Chapter 2 #2
Four minutes later, Reagan walks into the conference room carrying her laptop and a leather portfolio stuffed with printed documents. She's pulled her hair back, straightened her clothes as much as possible. Trying to look professional despite spending the night as a prisoner.
Kane's already seated. Mercer's at the tactical display. Khalid's back in his corner, watching Reagan with that unnerving stillness he has. The journalist notices him, nods slightly. Khalid nods back. Something passes between them. Recognition, maybe. Or understanding.
"Sit." Kane points to the chair across from him. "Dylan says you have intelligence worth keeping you alive. Prove it."
Reagan sits, opens her laptop, pulls up files with the efficiency of someone who's briefed hostile audiences before.
"General Morrison authorized chemical weapons testing.
Three hundred forty-seven Syrian civilians dead.
But he couldn't do it alone—needed budget approval, operational support, classified access. "
She displays a network diagram. Financial connections branching from Morrison to shell corporations, from corporations to defense contractors, from contractors to other military personnel.
"Morrison worked with Colonel Richard Whitmore at Fort Bragg and General Nancy Turner at CYBERCOM.
Whitmore provided logistical support and personnel.
Turner provided cyber security and communications blackout.
Together they ran Protocol Seven—systematic elimination of threats through assassination and cover operations. "
Kane leans forward. "How did you source this?"
"Financial records from three banks. Defense contracts filed with federal procurement. Communication logs from classified servers." Reagan meets his eyes. "Someone leaked them to a source who contacted me anonymously."
"Someone leaked classified communication logs." I keep my voice neutral. "Did you verify the source?"
"I verified the documents. Cross-referenced them with other intelligence, confirmed authorization signatures, traced financial transactions through multiple layers." Reagan meets my eyes. "The source called himself Cipher. Claimed to be adjacent to the organization. Wanted the story exposed."
"Cipher." The name means nothing. Could be legitimate whistleblower or plant. "You have any way to contact him?"
"He contacted me. Anonymous encrypted messages through a dead drop email service." She pulls up message logs. "Last contact was four days ago. He sent the final document package, told me to publish everything immediately, then disappeared."
Four days ago. Right before they started mobilizing teams to find her.
"Cipher set you up." The realization clicks into place. "Fed you real intelligence mixed with enough breadcrumbs to make you traceable. Once you published, they had justification to hunt you as a national security threat."
Reagan's expression shifts. Processing. "He wanted me to expose the Committee but also wanted them to find me."
"Cipher's one of them. Someone in Webb's organization who's playing both sides.
" Kane's already running scenarios. "Feed an investigative journalist enough intelligence to build a case, let her publish it publicly, then eliminate her before she can testify.
Webb maintains control and gets rid of a threat.
Journalist disappears. Cipher stays clean and maybe moves up in the power structure. "
"Except I didn't disappear." Reagan's voice hardens. "I got picked up by you instead."
"So Cipher's plan failed and they're scrambling to adjust." The tactical display comes up.
"Webb's desperate. Morrison's death put him in charge, and he can't afford any loose ends.
He authorized six teams to find you, offered five hundred thousand for your location.
He knows your investigation can bring down his entire network. "
"Holy shit," she breathes before shaking it off. "Let the bastard burn. Webb deserves everything coming to him, just like Morrison did."
"Webb deserves a bullet." Kane's voice stays flat. "Morrison got his. But bringing down Webb's network requires evidence that holds up in court. Your investigation gets us halfway there. We need the other half."
"What other half?"
"Proof that the Committee network extends beyond Whitmore and Turner. Proof that senior leadership authorized Protocol Seven. Proof that connects Morrison's chemical weapons program to the broader organization and to Webb's current operations." Kane meets Reagan's eyes. "Can your research do that?"
Reagan doesn't hesitate. "Yes. But I need access to classified databases I can't reach from here. Financial records, communication logs, operational authorizations. Everything's in systems designed to be inaccessible."
"Between Tommy and Sarah we can access them remotely from Echo Base." I look at Kane. "They can route the connection through here, encrypted protocols. Nothing traces back to either location."
Kane considers this. "Contact Tommy. Set it up. Dylan, you oversee. Make sure Reagan doesn't access anything that compromises our locations or operations. She gets what she needs to build the case against Morrison. Nothing more."
"Understood."
Kane stands. "Get to work. We have a short time frame within which to make this work."
Mercer heads back to his maps. Stryker's already outside checking perimeter sensors. Khalid lingers, then follows him.
"I'll set up the connection with Tommy." I pull out my encrypted phone. "They'll route database access through the safe house terminal. You work here."
Twenty minutes later, Tommy has the connection established. Reagan's at the terminal, files pulled up, already diving into financial records and authorization documents. Professional. Efficient. This is her element.
"You're good at this." The observation comes out before I can stop it.
"It's what I do." She doesn't look up. "Follow the money, follow the power, find who's trying to hide what they did. Morrison thought he could bury his crimes under classified stamps and bureaucratic layers. He was wrong. And now Webb's trying to do the same thing."
