Chapter 5 - Someone Wanted the Past DeadEric survived.
Barely.
The bullet entered below his left shoulder and missed his heart by less than an inch.
The shooter disappeared among the service buildings before local police locked down the beach.
By sunset, my father’s birthday party had become a crime scene.
For the first time in five years, I put on a Navy uniform the next morning.
I had kept one.
I told myself it was practical.
It wasn’t.
The uniform hung in the back of my closet beneath a garment bag as if waiting for a version of me I had stopped believing would ever return.
When I buttoned the jacket, my hands trembled.
Some scars were visible only in mirrors.
Admiral Hale met me outside Naval Base Coronado.
He looked at my ribbons.
“Still fits.”
“Barely.”
“That makes two of us.”
I smiled.
It was the first time I had smiled since the beach.
We entered an archive facility beneath an administrative building constructed during the Cold War.
NCIS Special Agent Elena Ruiz joined us.
Ruiz was forty, sharp-eyed, and had the permanently unimpressed expression of someone who spent her professional life listening to excuses.
She placed three photographs on a table.
The first showed the rooftop where the shooter had positioned himself.
The second showed a recovered shell casing.
The third showed Michael Trent entering a parking structure near San Diego International Airport.
“Trent abandoned his vehicle yesterday,” Ruiz said. “We believe he switched cars.”
“Any sign he was the shooter?” I asked.
“No. Physical description doesn’t match.”
“Vanessa?”
“Still with counsel. Travel restricted.”
I looked at Hale.
“You trust that?”
“No.”
Good.
Ruiz opened the archived Mercer case.
Or what remained of it.
Daniel’s aircraft had crashed into the Mediterranean during a nighttime return flight.
Mechanical failure.
That was the original determination.
Specifically, a defective fuel-control component.
Manufacturer?
A company called Fenwick Aeronautics.
I had never heard of it.
Walter had.
When we called him, he went silent.
“Fenwick was bought by Calder Industrial in 2002.”
Calder.
The predecessor to Calder Dynamics.
The same company connected to Vanessa.
The room seemed to shrink.
Ruiz asked, “Did Reed Maritime ever do business with them?”
“No.”
“Compete?”
“Frequently.”
“Enemies?”
Dad sighed.
“In defense contracting? Competitors shake your hand at lunch and try to bankrupt you by dinner.”
Hale turned pages.
“Mercer submitted a safety objection four weeks before his death.”
I leaned closer.
The document showed his signature.
He had questioned a batch of fuel-control units.
His complaint was overruled.
“By whom?”
Hale followed the approval chain.
Rear Admiral Charles Whitmore.
Ruiz stopped moving.
I noticed.
“You know the name?”
She nodded.
“Whitmore later served on Calder Dynamics’ board.”
There it was.
The revolving door between government and industry.
Whitmore died eight years ago.
Convenient, but not surprising at his age.
I read Daniel’s safety memo.
One line stood out.
Repeated anomalies indicate potential intentional falsification of quality-control testing.
Intentional.
My father hadn’t been paranoid.
He had been right.
Daniel Mercer believed someone knowingly approved defective aviation components.
Four weeks later, he died because one failed.
Hale sat back.
“If Mercer had proof, where did it go?”
“The letter,” I said.
The one stolen from Hale’s office.
Ruiz looked at me.
“Unless whoever stole it destroyed it.”
Something occurred to me.
“Why steal the letter after Raven Six?”
Hale’s eyes narrowed.
“Because somebody discovered you were Mercer’s daughter.”
“Yes. But how?”
The answer came from Ruiz.
“The investigation checked your family history.”
Exactly.
Someone inside the Raven Six inquiry saw my biological father’s name.
That person knew Daniel had investigated Calder’s predecessor.
And panicked.
“Find everyone who accessed my background file after the crash.”
Ruiz was already typing.
“There were twenty-seven authorized users.”
“Cross-reference them with Calder.”
“That could take—”
Her screen changed.
She stopped.
“What?”
“One name already matches.”
Hale walked around the table.
Ruiz turned the laptop.
Rear Admiral Stephen Cole.
I knew him.
Everyone in Navy logistics knew him.
Cole had been one of the senior officers overseeing the Raven Six investigation.
He retired two years later.
Current position?
Senior vice president at Calder Dynamics.
Hale said one word.
“Damn.”
