18. Rook
ROOK
The warehouse remained silent.
Nobody touched the coffee.
Nobody spoke.
The storm battered the windows while Fathom examined the files recovered from the Northern Star.
Sarah stood near his workstation.
Close enough to read the screen.
Close enough to demand answers.
The paper file hadn’t contained much.
Wade Parker’s photograph.
A partially destroyed mission report.
Several transfer forms with missing destinations.
Someone had systematically removed most of his history.
But Fathom had found a matching personnel record among the copied files from the ship.
Wade’s photograph filled the center monitor.
Young.
Confident.
Smiling.
Alive on the day the picture was taken.
Sarah stared at him.
Her face gave nothing away.
Her hands did.
They were clenched at her sides.
Rook remained several feet behind her.
Close enough if she needed him.
Far enough to give her space.
Fathom enlarged the first surviving report.
“This document was filed three months after Wade’s team disappeared.”
Sarah drew a sharp breath.
“What?”
“The date is verified. It isn’t a clerical error.”
Sniper stepped closer.
“How do you know?”
“The report carries an authentication code created on the day it was filed. Someone couldn’t have entered it earlier and changed the date afterward.”
Fathom highlighted a line near the bottom.
STATUS: ACTIVE
The word illuminated the room.
Sarah stopped breathing.
Five years of searching.
Five years of being told Wade had died.
Five years of people dismissing her questions.
Now she had proof that her brother survived the operation.
At least initially.
Rook refused to turn it into more than the evidence supported.
“This proves he was alive three months after the mission,” he said.
Sarah looked back at him.
“It proves they lied.”
“Yes.”
“Marcus knew.”
“Probably.”
Her eyes hardened. “He carried an empty casket.”
“And now we know why.”
Fathom opened another document.
Most of it had been destroyed.
Only a few lines remained.
One stood out.
SURVIVOR TRANSFER AUTHORIZED
The room went still.
Sarah moved closer to the screen.
“Transfer to where?”
“The destination was deleted.”
“Who authorized it?”
“Deleted.”
“When?”
“Same date as the active-status report.”
“Was Wade alone?”
Fathom hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Sarah placed one hand against the table.
Rook saw the hope rise inside her.
He also saw the fear that came with it.
“Is there anything more recent?” she asked.
“Not in these records.”
The hope in her eyes flickered.
Not gone.
Wounded.
Rook stepped closer.
“We know he survived.”
“Five years ago.”
“Yes.”
“He could have died after the transfer.”
“Yes.”
Everyone looked toward Rook.
Sarah did too.
He wouldn’t lie to her.
He wouldn’t promise something the evidence couldn’t support.
She had been fed enough comforting lies.
“But someone went to extraordinary lengths to erase the fact that he survived,” Rook continued. “That means his survival threatened them.”
“Or what he knew threatened them,” Sniper said.
Fathom enlarged the transfer language.
“Look at the wording. It doesn’t say medical evacuation or prisoner recovery. It says survivor transfer.”
“That isn’t standard military language,” Rook said.
“No.”
“Then who wrote it?”
“Someone operating outside the normal system.”
Sarah stared at the report.
“What if he was transferred into a classified program?”
“Possible,” Fathom said.
“What if they held him?”
“Also possible.”
“What if he escaped?”
Fathom looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
Each answer created three more questions.
Rook understood that kind of uncertainty.
It could hollow a person out.
“Can you identify the facility?” he asked.
“Not yet. But the transfer order contains a partial routing designation.”
Fathom enlarged the surviving characters.
WARD—N
“Warden,” Sarah whispered.
Fathom nodded. “That’s my best guess.”
Rook studied the name.
“Program? Facility? Person?”
“Could be any of them.”
“Search everything.”
“I already started.”
Behind them, the captured mercenary sat restrained inside Cutter’s reinforced storage room. Reef and Maverick guarded him while Cutter arranged medical treatment for the leg wound.
He might know who ordered the cannery attack.
He might know where Marcus went.
Perhaps he knew what Warden meant.
Rook turned toward Sniper.
“Help Cutter question the prisoner.”
Sniper nodded and left.
Sarah remained in front of the monitor.
Her hand lifted toward Wade’s photograph.
Stopped before touching it.
“Wade.”
The name barely escaped her.
Rook felt something tighten in his chest.
That wasn’t the voice of the woman who had pulled three dying SEALs from a mountain.
It wasn’t the voice of the hunter who had fought beside him at the harbor.
It was the voice of a sister who missed her brother.
Fathom opened the personnel list connected to the transfer.
Most names were gone.
A single line remained beneath Wade’s identification.
TOTAL SURVIVORS RECEIVED: 4
Nobody moved.
Rook read it again.
Four survivors.
Not one.
Four.
Sarah looked at him.
“Wade wasn’t alone.”
“No.”
“Three other people survived his mission.”
“At least three.”
Fathom searched for the missing identities.
“They’ve been removed.”
The conspiracy hadn’t only hidden Wade.
It had hidden multiple survivors.
People who knew what happened.
People someone had erased instead of rescuing.
Rook looked at the word Warden.
A transfer location.
A program.
A prison.
Whatever it was, it had received four living people after Wade’s team supposedly died.
“We find Warden,” Rook said.
Sarah looked toward him.
“And then?”
“We bring your brother home.”
Her eyes held his.
Hope moved through them.
Fragile.
Terrifying.
Alive.