Chương 5
“Where did you get that?”
“I made it before deployment.”
My father’s eyes narrowed.
“You copied classified material.”
“Yes.”
“You realize that is a violation.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Because I had learned something from watching him for thirty years.
People followed rules until the rules became the reason they failed.
But I did not say that.
“I noticed changes between the briefing I received and the briefing uploaded into the system afterward.”
Nobody spoke.
My father looked at the device.
“Changes made after you received orders.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you not report that?”
I looked at him.
“Because the last person who questioned a mission change under Orion protocols disappeared from active duty.”
The sentence landed harder than I expected.
My father’s face went still.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I stopped assuming the system was protecting everyone inside it.”
Admiral Reid leaned forward.
“Captain, you are saying there may be a compromised command structure.”
“I am saying I do not know who is compromised.”
The distinction mattered.
People always wanted villains to have faces.
It made the world easier.
But sometimes the most dangerous thing was not one person.
It was a group of people protecting a mistake because admitting the mistake would destroy them.
My father looked at the device again.
“Give it to me.”
I did not move.
His eyes lifted.
For a moment, we were not general and captain.
We were father and daughter.
And both of us remembered every time trust had failed between us.
“I cannot.”
The words hurt him.
I saw it.
“You do not trust me.”
“I trust you to be my father.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the answer.”
The silence after that was worse than anger.
Admiral Reid stood between us without physically moving.
“You are both right.”
My father looked at him.
“That is not helpful.”
“No.”
The admiral glanced at the device.
“But it is true.”
He looked at me.
“Captain, you are afraid your father will act emotionally.”
Then at my father.
“General, you are afraid your daughter has been carrying something dangerous alone.”
Neither of us answered.
Because he was right.
A few minutes later, the three of us left the conference room together.
Not as a family.
Not as allies.
Something less certain.
Something that could break again.
But for the first time in years, we were walking toward the same problem.
The drive to Daniel Voss’s house took twenty-three minutes.
I knew because I watched the numbers change on the dashboard clock the entire way.
I hated that I did that.
It was a useless habit.
Time was only useful when it gave you something you could change.
This time, it was just proof that we were getting closer to whatever waited for us.
Rain had started again.
The kind that barely counted as weather but still made every streetlight blur across the windshield.
My father sat in the passenger seat.
That alone felt strange.
Growing up, I had spent thousands of hours in vehicles with him.
He was always driving.
Always deciding the route.
Always telling me where we were going.
Now he sat quietly while I drove.
Neither of us mentioned it.
Some changes were too obvious to name.
Admiral Reid followed behind us with another vehicle.
The official response team had been delayed because nobody wanted to move a military operation without knowing who inside the system might already be compromised.
That sentence sounded ridiculous when spoken aloud.
It sounded even worse because everyone in the car believed it.
My father looked out the window.
“Your mother hated rain.”
I glanced at him.
The comment seemed random.
Maybe it was.
“Why are you telling me that?”
He shrugged slightly.
“I do not know.”
It was such an unusual answer from him that I almost smiled.
Almost.
“She used to say rain made everyone pretend they were in a movie.”
I looked back at the road.
“She was right.”
A quiet sound came from him.
Not quite a laugh.
Close.
“She would have liked you.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
“She barely knew me.”
“She knew enough.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“She knew the version of me who still wanted her approval.”
My father turned toward me.
“That girl is still there.”
I did not answer.
Because part of me wanted to believe him.
And part of me hated that I did.
The GPS announced the next turn.
Daniel Voss lived in a quiet neighborhood outside the city.
The kind of place people chose when they wanted distance from everything.
Small houses.
Trees.
Porches.
Neighbors who knew each other’s routines.
It looked completely wrong for a person connected to classified intelligence.
That was probably why he chose it.
People rarely suspected ordinary places.
We stopped two streets away.
My father looked at me.
“Why are we stopping?”
“Because if someone followed him here, they expect a response.”
Reid’s vehicle pulled in behind us.
The admiral stepped out.
“You think the house is compromised.”
“I think anyone who is careful enough to manipulate military systems is careful enough to watch the obvious approach.”
My father looked toward the house.
“You always assume the worst.”
“No.”
I checked the street.
“I assume someone else already did.”
The response team moved quietly.
No dramatic entrance.
No shouting.
Just professionals trying not to create the exact situation they feared.
Five minutes later, the signal came.
The house was empty.
Not abandoned.
Empty.
There was a difference.
Inside, everything looked normal.
A coffee cup sat beside a laptop.
A jacket hung near the door.
A book was open on the kitchen counter.
The details bothered me more than a destroyed room would have.
A person had left quickly.
Not because they planned to.
Because they had to.
My father walked through the living room slowly.
He stopped beside a photograph on the shelf.
May you like
Daniel Voss standing beside his wife.
A younger man beside him.
