21. Mara
MARA
Twenty-three men are coming out of the ground.
One at a time.
The fire is out.
The truck is covered in foam.
The collapsed cellar has been reinforced enough for the recovery team to enter safely.
Under portable lights, state investigators photograph every container before it’s lifted through the broken floor.
Twenty-three metal boxes.
Twenty-three men who were erased by someone powerful enough to believe no one would ever look for them.
Grant looked.
And fifteen years later, we found them.
I stand beyond the yellow tape with Doc beside me.
His hand rests against my back.
He hasn’t let me move more than three feet away from him since I jumped into Carson’s ambulance.
I’m pretending not to notice.
He’s pretending it’s accidental.
Neither of us is very convincing.
Sheriff Tate walks toward us.
“Carson has a broken ankle and a bruised hip.”
“He’s going to be all right?” I ask.
“Yes. Parker already called the hospital to make fun of him.”
“Good.”
Doc looks at me.
“That’s your definition of good?”
“It means Parker feels better.”
“And Carson?”
“He’ll survive Parker.”
Tate stops in front of us.
“They recovered a partial fingerprint from the abandoned pickup.”
“Vance?” Doc asks.
“We don’t know yet.”
“What about the driver’s side?”
“Wiped clean.”
“Then the print probably belongs to the owner.”
“Maybe.”
I look toward the wrecked truck.
“What else?”
Tate’s expression tells me there is something.
“A receipt.”
“For what?”
“Gas. Purchased tonight at a station near Mason Creek.”
“That’s forty miles north.”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Less than an hour before Vance called you.”
Doc looks toward the dark hills beyond the pasture.
“He drove south into Eagle River.”
“Looks that way.”
“Then abandoned the truck and sent it back here.”
Tate nods.
“We checked the station cameras. The driver wore a baseball cap and kept his face turned away.”
“But you think it was Vance.”
“He matches the general description.”
“Was he alone?”
“No.”
My pulse changes.
“Who was with him?”
“Another man. Older. He stayed inside a dark SUV while Vance filled the truck.”
“Did you get a plate?”
“Partial.”
Doc looks at Tate.
“What did it come back to?”
“Vehicle registered to a private security company in Virginia.”
“What company?”
“Harlan Strategic Services.”
Doc goes completely still.
I feel the change in him before I see it.
“You know that name.”
“Yes.”
“Who is Harlan?”
“Colonel Arthur Harlan.”
The wind moves across the pasture.
Smoke burns my eyes.
Or maybe it’s the name.
“The Colonel?”
Doc keeps looking at Tate.
“Harlan commanded the regional intelligence unit attached to our operation.”
“Was he at Site Seventeen?”
“Not officially.”
Tate’s mouth hardens.
“Twenty-three men didn’t officially exist either.”
I turn toward Doc.
“Why didn’t you recognize the Colonel’s name before?”
“Because nobody called Harlan the Colonel. Not around us. By then, everyone called him General.”
“He was promoted?”
“Six months after Grant died.”
Of course he was.
Twenty-three men were murdered.
Grant died.
Daniel Kane disappeared.
Arthur Harlan received a promotion.
“Where is he now?” I ask.
Tate holds up his phone.
“According to public records, he retired eight years ago and opened Harlan Strategic Services.”
“What does the company do?”
“Private security. Government contracts. Overseas transportation.”
Doc’s eyes turn cold.
“He kept doing the same work. He just moved it outside the military.”
Tate nods.
“Harlan’s company owns the SUV from the gas-station footage.”
“Do you have a current location?”
“The vehicle passed a traffic camera north of Eagle River thirty minutes ago.”
“Which direction?”
“South.”
Toward us.
Doc reaches for his weapon.
“Harlan is coming here.”
My phone rings.
Unknown number.
Every man around me reaches for a gun.
I check the screen.
“Vance?”
“Maybe.”
I answer on speaker.
“Deputy Ellis.”
Heavy breathing comes through the phone.
Then Kane speaks.
“You found them.”
He sounds weak.
I look at Tate.
“Kane, where are you?”
“Hospital.”
“I know that. How did you get a phone?”
“Deputy outside my door.”
Tate reaches for his radio.
Kane continues.
“He’s sleeping.”
Tate’s face darkens.
“He’d better not be.”
“I’m joking, Sheriff.”
“This isn’t funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
Doc takes the phone from me.
“You’re supposed to be unconscious.”
“I’ve always been a disappointment.”
“You know Arthur Harlan.”
Silence.
That tells us everything.
“Kane.”
“Yes.”
“He’s the Colonel?”
“Yes.”
The single word ends fifteen years of uncertainty.
Arthur Harlan.
A decorated officer.
A retired general.
A man whose private company still holds federal contracts.
The man behind Site Seventeen.
The man who ordered twenty-three executions.
The man who sent Grant’s team into an ambush.
Doc looks toward the recovered containers.
“Why is he coming to Eagle River?”
“To clean up Vance’s mess.”
“By killing him?”
“Probably.”
“Then why would Vance meet him?”
“Because Vance thinks Harlan is taking him out of the country.”
“He isn’t?”
“Harlan doesn’t rescue liabilities.”
I think about the black SUV seen north of town.
“Where are they meeting?”
“I don’t know.”
Doc’s hand tightens around the phone.
“You worked for Harlan.”
“Fifteen years ago.”
“You know how he operates.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me where he would go.”