I remembered Cole visiting my hospital room.
He brought coffee.
He sat beside my bed.
He told me accidents happened.
He told me not to destroy myself trying to remember details.
At the time, I thought it was kindness.
Now it sounded like pressure.
Ruiz made a call.
Within minutes, federal agents were sent to Cole’s residence.
He wasn’t there.
His wife hadn’t seen him in two days.
His phone was off.
His passport was missing.
Hale looked at me.
“We need to assume he knows the investigation reopened.”
“He knew before we did.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Eric.”
The sniper targeted Eric less than an hour after he appeared on that beach.
Someone knew he had become a cooperating witness.
Someone with access.
Ruiz nodded.
“We’re checking leaks.”
I turned back to Daniel’s file.
A photograph showed wreckage hauled from the sea.
Twisted metal.
Burned wiring.
A dead pilot’s final workplace.
Then something caught my eye.
The serial number on the failed fuel-control unit.
FNC-7714-B.
I had seen that number.
Not exactly.
Something close.
I searched the Raven Six report.
There.
The failed flight-control module had identifier:
CDX-7714-B.
Same ending.
I showed Hale.
“Coincidence?”
He stared at the numbers.
“Possibly.”
Ruiz shook her head.
“Manufacturers reuse internal family codes when acquired.”
She started searching the procurement database.
Minutes later, she found it.
The design lineage for the Raven Six module originated with Fenwick Aeronautics.
The same engineering program connected to Daniel’s crash.
Twenty-nine years.
Different aircraft.
Different component generation.
Same inherited supplier chain.
My biological father and I had nearly been killed by failures tied to the same corporate lineage.
But there was something else.
Daniel’s component had supposedly failed because of a manufacturing defect.
Raven Six failed after software maintenance records were altered.
Different mechanisms.
Same result.
Unsafe equipment remained in service.
“Follow the money,” I said.
Ruiz looked at me.
“What?”
“That’s what Daniel was investigating. Not individual bad parts. A system.”
Companies made defective equipment.
Officials hid the defects.
Government paid for replacements and modernization.
People on both sides earned fortunes.
A failed component wasn’t necessarily a mistake.
Sometimes failure was profitable.
Ruiz’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
“Where?”
She listened.
“We’re coming.”
She ended the call.
“They found Michael Trent.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At Reed Maritime headquarters.”
Dad’s company.
“What’s he doing?”
Ruiz grabbed her jacket.
“He walked into the lobby twelve minutes ago carrying a metal case.”
Hale frowned.
“And?”
“He asked to speak with Walter Reed.”
My heart sank.
Dad was already there.
He had gone to reassure employees after news of the investigation leaked.
I called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Ruiz was already moving.
We ran.
Reed Maritime headquarters overlooked San Diego Bay.
By the time we arrived, federal vehicles surrounded the property.
Employees stood across the street.
An agent stopped us.
“Trent’s on the twelfth floor.”
“Walter?”
“With him.”
“Hostage situation?”
“Unclear.”
I looked up.
Dad’s office windows reflected the afternoon sun.
Then my phone rang.
Walter.
I answered.
“Dad?”
A different voice replied.
Michael Trent.
“Rebecca.”
I hadn’t heard him speak since Grandma’s funeral.
“You’ve caused quite a mess.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I protected your family.”
“You mean yourself.”
A pause.
“You really are Daniel’s daughter.”
My blood chilled.
“You knew him?”
Michael laughed softly.
“Oh, Rebecca.”
Behind his voice, I heard my father say something.
Michael snapped at him to stay quiet.
I gripped the phone.
“If you hurt him—”
“I’m not going to hurt Walter.”
“Then let him leave.”
“I need something first.”
“What?”
“The letter.”
Hale and Ruiz stared at me.
“You stole it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you asking me for it?”
His answer changed everything.
“Because what I stole from Admiral Hale’s office was only half.”
I looked at Hale.
Michael continued.
“Daniel Mercer prepared two copies.”
“Where is the second?”
“Ask your mother.”
My heart stopped.
“She’s kept it hidden for twenty-nine years.”
Then the twelfth-floor window shattered.
A metal case flew out.
It spun through the sunlight before crashing onto the pavement below.
Agents shouted.
Michael whispered into the phone.
“You have two hours.”
May you like
The line disconnected.
And somewhere in California, my mother was holding the one thing people had been killing to find.
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