Chapter 31 Marshall #2
“I know,” Ross said quietly. “But the logs came from the summit’s secure system. His credentials pinged the door lock.”
“What the—” He cut himself off before the anger surfaced. None of it fit. None of it aligned with the man he knew or the job Jackson had been performing.
Ross’s expression hollowed. “Exactly. Then the Russians claim the missile never existed. That it ‘vanished’ over the Tyrolean Alps. Their exact phrasing.” He let the absurdity sit there for a beat.
“Everyone outside Moscow believes they’re lying through their teeth.
And that someone brought it down quietly. ”
Marshall shook his head. “Missiles don’t vanish.”
“No,” Ross agreed. “But radars can be spoofed. Telemetry can be faked. And a false missile alert paired with an assassination attempt? That’s the kind of coordinated chaos Sidarov has been itching to engineer.
Case in point, Coulter was less than two minutes away from issuing a counterstrike that would have ushered in World War III. ”
Marshall felt something cold settle under his sternum.
Ross went on. “It gets worse. During the chaos, a data packet was sent from a device registered to Jackson’s temporary secure account. Routed through six countries. Encrypted. Looked like intel being moved off-books. The kind of thing traitors do before disappearing.”
Marshall’s voice was ice. “Did anyone verify the device was physically on him?”
Ross hesitated—but only for a breath.
No. No, they hadn’t.
“It was found in the debris of a blown-out surveillance bay,” Ross said. “Burned, but not enough to hide the ID. Whoever set this up wanted the evidence to survive.”
A perfect frame job. Clean. Surgical. Cruel.
Marshall felt his pulse hammer, hard enough to break bone. He forced his breathing to even out. “Someone stole his credentials, spoofed his access, used his device, and—what?—expects us to believe Jackson tried to assassinate the President and provoke a global incident in the same night?”
Ross didn’t answer immediately.
He looked down at his hands and slowly interlaced his fingers like he was anchoring himself before saying something he didn’t want to say.
“Marshall . . .” His voice was low. Measured. “No one is saying he definitely did any of that.”
Marshall’s stomach dropped through the floor. That tone. So careful. The one Ross used with families at casualty notifications. The one he used when the truth hurt more than the lie.
But Ross wasn’t done.
“What people are saying,” he continued, “is that Jackson was the only American on-site with the access, proximity, and skillset to pull off a coordinated breach like this. Not technical capability—operational capability. He’s a Scout, Marshall.
He knows how to move unseen, how to bypass physical security, how to get into places he’s not supposed to be.
” Ross’s voice went quieter. “He’s worked alongside Russian units before.
He knows their field protocols. He knows how our radar coverage overlaps and where it’s thin.
And with his years at Black Tower?” Ross exhaled, the sound heavy.
“He’s been embedded in enough diplomatic and protective ops to know exactly how to get close to Coulter without raising suspicion. ”
He let that sit for a beat.
“Add the data packet,” Ross finished softly, “and the picture gets . . . complicated.”
Complicated meant damning.
“No,” Marshall said. Just that. Quiet, absolute. “You think competence equals guilt?”
Ross’s jaw flexed. “I think motive matters. And opportunity. And recent behavior.”
“Recent—?” Marshall’s breath punched out of him. “What behavior?”
Ross looked him dead in the eye. “He went dark, Marshall. Before the missile alarm. Before the shot at Coulter. Jackson broke radio discipline for nine hours, including two directly before the situation exploded. No check-ins. No updates on his team’s position. Nothing.”
That wasn’t possible.
Except Ross wouldn’t have bothered saying it if he didn’t have the logs.
“He wouldn’t break discipline,” Marshall said, voice tightening. “Not unless he had no choice.”
“That’s one interpretation,” Ross said gently.
“It's the only interpretation,” Marshall snapped.
Ross didn’t rise to it. That might have been worse.
“He’s your brother,” Ross said quietly. “You see the best in him. We all do. Jackson is brilliant. Protective to a fault.” His throat bobbed, and something in his eyes flickered.
Regret, maybe. “But he’s also reckless. He improvises.
He bends rules until they’re unrecognizable.
And he’s been under pressure. A lot of it. ”
Marshall stared at him. “You think pressure turns him into a traitor?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“It’s exactly what you’re saying.”
Ross pushed a hand through his hair and sank back in the chair, the weight of everything he knew—and everything he feared—crushing down.
“Listen to me,” he said, more firmly now.
“I’m not accusing Jackson. I’m not calling him guilty.
But Marshall, this isn’t a tidy setup. It isn’t a few forged logs and a cloned keycard.
Whoever orchestrated this knew the system inside and out.
They knew Jackson’s patterns. They knew his skillset.
They knew how he’d react under stress. This frame job—if it is a frame job—was designed around him. ”
He let that settle.
“And sometimes,” Ross continued, “the simplest explanation isn’t that the evidence is fabricated. Sometimes it’s that we missed signs we didn’t want to see.”
A sharp, hot anger licked up Marshall’s spine. “There were no signs. There are no signs.”
“Then help me understand,” Ross said softly. “Because the more intel we gather, the more I see two possibilities. Either Jackson is the most thoroughly framed operative I’ve ever seen . . . or he had a reason to go dark—one we don’t understand yet.”
Marshall’s vision tunneled for a split second. Not at the accusation. But at the heartbreak in Ross’s voice—because Ross didn’t want to believe it either. He was falling for the frame because it looked airtight from where he sat.
He thought he was being rational. He thought he was protecting the team.
“Tell me you don’t believe it,” Marshall said. It wasn’t a plea. It was a demand. “Tell me you don’t believe Jackson sold out his country.”
