Chapter 3
REAGAN
The cursor blinks against classified documents I have no legal right to access.
Three hours into this database dive and my eyes burn from screen glare. Coffee went cold an hour ago but I keep drinking it anyway. Dylan's somewhere behind me, silent as a ghost, monitoring everything I pull up. Making sure I don't access anything that compromises their locations or operations.
Smart. I'd do the same if our positions were reversed.
The financial networks are elegant in their complexity.
Morrison funneled money through shell corporations in the Caymans, then through defense contractors in Virginia, then back through Pentagon procurement channels.
On paper, it looks like legitimate black ops funding.
Dig three layers deeper and the pattern emerges.
Chemical weapons research. Human testing protocols. Systematic elimination of witnesses.
Protocol Seven.
I've been chasing this story for six months.
Followed the money through systems designed to be invisible, connected dots that weren't supposed to connect.
Started investigating Morrison's network, but he's dead now.
Webb took over, and he's even more dangerous.
Now I'm sitting in a safe house with the people Webb wants dead, accessing databases that could get me arrested for treason.
Funny how quickly "investigative journalism" becomes "federal crime" when you ask the wrong questions.
"Find something?" Dylan's voice cuts through my concentration.
"Morrison wasn't just covering up war crimes. He ran a systematic program since the nineties." I pull up a timeline, highlight the pattern. "Friendly fire incident in Somalia, 1993. Three witnesses. All dead within six months. Classified as training accidents."
Dylan leans closer to the screen. He smells like gun oil and coffee. "Keep going."
"Bosnia, 1996. Marines witnessed the execution of prisoners by allied forces.
Three witnesses. Car accident, suicide, training mishap.
All within the year." My fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up more files.
"Iraq, 2004. Abu Ghraib was just the public scandal.
The classified version was worse. Twelve witnesses to systematic torture. All dead within eighteen months."
"Protocol Seven. We knew it existed. Didn't know how far back it went."
"It goes back to the beginning." I display the full network. "Morrison built this over three decades. Perfected the art of making problems disappear. Then he graduated from covering up war crimes to committing them directly."
The next file loads and my stomach drops.
Operation Atlas. Syria.
The classification markers are higher than anything I've accessed before. Eyes Only. Compartmented. The kind of files that aren't supposed to exist outside secure facilities.
Close it. Tell Dylan you found something above your clearance level and let him decide whether to proceed.
I click open instead.
The first document is an operational briefing. Chemical weapons testing. Authorized personnel only. Target site: civilian village, northern Syria. Population approximately 350.
My hands shake as I scroll through the details.
They chose the village specifically because it was isolated.
No international observers, no media presence, no witnesses except the ones they wanted gone anyway.
The operation was designed to test chemical agents on a live population under battlefield conditions.
Measure dispersal patterns, casualty rates, symptomatic progression.
Scientific method applied to mass murder.
Three hundred forty-seven civilians died.
The medical files load before I can stop myself.
The images are clinical. Sanitized. Bodies arranged on metal tables like specimens in a laboratory. But underneath the detached scientific notation, the horror is undeniable. Chemical burns. Tissue necrosis. Respiratory failure documented in excruciating detail.
One file catches my eye. Subject Seven. Female, age eight.
I open it and everything tilts.
The medical photographs are methodical. Progression of chemical exposure over time.
An eight-year-old girl with dark hair and darker eyes, systematically photographed as the chemicals destroyed her from the inside.
The notes are worse. Clinical observations of her deterioration.
Time of death marked with the same casual precision as the ambient temperature.
My coffee cup hits the floor. The sound echoes like a gunshot in the quiet room.
Dylan moves fast. Steadies me before I realize I'm swaying. His hand on my shoulder is the only thing keeping me upright.
"Breathe." His voice cuts through the roaring in my ears. "Just breathe."
I can't. Can't breathe, can't think, can't process what I'm seeing. That child. Eight years old. Murdered by her own government.
"They documented it." The words come out strangled. "They took pictures while she died."
"Close the file, Reagan."
