"A couple days. Maybe less if I get lucky."
We don't have unlimited time before they find Reagan's last known position and start systematic sweeps. Cutting it close, but workable.
Reagan's already diving back into files. Relentless. Driven. This is more than a story for her now. This is personal.
She should take a break. Should eat something, rest, maintain operational readiness. But watching her work, seeing the patterns she finds that we've missed, something becomes clear. She's not just useful. She's necessary.
And that makes her both our best asset and our biggest liability.
Because if they realize how much she knows, how close she is to exposing their entire command structure, they won't just want her captured.
They'll want her erased from existence.
My phone buzzes. Encrypted message from Kane.
Committee teams moving into Colorado. Three confirmed deployments, civilian contractors posing as federal agents. They're searching for your journalist. Timeline's accelerating. Make her count. - Kane
Reagan's still absorbed in connecting Webb to the same handlers Morrison reported to. She has no idea the window just narrowed.
Teams are already in Colorado. Civilian contractors posing as federal agents, systematically eliminating her known contacts, working their way toward us.
Kane expects me to eliminate the problem if she becomes a liability.
But watching her work, seeing the patterns she uncovers that we've missed for months, the answer becomes obvious. We need her alive.
Even if keeping her that way gets us all killed.
3
REAGAN
The cursor blinks against classified documents I have no legal right to access.
Three hours into this database dive and my eyes burn from screen glare. Coffee went cold an hour ago but I keep drinking it anyway. Dylan's somewhere behind me, silent as a ghost, monitoring everything I pull up. Making sure I don't access anything that compromises their locations or operations.
Smart. I'd do the same if our positions were reversed.
The financial networks are elegant in their complexity. Morrison funneled money through shell corporations in the Caymans, then through defense contractors in Virginia, then back through Pentagon procurement channels. On paper, it looks like legitimate black ops funding. Dig three layers deeper and the pattern emerges. Chemical weapons research. Human testing protocols. Systematic elimination of witnesses.
Protocol Seven.
I've been chasing this story for six months. Followed the money through systems designed to be invisible, connected dots that weren't supposed to connect. Started investigating Morrison's network, but he's dead now. Webb took over, and he's even more dangerous. Now I'm sitting in a safe house withthe people Webb wants dead, accessing databases that could get me arrested for treason.
Funny how quickly "investigative journalism" becomes "federal crime" when you ask the wrong questions.
"Find something?" Dylan's voice cuts through my concentration.
"Morrison wasn't just covering up war crimes. He ran a systematic program since the nineties." I pull up a timeline, highlight the pattern. "Friendly fire incident in Somalia, 1993. Three witnesses. All dead within six months. Classified as training accidents."
Dylan leans closer to the screen. He smells like gun oil and coffee. "Keep going."
"Bosnia, 1996. Marines witnessed the execution of prisoners by allied forces. Three witnesses. Car accident, suicide, training mishap. All within the year." My fingers fly across the keyboard, pulling up more files. "Iraq, 2004. Abu Ghraib was just the public scandal. The classified version was worse. Twelve witnesses to systematic torture. All dead within eighteen months."
"Protocol Seven. We knew it existed. Didn't know how far back it went."
"It goes back to the beginning." I display the full network. "Morrison built this over three decades. Perfected the art of making problems disappear. Then he graduated from covering up war crimes to committing them directly."
The next file loads and my stomach drops.
