Chapter 10 - RED MESA
I heard Dad’s scream through a federal drone feed.
There are sounds the human mind knows before reason catches up.
A parent’s voice is one of them.
It did not matter that I had not heard him in six months.
It did not matter that pain had distorted the sound.
That was my father.
Alive.
Somewhere underground.
I was already moving toward the door when Dana stopped me.
“You’re not going into an active tactical scene.”
“That’s my father.”
“And if you run into an unsecured tunnel, he may lose his daughter ten minutes after getting her back.”
I hated her.
Which meant she was probably right.
We flew to Amarillo with the federal response team.
The ranch was nearly ninety miles away.
By the time we arrived, the main house had collapsed.
Agents had secured two surface buildings.
Three suspects were detained.
None were Logan.
None were Kessler.
The underground hatch led into a concrete facility built decades earlier.
Red Mesa had once been registered as an agricultural research property.
No public record mentioned underground laboratories.
Of course not.
I entered only after the tactical team cleared the first level.
The air smelled like smoke, bleach, and old metal.
Faded signs remained on several doors.
OBSERVATION.
ARCHIVE.
BIOLOGICAL STORAGE.
PROJECT HELIX.
My stomach twisted.
This place had been waiting beneath Texas soil longer than I had been alive.
We found Grandma in an examination room.
Alive.
Her wrists were tied to a chair.
Dr. Miriam Bell was beside her.
Unconscious.
I ran to Grandma.
Her eyes opened.
“Claire.”
I dropped to my knees.
“I’m here.”
She touched my face.
Again.
The same gesture from the dog crate.
But this time I could barely keep myself from crying.
“Dad?”
She nodded weakly.
“They took him deeper.”
“Who?”
“Logan.”
“Kessler?”
“I never saw him.”
Medics freed her.
I stood.
“Where?”
Grandma pointed toward a steel door.
“He kept asking Robert for a password.”
“What password?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did Dad say?”
Her eyes filled.
“He said he would rather die.”
I kissed her forehead.
“You’re leaving with the medics.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Claire.”
“This is not negotiable.”
For once, Grandma almost smiled.
“You sound like him.”
I turned away before that sentence broke me.
The lower level had been partially flooded.
Power flickered.
Old laboratory rooms stood behind thick glass.
Most were empty.
Some contained rusted equipment.
Then we found recent signs.
Food containers.
Medical supplies.
A cot.
IV bags.
Someone had been living underground.
Dad.
We found his blood on the cot.
His reading glasses.
His wedding ring.
I picked it up with gloved fingers.
The ring was engraved inside.
LAURA — ALWAYS.
Dad had never removed Mom’s name.
Not even when he married Vanessa.
I understood now.
The marriage to Vanessa had never been love.
It had been war.
A federal agent called from the next room.
“Lieutenant.”
I entered.
The walls were covered with diagrams.
Family trees.
Genetic charts.
Names.
Hundreds of names.
Some were military officers.
Judges.
Executives.
Politicians.
Scientists.
Their children.
Their spouses.
Medical notes beside many.
This was not old research.
Someone had updated it recently.
My own photograph was in the center of one board.
CLAIRE WHITMORE.
Beside it were deployment dates.
Medical screenings.
Blood type.
Vaccination history.
A handwritten note.
ACTIVE ASSET POSSIBILITY.
My skin crawled.
“What does that mean?”
Ramirez photographed the board.
“We don’t know.”
I pointed.
“Stop saying that.”
He looked at me.
“I would rather say I don’t know than invent an answer.”
Again.
The trustworthy people in my life were the ones willing to disappoint me with uncertainty.
We continued.
At the end of the corridor, we found a surveillance room.
Monitors showed multiple camera feeds.
One camera displayed a concrete chamber.
Dad was inside.
Alive.
Sitting on the floor.
Hands bound.
He looked twenty years older.
His face was gaunt.
His hair almost completely gray.
But he was alive.
