I already had it.”
“That’s part of it.”
“He said your family trusted me.”
“They didn’t.”
“Your mother did.”
Sarah’s jaw tightened.
“He said I could ask questions without sounding like an investigator. He said you underestimated me because you disliked me.”
“I did underestimate you.”
Marcus gave a bitter, humorless smile. “Finally.”
“I thought you were vain and cruel. I didn’t think you were willing to endanger people for invoices.”
“I didn’t know people would be endangered.”
“When did you know?”
He looked at the table. “May.”
The photographs began in May.
“What happened?”
“A meeting in Baltimore changed locations after I reported the first one. The next day, I read about a car accident near the original hotel. A man died.”
“What man?”
“I don’t know. The article said he was a tourist.”
Sarah stepped closer. “Show me.”
“I saved it on the second phone.”
The technicians found the article in an encrypted folder. The dead man was identified publicly as Canadian consultant Michael Doran, killed in a hit-and-run outside a Baltimore hotel.
Sarah knew another name.
Mikhail Dornenko, a cooperating source scheduled to meet a Vanguard predecessor team at that hotel before the location changed.
She had never been told why the location changed.
Dornenko’s death had been treated as possible foreign action but never connected to a leak. Sarah had reviewed the case file dozens of times. The change request came through Colonel Mercer’s office, justified by a facilities concern.
Her knees weakened, though she remained standing.
Mercer had moved the meeting after learning Marcus had provided the original location.
Not to save Dornenko.
To test whether the information reached the network.
The network had watched the first hotel and killed him there anyway, either mistaking him for someone else or sending a warning.
Sarah remembered Mercer sitting beside her after the death, drinking tea in silence while she blamed herself for approving a source meeting during a thinly staffed week.
He had told her that leadership meant accepting ghosts without inviting them to command.
She had carried that sentence for a year.
Now it felt placed inside her.
Priya saw something in her face. “What is it?”
Sarah explained.
Marcus whispered, “I killed him.”
“You contributed to the chain,” Sarah said. “You did not drive the car.”
“I gave the location.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Then you knew afterward.”
He closed his eyes.
Sarah wanted to hate him cleanly. It would have been easier if he had enjoyed the damage. Instead he looked sick, frightened, and ordinary.
That did not make him less responsible.
It made responsibility more difficult to look at.
“What does Mercer want from Vanguard?” Priya asked.
Sarah turned toward the wall map beyond the glass, though the answer was not there.
“Vanguard isn’t only investigating leaks,” she said. “Tomorrow’s briefing was supposed to approve protective relocation for two vulnerable human sources and their families.”
“Who knew that?”
“Mercer, me, and command.”
The room went silent.
Marcus said, “He wants the location to identify the sources.”
“Or the relocation route,” Sarah said.
Priya was already calling command.
The briefing had been canceled, but the source movements remained scheduled under separate authorities. Those routes had not yet changed.
Mercer had built Vanguard, selected Sarah, and guided the investigation close enough to monitor what it discovered. Marcus had been one access point among several.
The operation’s purpose was not to find the leak.
It was to control the search for it.
By 8:30, senior command transferred the investigation to an emergency joint task group. Sarah remained officially removed but was required as a witness and adviser. The distinction produced three arguments, two signed memoranda, and no practical change in where she sat.
The source families were redirected before movement began.
One refused to go.
The other had already left home early without notifying the team.
Her name was Elena Markovic, an accountant who had documented procurement payments tied to the same overseas bank that funded Mercer through Marcus. She was traveling with her teenage son in a rental car.
Her security officer could not reach her.
Sarah knew Elena. They had met twice in secure rooms. Elena spoke softly, distrusted elevators, and always removed the paper sleeve from coffee cups because she disliked the texture. Her son believed she worked with federal auditors.
Mercer knew both names.
Sarah tried Elena’s emergency number.
No answer.
The rental car’s location service required legal authorization and company cooperation. Requests went out. Highway cameras were checked. Officers visited the safe apartment Elena had left and found breakfast dishes in the sink, one bedroom light on, and no sign of forced entry.
“Where would she go?” Priya asked.
“She was told to follow the route.”
“She left forty minutes early.”
“She does that when she’s scared. She thinks arriving first gives her control.”
“Destination?”
Sarah hesitated because she was not cleared to disclose it under the new structure.
Priya stared at her. “This is not the moment.”
“Federal training annex outside Laurel.”
May you like
Calls were made. The annex reported no arrival.
Marcus sat under guard in a nearby room. When Sarah showed him Elena’s photograph, he shook his head.
