Chapter 6 - UNCLE ROBERTRobert Maddox had always been charming to me.
That should have made me suspicious.
Unlike Graham, he never lectured me about military life.
Unlike Diane, he never treated me like hired help.
Unlike Chase, he never insulted my job.
He simply watched.
Every family dinner.
Every Christmas.
Every birthday.
Robert watched people.
At 6:15 Thanksgiving morning—or technically Friday morning—we discovered he was gone.
His condo was empty.
His car remained in the garage.
His phone sat on the kitchen counter.
Inside his bedroom closet, federal investigators found an old passport with three visas tied to countries that had been part of Northstar's operational theater.
Every trip occurred after his retirement.
Graham sat in stunned silence while Miriam explained.
Robert had served in Marine intelligence.
I knew that.
What I had not known was that he had been temporarily attached to a joint coordination cell nine years earlier.
The same cell that handled portions of Northstar.
“You never told me,” Graham said.
Miriam's expression was careful.
“You weren't cleared.”
“He was my brother.”
“That doesn't change classification.”
Graham laughed bitterly.
“Apparently nothing does.”
His eyes moved toward me.
I knew what he was thinking.
Secrets had been sitting around his Thanksgiving table for years.
Some honorable.
Some not.
And until one coin hit the floor, he had not known the difference.
By noon, investigators found Robert's financial records.
The pattern stretched back more than a decade.
Shell companies.
Consulting fees.
Foreign transfers disguised as speaking honorariums.
Sloane's name never appeared directly.
It didn't need to.
Two intermediaries connected them.
“This still doesn't prove Robert is involved,” Evan said.
“No,” I agreed.
“But it proves he had reasons to run.”
Chase had been released into supervised family custody.
No charges yet.
His attorney advised him not to speak.
Chase ignored him constantly.
For once, that helped.
“I remember something.”
We all looked at him.
“Uncle Robert called me after I borrowed Dad's compass.”
Graham's eyes sharpened.
“How did he know?”
“I told him.”
“Why?”
“I asked if he knew anybody who restored military memorabilia.”
Graham looked ready to explode again.
I interrupted.
“What did Robert say?”
“He told me not to open it.”
“Exactly?”
Chase thought.
“He said, ‘Some things belong to dead men. Respect that.’”
“Then?”
“I opened it anyway.”
Of course he did.
“What happened after you found the chip?”
“I called Sloane.”
“Why him?”
“He had told me he collected military intelligence artifacts.”
Miriam and I exchanged a glance.
He had groomed Chase carefully.
“And after you gave it to him?”
“Uncle Robert called again.”
“What did he ask?”
“If I had opened the compass.”
My pulse increased.
“What did you say?”
“I lied.”
Graham actually laughed at that.
Not because it was funny.
Because the stupidity had become too exhausting for anger.
Chase continued.
“I said no.”
“Did he believe you?”
“I thought so.”
“What happened next?”
“He asked whether Lauren had been at the house recently.”
Everyone looked at me.
“Why me?”
“I don't know. I said yes. He asked if you ever looked at Dad's military collection.”
That settled it for me.
Robert had known about the Northstar coin before Thanksgiving.
Maybe he didn't know I possessed it.
But he suspected Nathan had passed something to me.
“We need to find Harper,” I said.
Miriam nodded.
His address turned out to be a modest house in Chesapeake.
We arrived just after two in the afternoon.
The front door was unlocked.
No signs of forced entry.
Inside, coffee sat cold on the kitchen counter.
A television played silently.
A dog whined behind a laundry-room door.
No Harper.
Then I saw the wall.
Photographs.
Dozens of them.
Nathan Ward appeared in several.
Graham in others.
Robert.
Sloane.
Me.
I stepped closer.
The picture of me was recent.
Taken outside a grocery store.
Another showed me leaving Oceana.
Another showed Evan and me walking into a restaurant three months earlier.
I felt a coldness in my stomach I hadn't experienced in years.
This wasn't historical surveillance.
Someone had been watching my life.
Miriam came beside me.
“Lauren.”
“I see it.”
Pinned at the center of the wall was a map.
Red lines connected several locations.
Graham's house.
My house.
Oceana.
An airfield.
And a rural property near North Carolina.
At the bottom was one handwritten sentence.
WARD WAS RIGHT. ROBERT SOLD US OUT.
Miriam immediately called the operations center.
I stepped toward the desk.
A tape recorder sat there.
Old-fashioned.
Deliberate.
One cassette was already inserted.
On top was a label.
FOR LAUREN MERCER.
Miriam stopped me.
“Bomb check first.”