"Webb thought taking over after Morrison's death would give him a clean slate. Most generals in his position do." I lean against the wall, arms crossed. "They've operated above the law for so long, they forget laws still exist."
"Do they?" Reagan glances at me. "Exist, I mean. You're former Committee. You operated above the law. Did it feel like laws existed when you were disappearing witnesses and eliminating threats?"
The question is pointed. Testing. She wants to know if I'm like Morrison or if I'm something different.
"Laws existed. I chose to ignore them because they told me I was protecting something more important." The admission comes easier than it should. "I was wrong. They lied. And by the time I figured it out, I'd done things that can't be undone."
"Like what?"
"Like making witnesses disappear who weren't guilty of anything except knowing too much." The words taste like ash. "Like torturing people for information while telling myself it was necessary. Like spending years becoming exactly what they needed me to be."
Reagan's fingers stop moving across the keyboard. "Why'd you stop?"
"Because I saw Morrison's files on the Syrian operation.
Saw what he did to Khalid's village. Saw an eight-year-old girl's medical records documenting how chemical weapons burned her from the inside out while scientists took notes.
" The memory still cuts. "She was the same age my daughter would have been.
And I realized every justification I'd built was just permission to be a monster. "
The room goes quiet. Through the encrypted connection, I can hear Sarah and Tommy typing at Echo Base. Khalid's somewhere in the building, helping Stryker with security checks.
Reagan studies me. Not with fear or judgment. With something closer to understanding.
"So you saved Khalid instead of following orders."
"I chose to stop being what they made me after my wife and daughter were murdered." The correction matters. "Saving Khalid was the first choice I made that wasn't about revenge or justification. It was choosing right over orders."
"And they burned you for it."
"They burn everyone eventually. I forced their hand." I move toward the wall, away from the intensity of her gaze. "Now you need to help us burn Webb and the Committee before they burn us all. Can you do that?"
Reagan turns back to her laptop. "Watch me."
For the next three hours, she works. Relentless.
Pulls up financial records, traces transactions through shell corporations, identifies authorization signatures buried in classified documents Tommy and Sarah access remotely.
She finds patterns in communications that connect Morrison and now Webb to operations across four continents.
Systematic elimination of witnesses, targeted assassinations, cover-ups spanning two decades.
"Morrison had been doing this since the nineties." Reagan displays a timeline. "Started small. Eliminating embarrassing witnesses to friendly fire incidents. Graduated to covering up war crimes. Eventually evolved into systematically silencing anyone who threatened operations."
"Protocol Seven." Through the connection, Sarah's voice comes through. "We knew it existed. Weren’t sure Morrison was the architect."
"Morrison designed it, but he didn't implement it alone.
" Reagan links documents together. "Whitmore provided personnel and logistics.
Turner provided cyber security and digital cover.
But there's someone else. Someone above Morrison who authorized the entire program.
Someone who's likely still in command now that Morrison's dead—probably Webb's superior. "
"Who?" The question pulls me closer to the screen.
"I don't know yet. The authorization signatures are redacted.
But the pattern is clear. Morrison reported to someone with higher access, more authority.
Someone who's been running operations since before Morrison was promoted to general.
And if Webb took Morrison's position, he's reporting to the same person. "
This is the piece we've been missing. The command structure above Morrison. The person who can authorize Protocol Seven without oversight.
"Can you find them?"
"Maybe. If I can access personnel records from the eighties and nineties. Cross-reference operational deployments with current leadership. Find who was in position to authorize classified programs when Protocol Seven was first implemented."
"Tommy, can you get those records?" I ask.
"Some are archived in systems that require physical access," Tommy's voice comes through the encrypted connection. "But I can find backdoor access to most of them. It'll take time."
"How much time?"
"A couple days. Maybe less if I get lucky."
We don't have unlimited time before they find Reagan's last known position and start systematic sweeps. Cutting it close, but workable.
Reagan's already diving back into files. Relentless. Driven. This is more than a story for her now. This is personal.
She should take a break. Should eat something, rest, maintain operational readiness. But watching her work, seeing the patterns she finds that we've missed, something becomes clear. She's not just useful. She's necessary.
And that makes her both our best asset and our biggest liability.
Because if they realize how much she knows, how close she is to exposing their entire command structure, they won't just want her captured.
They'll want her erased from existence.
My phone buzzes. Encrypted message from Kane.
Committee teams moving into Colorado. Three confirmed deployments, civilian contractors posing as federal agents. They're searching for your journalist. Timeline's accelerating. Make her count. - Kane
Reagan's still absorbed in connecting Webb to the same handlers Morrison reported to. She has no idea the window just narrowed.
Teams are already in Colorado. Civilian contractors posing as federal agents, systematically eliminating her known contacts, working their way toward us.
Kane expects me to eliminate the problem if she becomes a liability.
But watching her work, seeing the patterns she uncovers that we've missed for months, the answer becomes obvious. We need her alive.
Even if keeping her that way gets us all killed.