Chapter 3 - SOMEONE WAS LISTENING
General Harlan raised one finger to his lips.
Eli immediately went silent.
Another faint sound came from the hallway.
A shoe against wood.
Harlan moved toward the door.
He opened it fast.
Marcus stood six feet away.
He was holding a clipboard.
“Everything okay?” Marcus asked.
Harlan looked at the clipboard.
“You always take attendance outside private offices?”
Marcus laughed.
“Just doing my job.”
“Then do it somewhere else.”
Marcus glanced past him toward Eli.
“Kid cause trouble?”
“No.”
“Funny situation.”
“What is?”
“Some random kid shows up, hits a miracle shot, suddenly he’s having secret meetings with a retired general.”
Harlan stepped into the hallway.
“Go back to the range, Marcus.”
Marcus’s smile disappeared.
“Sure.”
He walked away.
Harlan waited until he was gone, then locked the office door.
Eli watched him.
“You don’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust coincidences.”
Harlan returned to the phone.
“There’s nothing on it.”
“He said there wouldn’t be.”
“What?”
Eli removed the battery.
Taped underneath it was a tiny key.
Harlan stared.
Eli shrugged.
“Dad likes hiding things.”
Harlan almost smiled.
Daniel used to hide birthday presents so well that nobody found them until months later.
“What does the key open?”
“I don’t know.”
Harlan examined it.
A stamped number was barely visible.
His face tightened.
“I do.”
Twenty minutes later, they were in Harlan’s SUV heading toward a private storage facility outside town.
Eli sat silently in the passenger seat.
Harlan kept glancing at him.
The boy had Daniel’s eyes.
Same dark gray.
Same irritating way of staring through people instead of at them.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Harlan did the math.
Daniel had been declared dead twelve years ago.
Meaning his son had already been a father when Thomas attended his funeral.
The realization made his chest ache.
“Did he ever talk about me?”
Eli looked out the window.
“Sometimes.”
“What did he say?”
“That you were the toughest man he ever knew.”
Harlan swallowed.
“And?”
“That you were also the most stubborn.”
Harlan let out a short laugh.
“That sounds like Daniel.”
Eli finally looked at him.
“He missed you.”
The laugh vanished.
“Then why didn’t he come home?”
“He said coming home would get you killed.”
That answer followed them all the way to the storage facility.
Locker 317 was at the end of a long concrete corridor.
Harlan inserted the key.
The door rolled upward.
Inside sat one black military-style case.
Nothing else.
Harlan opened it.
There was a laptop.
Several paper files.
A handgun.
And a photograph.
Harlan picked up the picture.
Five soldiers stood in front of a helicopter.
Daniel was one of them.
Harlan recognized another face immediately.
Colonel Adrian Knox.
Now retired.
Now a billionaire defense contractor.
And one of Thomas Harlan’s closest friends.
Eli pointed to the back of the photograph.
There were four words written in black ink.
TRUST NONE OF THEM.
May you like
Then the facility lights shut off.
Somewhere behind them, a gun clicked.