The technicians cleared it.
We played the tape.
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Daniel Harper.
Older than I remembered, but unmistakable.
“Commander Mercer. If you're hearing this, Robert knows I found the second ledger.”
Graham's face tightened.
Harper continued.
“Nathan suspected someone inside the coordination cell was selling extraction routes to Sloane. He couldn't prove who until the final night.”
My heart pounded.
“The data in the compass was incomplete. Nathan split the archive because he didn't trust our communications. Half went into the compass. Half into his coin.”
I looked at Miriam.
So the wafer stolen from Graham was not useless.
It was half the evidence.
“Robert didn't know Nathan divided it. That's why he spent nine years searching.”
The recording hissed.
Then:
“If Sloane has the compass archive and Robert gets your coin, they can reconstruct the ledger.”
Miriam's brow furrowed.
Why would they want evidence incriminating themselves?
Harper answered that too.
“The ledger isn't only evidence. It contains identities of surviving local assets. Men and women who helped us. Families. Safe routes. Some are still active.”
There it was.
Money could explain betrayal.
But information could create more money.
Or more deaths.
Harper's voice continued.
“I stole the compass wafer from Sloane after Chase gave it to him.”
Chase whispered, “What?”
“So Sloane never had it,” I said.
Miriam shook her head.
“He thought he did.”
Harper continued.
“I tried to get the coin last night from your command vehicle before Sloane could.”
My jaw tightened.
Harper had attacked federal officers to protect information.
Desperate men often convinced themselves the law no longer applied.
“I know what that makes me look like,” he said, almost as if responding to the thought. “I'm sorry. I stopped trusting institutions nine years ago.”
Then the recording changed.
His breathing grew uneven.
“If Robert reaches me first, do not bring the coin. Whatever he tells you about Nathan, don't believe him.”
There was a long silence.
Then one final sentence.
“Nathan Ward didn't die because the helicopter went down.”
Graham stepped closer to the recorder.
“What?”
Harper's voice shook.
“Robert shot him.”
The tape clicked off.
Nobody moved.
Graham stared at the machine.
“No.”
His voice was barely audible.
“No.”
Miriam reached toward him.
He backed away.
“That's my brother.”
Nobody answered.
“My brother loved Nathan.”
I knew denial when I saw it.
Not stupidity.
Grief protecting itself.
Then a phone rang somewhere inside the house.
Not ours.
A landline.
We all turned.
It rang again.
Miriam motioned everyone back.
An agent traced the line.
Third ring.
Fourth.
Miriam answered on speaker.
“Hello?”
Robert Maddox's voice came through.
“Put Graham on.”
Graham froze.
Miriam shook her head.
I took the receiver.
“This is Lauren.”
Silence.
Then Robert chuckled.
“So it's true.”
“What?”
“You really are Northstar Six.”
I said nothing.
“I wondered for years.”
“Where is Harper?”
“With me.”
“Alive?”
“For now.”
Graham stepped toward the phone.
“You killed Nathan?”
Robert heard him.
His tone changed.
“Brother.”
“Answer me.”
“You don't understand what happened.”
“Did you kill him?”
A long pause.
Then Robert said:
“I saved you.”
Graham's face collapsed.
Robert continued.
“Nathan was going to expose everything. He didn't know how high it went. If he had delivered that evidence, half a dozen careers would have ended and foreign governments would have abandoned our people overnight.”
“You shot him.”
“I stopped a catastrophe.”
“You murdered my best friend.”
“He was already dying.”
I felt my hand tighten around the receiver.
I remembered Nathan's blood on my gloves.
His breathing.
His refusal to get on the aircraft until everyone else was loaded.
He had been wounded before I reached him.
But the final wound—
I had always thought it came from hostile fire.
“What caliber?” I asked.
Robert went silent.
“What?”
“The round that hit Nathan in the lower back. What caliber?”
Silence.
Then he understood.
I remembered.
I had seen the wound.
“I didn't know then,” I said. “But I do now.”
Robert's voice hardened.
“Bring me the coin.”
“No.”
“Then Harper dies.”
“You've already lost.”
Robert laughed.
“No, Commander. You don't even know what game you're playing.”
A noise came through the phone.
A man's groan.
Harper.
Then Robert gave us an address.
The rural property marked on Harper's map.
“Midnight,” he said. “You bring Nathan's coin, or another man dies carrying his secrets.”
The line disconnected.
Graham stared at me.
“You're not going.”
I met his eyes.
“You know that's not true.”
This time, he didn't argue.
May you like
Instead, the retired Marine straightened his shoulders.
“Then I'm coming with you.”
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