Chapter 7 - THE TRAITOR INSIDEThe GPS coordinate pointed to a rural church cemetery outside Suffolk.
Nobody rushed there.
Rachel's warning changed the rules.
If somebody inside NCIS was compromised, normal procedures could reveal the location before agents ever arrived.
Grant assembled a four-person team he trusted personally.
Morales.
Chief Craig.
A federal prosecutor named Anna Keller.
And himself.
I was not supposed to go.
I insisted.
Rachel had hidden the evidence with me because she believed I could be trusted.
If she was waiting somewhere, terrified and alone, I wasn't staying behind.
Grant refused three times.
On the fourth, I said:
“If she's watching that cemetery and sees a convoy of armed strangers, she may run.”
“And seeing you makes it safe?”
“She chose me.”
That ended the argument.
At 2:10 a.m.—almost exactly four weeks after Daniel had broken into my apartment—we arrived near the cemetery in two unmarked vehicles.
No sirens.
No visible tactical gear.
Grant and Morales moved ahead.
I remained beside Craig.
Fog hovered over the low grass.
Old stone markers lined the hill.
The coordinate corresponded to a grave near the far fence.
Helen Kim.
Rachel's grandmother.
We waited.
Nothing happened.
Then a tiny red light flashed twice from inside an abandoned maintenance shed.
Morales raised her weapon.
Grant whispered, “Stay here.”
He approached.
“Rachel?”
Silence.
Then:
“Who came with you?”
A woman's voice.
Weak.
Grant named the team.
“What about Agent Wallace?”
“No Wallace.”
“Prove it.”
Morales answered.
“You told Monica that Sarah hated instant coffee.”
Silence.
Then the shed door opened.
Rachel Kim stepped out.
She looked nothing like the woman I remembered.
Her hair had been cut unevenly to her shoulders.
She was thin.
A scar crossed her forehead.
She held a pistol with shaking hands.
Then she saw me.
“Olivia?”
I didn't move.
“It's me.”
Her gun lowered.
And Rachel began crying.
I walked toward her slowly.
She hugged me with both arms.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then she whispered:
“I thought Daniel killed you.”
“He tried.”
She pulled back.
“I'm sorry.”
“For what?”
“For putting the backup in your house.”
“That backup saved lives.”
“It nearly got you killed.”
“Daniel did that. Not you.”
Rachel stared at me.
Perhaps she had spent months blaming herself.
I understood that kind of blame.
Victims were remarkably talented at accepting responsibility for other people's choices.
We got her into the vehicle.
Then she asked the question nobody expected.
“Where is Wallace?”
Grant's eyes narrowed.
“Special Agent Peter Wallace?”
Rachel nodded.
“He works for Harlan.”
Wallace was a senior NCIS investigator.
He had participated in the early review of Sarah Coleman's death.
He had also processed Monica's original cybersecurity complaint.
And he'd been present when Rachel's transfer documents were reviewed.
The compromised insider.
Grant immediately used a secure channel to notify a federal supervisory team outside the regional office.
They went to Wallace's house.
He was gone.
So was his family.
His personal vehicle was found abandoned near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
For several hours, authorities believed he might have fled by boat.
Rachel disagreed.
“He won't run.”
“Why not?” Grant asked.
“Because he has one job left.”
“What job?”
She looked at me.
“Destroy the evidence.”
“The backup is secure.”
“He doesn't know that.”
“Then what evidence does he think exists?”
Rachel's face tightened.
“The original phone.”
The phone Daniel had been searching for.
Rachel still had it.
She reached underneath her coat and removed an old smartphone wrapped inside a waterproof pouch.
Every person in the vehicle stared.
“You carried it all this time?” Morales asked.
“No.”
“Where was it?”
“My grandmother's grave.”
The cemetery coordinate had led to both Rachel and the final evidence.
“We need to move,” Grant said.
We left immediately.
Twenty minutes later, headlights appeared behind us.
A black SUV.
It stayed four car lengths back.
Then three.
Craig checked the mirror.
“Could be nothing.”
Nobody believed that.
The SUV accelerated.
Morales reached for her radio.
The first impact struck our rear bumper.
My body jerked against the seatbelt.
“Hold on!”
The second impact pushed us toward the shoulder.
Grant's vehicle ahead braked sharply.
Craig swerved.
The SUV attempted to pass.
I saw the driver.
Male.
Gray hair.
Wallace.
He wasn't running.
Rachel was right.
He had come for the phone.
Craig forced the vehicle between us.
Wallace struck his car, spun across the road, and crashed into a drainage ditch.
His airbags deployed.
He tried to flee on foot.
Grant tackled him twenty yards away.
When agents searched Wallace, they found a pistol, three burner phones, cash, and a printed photograph of me entering the secure witness facility.
He'd known exactly where I'd been.
Every relocation.
Every interview.
Every protective measure.
The conspiracy hadn't merely reached inside Navy systems.
It had reached inside the organization investigating it.
Wallace's arrest opened another floodgate.
Faced with overwhelming evidence, he cooperated within forty-eight hours.
His testimony linked Harlan directly to the cover-ups surrounding Sarah and Emily.
He admitted altering evidence from Sarah's accident.
He admitted suppressing Monica's complaint.
He admitted assisting with Rachel's false transfer.
But the most shocking confession involved Rachel herself.
“Why didn't they kill her?” Grant asked.
Wallace looked exhausted.
“Harlan wanted to.”
“Then why didn't he?”
“Daniel stopped it.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity.
Daniel?
“He told Vale that killing a third woman would draw attention.”
Not compassion.
Calculation.
Daniel hadn't saved Rachel because it was right.
He'd saved her because murder was becoming inconvenient.
“So what did they do?”
“They held her. Tried to learn where she'd copied the evidence.”
“And she escaped?”
Wallace nodded.
“How?”
For the first time, Rachel smiled when she heard his answer later.
“They underestimated her.”
Rachel had loosened a heating vent inside the farmhouse bathroom using a metal spring from the bed.
She crawled beneath the raised foundation at 3 a.m., crossed nearly a mile of woods barefoot, and hid in the back of a delivery truck at a gas station.
For ten months she'd moved between shelters, cheap motels, churches, and homes belonging to people she trusted indirectly.
Never staying long.
Never using her own identity.
Waiting for enough evidence to surface that she could come back without being erased again.
Now she was back.
And the original phone contained something the backup didn't.
An audio recording of Rear Admiral Harlan speaking to Vale after Sarah's death.
His voice was unmistakable.
“She had the opportunity to be reasonable,” Harlan said.
Vale replied, “And Rachel?”
Harlan's answer lasted four seconds.
“Make sure she learns from Sarah.”
For the first time since the nightmare began, Grant smiled when he heard it.
May you like
Not because it was funny.
Because it was enough.
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