“Dad.”
I moved toward the screen.
He could not hear me.
A man entered the room.
Logan.
He crouched beside Dad.
We could hear audio.
“Last chance.”
Dad laughed weakly.
“You’ve said that fourteen times.”
“Password.”
“No.”
Logan struck him.
My body moved before my brain.
Ramirez grabbed my arm.
“Wait.”
I turned on him.
“He’s hitting my father.”
“We don’t know where that room is.”
“Find it.”
Agents traced the camera cable.
The feed ran through the lower corridor.
We followed.
The image suddenly changed.
Logan looked directly into the camera.
He smiled.
Then spoke.
“Claire.”
Everyone stopped.
“He knows we’re here.”
Ramirez whispered.
Logan continued.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Dad lifted his head.
His eyes widened.
“Claire?”
My knees weakened.
Dad looked toward the camera.
“No.”
He struggled against the restraints.
“No, no, no.”
Logan laughed.
“She always was predictable.”
Dad shouted.
“GET OUT!”
The screen went black.
Then alarms sounded throughout the facility.
A computerized voice announced.
PURGE SEQUENCE INITIATED.
“What purge?”
I asked.
Ramirez looked toward the ceiling.
“Probably fire suppression.”
He was wrong.
Steel doors began closing.
Water rushed into lower corridors.
The facility was flooding itself.
“Move!”
Agents ran.
We followed the cable path deeper.
Dad’s room had to be near.
Water rose around our boots.
Then knees.
A door sealed ahead.
One agent used a hydraulic spreader.
The metal bent.
We squeezed through.
Beyond it was another corridor.
Three doors.
We opened the first.
Empty.
Second.
Medical supplies.
Third.
Dad.
He was on the floor.
Alone.
No Logan.
I ran to him.
“Dad.”
His head lifted.
For one second, he looked confused.
Then his entire face collapsed.
“Claire.”
I cut the restraints.
He pulled me against him.
I had imagined this moment a thousand ways in the last twenty-four hours.
Anger.
Questions.
Relief.
Instead, I became six years old.
I held my father.
He shook in my arms.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Not now.”
“I should have called you.”
“Not now.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“We have to move.”
He could barely stand.
Marcus and an agent supported him.
Water reached our thighs.
We moved toward the stairs.
Then Dad grabbed my arm.
“Bell.”
“She’s safe.”
His eyes sharpened.
“Where?”
“Upstairs.”
“No.”
“What?”
“Claire.”
His face filled with terror.
“Bell isn’t who you think she is.”
I stopped.
“What do you mean?”
Dad coughed.
“She worked for Kessler.”
“We know she worked on Helix.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“She still works for him.”
My stomach dropped.
“Grandma is with her.”
Dad’s face went white.
“Then Evelyn is not safe.”
I reached for my radio.
Static.
The flooding had disrupted communications.
We ran.
By the time we reached the surface, medics were everywhere.
Grandma’s ambulance was gone.
So was Dr. Bell.
I grabbed the nearest agent.
“Where did the elderly patient go?”
“Hospital.”
“Which?”
He checked.
“No transport destination logged yet.”
My blood went cold.
Dad gripped my shoulder.
“Bell needs Evelyn.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because your grandmother has the last Helix code.”
I stared.
“Grandma doesn’t know anything about Helix.”
Dad’s expression broke.
“Yes, she does.”
“What?”
He swallowed.
“My mother helped create it.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Grandma Evelyn.
The woman in the cage.
The victim.
The witness.
My protector.
Dad whispered.
“She spent thirty years pretending she didn’t remember.”
Before I could process that, an agent shouted from the road.
They had found the ambulance.
Abandoned.
Driver unconscious.
Grandma gone.
Bell gone.
On the dashboard was Grandma’s hospital bracelet.
May you like
And beneath it, written in her handwriting, were six words.
CLAIRE, DO NOT TRUST YOUR FATHER YET.
