44. Sarah
SARAH
The helicopter went silent.
Completely silent.
Even the engines seemed to fade into the distance.
Every eye turned toward my father.
Dad sat motionless beside Wade.
Alan Madow’s voice remained in our headsets.
Ask your father, Wade.
Four words.
That was all it took to fracture the joy of having my family together again.
I stared at Dad.
He looked older than he had minutes earlier.
Wade sat beside him, bruised and scarred from five years of captivity.
Five years stolen because of something his team discovered.
Something connected to our father.
“Dad?” Wade asked.
Dad closed his eyes.
Madow laughed softly over the radio.
He wanted this.
He wanted suspicion to spread through our family.
He wanted Wade to question the man who had spent five years searching for him.
Dad opened his eyes.
“He does this.”
His voice was calm.
Steady.
But I saw the pain beneath it.
“Madow divides people. He turns trust into suspicion and love into leverage. It’s how Project Nightfall survived.”
“You still haven’t answered the question,” Wade said.
“No.”
Dad looked at him.
“And you deserve the truth.”
Madow’s laughter stopped.
Dad leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees.
“Project Nightfall didn’t begin as a prison program. It began as an off-book intelligence group created to identify threats inside our own government.”
Rook stood near the open cabin door, listening.
“Who created it?” he asked.
“Eight senior officials. Military, intelligence, and political.”
My stomach tightened.
“The eight people on my list.”
Dad nodded.
“At first, their mission was legitimate. At least that was how they sold it. They claimed existing agencies were too compromised to investigate corruption at the highest levels.”
“What changed?” Wade asked.
“Power.”
Dad’s expression hardened.
“They stopped investigating threats and started deciding who qualified as one. Anyone who questioned them became an enemy. Operators disappeared. Evidence was altered. Missions were designed to fail.”
Wade looked toward the ruins of the mountain behind us.
“And the prison?”
“Containment. Interrogation. Leverage.” Dad’s voice roughened. “A place to bury anyone who knew too much.”
“Where do you fit into this?” I asked.
Dad looked at me.
“I found them.”
The answer surprised everyone.
“Twenty-three years ago, I was assigned to investigate a series of compromised operations. Different countries. Different teams. The only connection was that each mission exposed corruption involving powerful American officials.”
“You discovered Nightfall,” Rook said.
“The earliest version of it.”
Dad nodded slowly.
“I infiltrated one of their communications networks. Collected names, financial records, and operational codes.”
“Why didn’t you expose them?” Wade demanded.
“I tried.”
Pain entered Dad’s face.
“My source was murdered before he could testify. The evidence disappeared from a secure government server. My commanding officer told me the investigation never existed.”
“You kept copies,” I said.
“Yes.”
Madow spoke through the radio.
“And there it is.”
Dad ignored him.
“I created an encrypted archive. The files were tied to my operational signature so no one else could access them.”
Wade went still.
“My team found your signature inside the mountain.”
Dad’s eyes filled with guilt.
“Yes.”
The truth settled over the helicopter.
Wade’s team hadn’t accidentally discovered Black Site Theta.
They had found evidence connecting our father to Project Nightfall’s original investigation.
The men running the facility believed Wade knew where Jack Parker had hidden the archive.
“That’s what they wanted from us,” Wade said.
“Location. Encryption keys. Anything that would lead them to the original files.”
Dad looked at his son.
“When your team disappeared, I knew Nightfall was responsible. I didn’t know where they had taken you, and I couldn’t tell Sarah everything without putting her in the same danger.”
“You let me hunt them blind,” I whispered.
“I tried to keep you alive.”
“You should have trusted me.”
“I know.”
The admission stole some of my anger.
Dad didn’t defend the choice.
He didn’t tell me I was too young or incapable of handling the truth.
He simply acknowledged that he had been wrong.
Wade’s voice was quieter.
“Did Mom know?”
“No.”
“Where is the archive?” Rook asked.
Dad looked toward Madow’s helicopter.
“Safe.”
Madow laughed again.
“Not for long.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“If you knew where it was, Wade wouldn’t have spent five years inside that mountain.”
Madow went silent.
Good.
I enjoyed that.
Rook folded his arms.
“Enough games. We need the names confirmed.”
Madow didn’t answer.
Dad did.
“Rear Admiral Thomas Grayson.”
A name from my list.
“Director Alan Madow.”
The captured man listening from the other helicopter.
“Senator Richard Vance.”
My hand tightened around the edge of my seat.
“General Robert Sheffield.”
Wade listened without moving.
“Deputy Intelligence Director Walter Graves.”
Another architect.
Another powerful man hiding behind a title.
“Commander Jerry Rhodes.”
Dad’s expression changed at the next name.
“Mac Stenson.”
I noticed the hesitation.
“What?”
“I never proved Stenson was one of them. His authorization appeared on several Nightfall operations, but something about it never felt right.”
“His identity could have been used,” Fathom said.
“Or he could be involved,” Rook answered.
Dad nodded.
“Until we know, treat him as a threat.”
“And the last?” Wade asked.
“Major General David Thornton.”
Eight names.
Eight architects.
One captured.
Seven still free.
Rook looked toward Madow’s helicopter.
“You’ve heard the list. Confirm it.”
Madow remained silent.
Sarah keyed her radio.
“Should I start telling everyone what Alan Madow looks like when he’s bleeding in the snow?”
A few smiles appeared.
Madow didn’t share them.
“The names are correct,” he finally said.
“Are all eight still alive?” Rook asked.
A pause.
“Seven are.”
Sarah looked toward him sharply.
“Who’s dead?”
Madow’s answer came quietly.
“The man who tried to leave.”
“Name.”
“Commander Jerry Rhodes.”
Dad frowned.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“How did he die?”
Madow gave a humorless laugh.
“The same way everyone dies when they become inconvenient. His aircraft went down over the Atlantic.”
A staged death.
Another lie.
Perhaps Rhodes was dead.
Perhaps he was hiding behind another name, as Reeves had.
We couldn’t trust anything yet.
Wade stared toward the darkness.
“Where are the others?”
Madow answered.
“The same place powerful men always go.”
Rook’s eyes hardened.
“Where they think no one can reach them.”
“Exactly.”
I looked at my brother.
Five years had been stolen from him.
Five men emerged from that mountain when the world had been told none survived.
Madow believed the destruction of Black Site Theta had protected the others.
He was wrong.
The names were out.
The witnesses were alive.
And my family finally possessed the truth.
The first battle had ended.
The hunt had just begun.