Kane is quiet for several seconds.
“The old municipal airfield.”
Sheriff Tate looks toward the northern hills.
“That closed ten years ago.”
“It still has a usable runway,” Kane says. “Harlan’s company purchased the land through a holding corporation.”
Tate swears.
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve been tracking him since I got out of prison.”
“You knew Harlan owned property outside Eagle River and didn’t tell anyone?”
“I wasn’t sure until tonight.”
Doc’s voice hardens.
“Or you planned to handle it alone.”
Kane gives a tired laugh.
“Look who’s talking.”
I take the phone back.
“Kane, listen to me. Is Vance at the airfield?”
“He will be.”
They may already be there.
“What does Harlan want?”
“The black key.”
“He isn’t getting it.”
“Harlan doesn’t know that.”
“What do you mean?”
“Vance told him he had Grant’s key.”
“Vance has the silver key.”
“He thinks it opens the field case.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No.”
“So Vance is about to meet the Colonel with the wrong key.”
“Yes.”
Doc’s gaze meets mine.
Harlan won’t rescue a liability.
Vance is arriving empty-handed.
“He’s going to kill him,” I say.
“Probably before Vance realizes he was never getting on that plane.”
A monitor begins beeping behind Kane.
A nurse says something.
Kane ignores her.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“Don’t underestimate Harlan. He didn’t survive this long by getting his own hands dirty.”
The line disconnects.
Sheriff Tate is already on his radio.
“All units, hold your current positions. Nobody approaches the old airfield until we have it contained.”
Doc turns toward him.
“We need Vance alive.”
“I know.”
“He can testify against Harlan.”
“I know.”
“And if Harlan reaches him first?—”
“I said I know.”
Tate begins issuing orders.
Wolf, Trigger, Blaze, Ace, and Havoc gather around us.
No one asks if they’re coming.
They are Army Rangers.
Grant was theirs too.
Tate looks at all of them.
“This is a law-enforcement operation.”
Wolf nods. “Understood.”
“That means you follow my orders.”
Trigger looks at the others.
“Does anybody know what that means?”
Tate points at him.
“You stay here.”
“I understand orders now.”
Despite everything, I smile.
Doc catches it.
For one second, his expression softens.
Then he leans close.
“You stay with me.”
“We already settled this.”
“I know.”
“Then stop ordering me around.”
“I’m not ordering you.”
“What do you call it?”
“Begging without sounding desperate.”
My heart squeezes.
I touch the front of his vest.
“I’m staying with you.”
His hand covers mine.
“This ends tonight.”
“Yes.”
“For Grant.”
“For all of them.”
I look toward the twenty-three containers beneath the floodlights.
Then back at Doc.
“And for us.”
His eyes hold mine.
“For us.”
The old Eagle River Municipal Airfield sits between two hills twelve miles north of town.
The runway hasn’t appeared on county maps in years.
Tall grass grows through cracks in the asphalt.
The control building is abandoned.
One metal hangar remains standing at the western end.
Its doors are open.
A single light glows inside.
Sheriff Tate stops our vehicles behind a ridge overlooking the runway.
Everyone gets out quietly.
We move into position beneath the trees.
Tate raises binoculars.
“What do you see?” I whisper.
“Two vehicles. One black SUV. One sedan.”
“Harlan’s?”
“The SUV matches the gas-station footage.”
Doc lies beside me in the grass.
Wolf and Trigger are several yards to our right.
Blaze, Ace, and Havoc circle toward the far end of the runway with two deputies.
“Where’s Vance?” Doc asks.
Tate studies the hangar.
“Inside.”
“And Harlan?”
“I don’t see him.”
A man steps into the light.
Robert Vance.
Older than the photographs.
Gray hair.
Dark jacket.
A pistol in one hand.
Grant’s silver key in the other.
For fifteen years, he has hidden behind other men.
Now I can finally see him.
Vance looks toward the dark runway.
Waiting.
A low sound rolls across the hills.
An aircraft engine.
Doc lifts his head.
A small jet descends toward the airfield with no landing lights.
“Harlan,” I whisper.
Vance steps onto the runway.
The jet touches down.
Its engines reverse.
It slows near the hangar.
Sheriff Tate speaks into his radio.
“Hold positions. Nobody moves until we identify every person on that aircraft.”
The cabin door opens.
Stairs lower.
Two armed men step out first.
Then a tall man with silver hair appears in the doorway.
Even from this distance, I recognize the authority in the way he stands.
Arthur Harlan.
The Colonel.
Vance walks toward him.
Harlan descends the steps.
They meet beneath the hangar light.
Vance holds up Grant’s silver key.
Harlan takes it.
He examines it.
Then he looks at Vance.
Even from the ridge, I see the moment he realizes it’s wrong.
Harlan says something.
Vance shakes his head.
One of the armed men raises his pistol.
Doc’s body tenses beside me.
“We need Vance alive.”
Sheriff Tate lifts his radio.
“Move.”
We rise from the grass.
Lights flood the runway.
Sheriff Tate’s voice thunders through the loudspeaker.
“Federal agents and Eagle River Sheriff’s Department! Drop your weapons!”
Vance turns toward us.
Harlan doesn’t.
He looks almost bored.
Then the jet’s second door opens.
More armed men pour onto the runway.
Doc grabs my hand and pulls me behind the ridge as bullets tear through the trees.
The final battle for Grant’s truth has begun.