Chapter 9 - THE DEAD WOMEN'S FILE
Pike turned on Kessler.
“You told me the signal was blocked.”
“It was.”
“Then who contacted them?”
Rebecca smiled.
“I did.”
Everyone looked at her.
She lifted a small emergency beacon from her jacket.
“I stole it from the lifeboat station.”
Daniel’s face twisted with rage.
He raised the gun toward her.
I moved first.
I slammed my shoulder into him.
The gun fired.
Hale tackled Pike.
Kessler ran.
Rebecca kicked the weapon away.
Daniel grabbed me around the throat.
“You ruined everything!”
I drove my elbow backward into his ribs.
Once.
Twice.
His grip loosened.
I turned and struck him across the jaw.
He hit the wall.
For the first time, there was no charming Daniel Mercer left.
Only rage.
“You think you’re better than me?”
“No.”
I wiped blood from my lip.
“I just think you’re done.”
He laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
He pulled a small flash drive from his pocket.
“What’s that?”
“Insurance.”
He threw it into an open drain.
Rebecca screamed.
I dropped to the floor and caught it before it disappeared.
Daniel stared at me.
“That contains classified material.”
Now I understood.
Pike hadn’t simply protected murders.
He had been selling government secrets.
Hale cuffed Pike.
“What’s on it?”
Daniel grinned.
“Ask Claire.”
I inserted the drive into an isolated maintenance terminal.
Folders appeared.
Defense contracts.
Surveillance records.
Military personnel files.
And one folder labeled MORGAN.
Inside were documents about my grandfather’s company.
Morgan Tactical Systems had discovered a vulnerability in a federal communications platform six years earlier.
A vulnerability worth billions to the wrong buyer.
My grandfather had refused to sell it.
Then he died.
Official cause: heart attack.
I stared at the screen.
“Daniel didn’t choose me for the trust.”
Hale’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“He chose me because he thought I inherited the encryption key.”
Daniel smiled.
“Now you’re catching up.”
I turned slowly.
“I don’t have any encryption key.”
His smile widened.
May you like
“Yes, Claire.”
“You do.”