Ross closed his eyes for half a second, long enough that Marshall felt like the floor might disappear beneath him.
When Ross opened them again, they were steady. Apologetic. And not on Marshall’s side of the line anymore.
“I believe,” Ross said, “that Jackson is capable of things most operatives aren’t. Good things. Extraordinary things. But also things that walk a razor’s edge. And those edges cut both ways.”
Marshall stared at him, stunned.
Ross continued, gentler now, as if trying not to break him completely. “Until he contacts us—until we hear his side—we have to work with the intel we have. And right now? It points in one direction.”
No.
No, it didn’t.
It pointed in the direction Sidarov wanted them to look.
“You’re wrong,” Marshall said, voice low and lethal. “You don’t know my brother like I do. Jackson would never betray the team. Never betray this country.”
Ross didn’t argue. “I’m sorry, Marshall. I do hope I’m wrong.”
Marshall stared at the table and tried to process everything Ross had shared. After a few moments, Ross shifted.
“I know we’re not done talking about Jackson, but we should talk about Summit and what happened here last night.”
He leaned back a little, some of the tension in his shoulders bleeding out as they shifted from brother to mission.
“Now,” he said. “I’ve had Joey’s prelim report, but walk me through your night. Start at the hotel.”
Marshall compartmentalized everything from the last ten minutes and forced himself to focus on what he needed to share.
He relayed the events of the previous night, hitting the major beats. The gala. Morris. Norah revealing him to Hale. His departure and return. Trip’s execution. The scramble through service corridors. Landon’s late, bloody entrance. The gunfight. The escape.
Ross listened without interrupting, only a muscle ticking in his jaw when Marshall described Harrington going down.
When he finished, the older man let out a breath that was almost a whistle. “You’ve been busy.”
“Not voluntarily,” Marshall said.
“That’s usually how it goes,” Ross replied wryly. The humor left as quickly as it had come. He was quiet for a beat. The lines at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper when he spoke again.
“She can’t go back to Summit,” he said simply.
The words weren’t a surprise. Marshall had known it the second Hale pointed a gun toward his head. Still, hearing them spoken out loud made something inside him settle and twist at the same time.
“She already knows,” he said. “Even if she hasn’t said it yet.”
“Knowing and accepting are different animals,” Ross said. “Summit was her world. Hale built a lot of that world for her. That’s a lot of ground to lose in one night.”
Marshall glanced toward the hall where the water still ran. He pictured her standing under it, braced palms against tile, trying to scrub the memory of blood and terror and betrayal off her skin.
“She’s tougher than she looks,” he said quietly.
“I don’t doubt it,” Ross said. He studied Marshall for a long moment, eyes sharp despite the fatigue. “Sounds like she’s one of us now, whether she meant to sign up or not.”
Something in Marshall eased at that. An acknowledgment, an inclusion. It meant she wouldn’t be cut loose. It meant she’d have backup that wasn’t just him.
“Bring her to the briefing when she’s ready,” Ross went on. “She’s seen enough that we can’t keep her on the outside. And she might see pieces we’re missing. She can be an analyst for us, or she can lay low. I don’t see any other option.”
Marshall nodded once. “She’ll come.”
“I know she will,” Ross said. “Especially if you ask.”
There it was. The glint again.
“Ross—”
“She matters to you,” Ross said, cutting him off gently.
“I’m not blind. I watched you nearly chew through the phone when I told you she was in the middle of this.
I watched you sit here between her and the door like you were waiting for someone to try again.
” His gaze softened. “You don’t have to explain it. Just . . . be aware of it.”
Marshall looked down at his hands, at the faint scuff marks across his knuckles from the fight at the hotel.
“I am,” he said. The admission felt like stepping off a ledge and finding ground under his feet anyway. “More than I’d like to be.”
Ross’s mouth curved, sad and knowing. “That’s how you know it’s real.”
He pushed back his chair with a scrape. The conversation had clearly drained what reserves he’d had left.
“We brief in thirty,” he said as he stood. “Take five to breathe. Then bring her down.”
The kitchen went quiet again as Ross left.
Marshall scrubbed his hands over his face, dragging the heels into his eyes until pinpricks of light sparked behind his lids. Jackson alive. Framed. Geneva on fire. Norah’s life in shards at her feet.
The shower cut off down the hall. Pipes clanked, then quieted. A few seconds later, footsteps padded back toward the kitchen.
He dropped his hands and sat up straighter automatically.
Norah stepped into the doorway, bare feet silent on the hardwood.
Her hair hung in silky waves around her shoulders, darkened and heavy, the ends leaving small wet spots on the borrowed T-shirt she’d changed into.
The hoodie was gone. The cotton clung to the delicate line of her collarbone where a bruise was already blooming from where Hale had grabbed her.
He’d seen her with wet hair earlier in the week, at her house after the break in. Somehow this felt different. More intimate. He’d tasted her now. Perhaps that was the difference.
She caught the look on his face and stopped just inside the room, fingers tightening around the towel she rubbed absently in the length of her hair.
“What?” she asked, self-consciousness flickering across her features. “Did I miss some bubbles?”
“You’re fine,” he said. His voice came out rougher than he intended. He cleared his throat, tried again. “How was the water?”
“Hot,” she said. “Purifying.” A faint smile tugged at her mouth. It faded as she scanned his face more closely. “You look worse than I do. What happened?”
He gestured toward the chair beside him. The french fries were still there, ketchup congealing on her plate.
“Eat,” he said. “Then . . . we need to talk.”
About Summit. About Hale’s death. About the fact that there was no going back.