"They measured her suffering like a science experiment."
"Close it." Dylan's hand tightens on my shoulder. Not threatening. Anchoring. "You don't need to see more."
But I do. Someone has to bear witness. Someone has to remember these people as more than test subjects and operational statistics.
Another file. Subject Twelve. Male, age fourteen.
The name stops me cold.
Khalid Hassan.
The boy in the corner. The fifteen-year-old who sits too still and watches everything with eyes that have seen too much.
The medical report details chemical exposure. Critical condition. Prognosis: death within hours. But there's a notation at the bottom, handwritten in different ink.
Extracted. Status: Alive.
"You saved him." I look up at Dylan. "You were there. You saw what Morrison did and you saved Khalid."
"I was there to ensure compliance. Make sure the operation proceeded without complications. Document the results. Eliminate any witnesses who survived."
"But you didn't eliminate Khalid."
"No."
Everything Dylan was, everything he did for them, and the single moment when he chose differently.
I turn back to the screen. Keep reading because stopping means letting these people die twice. Letting their suffering become just another classified file that nobody remembers.
The list of subjects scrolls past. Names. Ages. Medical conditions. All meticulously documented. All dead except one.
My investigation has been chasing this network for six months. Building a case against corrupt generals who covered up war crimes. But this is genocide disguised as research. Mass murder authorized at the highest levels of command.
And the only surviving witness is a teenage boy who shouldn't have lived.
"I need to talk to Khalid."
"No." Dylan's response is immediate. "He doesn't discuss what happened."
"He's the only witness. The only person who can testify to what Morrison did."
"He's a traumatized child who watched his entire family die. You don't get to use him as a source for your story."
"This isn't about a story anymore." I close the medical files, pull up the authorization documents instead.
"This is about justice. Morrison authorized the murder of three hundred forty-seven civilians.
He's dead now, but his crimes still need to be exposed.
And Webb is continuing the same operations. "
"He will. But not by exploiting Khalid's trauma."
The edge in Dylan's voice is sharp enough to draw blood. This isn't just a rescue. It's personal.
"Tell me the rest. You were there to ensure compliance. To eliminate witnesses. But you saved Khalid instead. What happened to the others?"
Dylan's expression doesn't change. "There were no other survivors."
"Because you followed orders?"
"Because Morrison's chemical weapons were extremely effective. By the time I arrived, everyone except Khalid was already dead or dying."
"And Khalid?"
"Khalid was still breathing. Barely. The field medics said he had maybe an hour." Dylan's jaw works. "I was supposed to wait until he died naturally. Document the progression. Make sure there were no surviving witnesses."
"But you didn't wait."
"I saw an eight-year-old girl's body on a table with a tag marking her as Subject Seven. Saw the clinical notes documenting how long it took her to die." Something shifts in his expression. "She was the same age my daughter would have been."
My breath catches. Would have been. Past tense.
"What happened to your daughter?"
"She died when she was eight years old. Along with my wife. Years ago."
Years working for the Committee. Years since his daughter died.
"How did they die?"
"Committee bombing. Targeted strike designed to eliminate witnesses to a Syrian operation. Lisa and Maya were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Collateral damage in an operation I helped plan."
Outside, someone's boots crunch on gravel. Through the encrypted connection, Tommy types at Echo Base. The ordinary sounds make Dylan's words even more horrifying.
"You helped plan the operation that killed your family."
"Not directly. I provided intelligence support. Verified target locations. Confirmed witness identities. I did my job. They died because I was good at it."
"And then?"
"Then I hunted down everyone involved in the operation.
Found the field team who planted the explosives.
The intelligence officer who authorized the strike.
The commander who signed off on eliminating civilian witnesses.
" Dylan stares at the wall behind me. "I found them all.
Spent six months tracking them down one by one. "
"What did you do to them?"
"What I was trained to do. Interrogation. Extraction. Whatever it took to get answers. I wanted names. I wanted to know who gave the orders. Who decided my wife and daughter were acceptable losses."
"Did you get your answers?"
"Yes."
"And then?"