Chapter 5 - THE SECRET GENERAL COLE KEPT FROM MEGeneral Cole dismissed everyone except me.
That was how I knew the answer would hurt.
The conference room door sealed behind Admiral Vale and Marissa.
I remained standing.
“What was Flight 617?”
Cole didn't immediately answer.
“Nathan.”
He looked older suddenly.
“Michael's final flight.”
“I know that.”
“No,” he said. “You know what the report said.”
My stomach tightened.
Five years earlier, my husband, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Mercer, had died with four others when a military helicopter crashed during a nighttime training exercise in Arizona.
The investigation found a catastrophic mechanical failure.
I had read all 642 pages.
Twice.
Maybe more.
There had been nothing suspicious.
Or nothing I recognized as suspicious.
“What didn't the report say?”
Cole opened a secure drawer.
Inside was a thin red folder.
He placed it on the table.
“You knew Michael had been helping evaluate aircraft maintenance systems.”
“Yes.”
“He discovered irregularities.”
My mouth went dry.
“What irregularities?”
“Parts being certified that hadn't passed required inspections.”
“Whose parts?”
Cole looked at me.
I already knew.
“Halcyon.”
He nodded.
I sat down.
Not because I wanted to.
Because my knees no longer trusted me.
“Was Michael's helicopter using Halcyon components?”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Did those components fail?”
“We could never establish that conclusively.”
I stared at him.
“You never told me.”
“The investigation couldn't prove criminal interference.”
“That isn't what I said.”
“Eleanor—”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because two weeks after the crash, an internal reviewer found indications that Michael had been gathering documents. Then the reviewer was threatened.”
“By whom?”
“We didn't know.”
“So you buried it.”
Cole flinched.
That mattered.
“I classified a parallel inquiry.”
“You buried it.”
“I protected an investigation.”
“And me?”
“I protected you.”
I stood so quickly the chair rolled backward.
“Don't.”
He became silent.
“Do not tell me you lied about my husband's death to protect me.”
“I didn't know he was murdered.”
“But you knew there was a possibility.”
“Yes.”
Five years of grief rearranged itself inside me.
Every sleepless night.
Every anniversary.
Every time I'd told myself there was no one to blame.
Maybe there had been.
Cole pushed the red folder toward me.
“You deserve to see this.”
I didn't touch it.
“No. I deserved to see it five years ago.”
Then I walked out.
I made it to an empty restroom before I cried.
Not loudly.
I leaned over a sink while tears dropped onto my hands.
Michael had been thirty-nine.
He made terrible pancakes.
Sang off-key.
Left running shoes in every room of our house.
He once drove three hours because I'd mentioned craving pie from a roadside diner.
After he died, people told me grief became easier.
They lied.
It became familiar.
That was different.
Now someone had ripped open the scar and inserted doubt.
Had Michael known?
Had he been afraid?
Had he tried to tell me?
One memory returned.
Three nights before his final flight, he'd stood in our kitchen holding a beer.
“If something doesn't make sense,” he'd said, “don't let somebody important convince you that means you're stupid.”
I'd laughed.
“What are you talking about?”
“Work.”
“Very specific.”
“That's all I can say.”
I'd kissed him.
I had never thought about that conversation again.
Until now.
I washed my face.
Then returned upstairs.
Pain could wait.
The investigation couldn't.
The red folder contained seventeen documents.
Michael had noticed replacement flight-control components failing inspections at nearly double the reported rate.
Somehow, those failures disappeared from the final statistics.
Three officers had signed the corrected reports.
One was dead.
One had retired.
The third was Colonel Marcus Rourke.
I read that page twice.
Rourke.
The same man who shoved me.
The same man Voss manipulated into delaying me.
Coincidence had officially become impossible.
We brought Rourke back.
When I placed Michael's report in front of him, his face collapsed.
“You knew my husband?”
“No.”
“You signed this.”
He studied the document.
“That was years ago.”
“Read the aircraft number.”
He did.
Then closed his eyes.
“You knew.”
“No.”
“You knew something.”
Rourke rubbed his forehead.
“I knew the figures were changed.”
“Why?”
“My commanding officer told me the original data contained reporting errors.”
“Who?”
“Brigadier General Samuel Pike.”
Pike had retired three years ago.
Now he served as executive vice president of...
Halcyon Strategic Systems.
There it was.
The bridge.
Rourke continued.
“I signed because Pike told me to.”
“You didn't question it?”
“He was my commanding officer.”
“So?”
Rourke stared at me.
“Things were different then.”
“No, Colonel. Courage wasn't.”
He looked away.
I hated him in that moment.
Not because he had shoved me.
Because five years earlier he had seen something wrong and chosen career safety over questions.
Maybe that choice had cost Michael his life.
We found Samuel Pike that evening at a private residence in Virginia.
He agreed to meet investigators.
Before we could question him, an ambulance was called to his home.
He had collapsed.
Heart attack, according to paramedics.
He survived.
Barely.
At the hospital, doctors stabilized him.
Security was posted outside his room.
At 2:13 a.m., Pike regained consciousness.
I was there.
He looked at me with unfocused eyes.
“Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Michael's wife?”
My heart stopped.
“You knew him.”
He nodded weakly.
“He wouldn't stop asking questions.”
“About Halcyon?”
Pike's eyes filled with something that looked like regret.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He found the numbers.”
“What happened to his helicopter?”
Pike shook his head.
“I didn't order that.”
My entire body went cold.
“I didn't ask whether you ordered it.”
His eyes widened.
He realized what he'd admitted.
“Who did?”
Pike looked toward the guard outside.
Then back at me.
“There were three of us at first.”
“Names.”
“Me. Voss.”
“And?”
His breathing became labored.
“Who?”
He whispered a name.
I leaned closer.
Before I could hear it clearly, alarms sounded from the monitor.
Doctors rushed inside.
I was pushed into the hallway.
For twelve minutes, I waited.
Then a physician came out.
Pike was alive.
But unconscious.
I replayed his final whisper in my mind.
Two syllables.
Not Vale.
Not Cole.
A name I knew.
A name I trusted.
Then I understood it.
Kane.
Major David Kane.
My escort.
The man we'd believed had been attacked to keep him from meeting me.
The man whose stolen phone had sent the message announcing my arrival.
The man everybody had treated as the first victim.
I turned to Marissa.
“Find Kane.”
She called security.
Her face drained.
“What?”
“Major Kane checked out of medical observation forty minutes ago.”
“Where did he go?”
“Nobody knows.”
My phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
A photograph.
My house.
Taken from across the street.
May you like
Underneath it were five words.
NOW YOU KNOW TOO MUCH.
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