Horror sits heavy in my chest. But underneath it, something else. Recognition. He made a choice when it mattered. When it would cost him everything.
"Then you chose right." The words surprise me as much as they seem to surprise him. "Everything before led to that choice. Now show me you'll keep choosing right."
Dylan's expression changes. Relief, maybe. Or hope.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder. Because the Committee network goes deeper than just Morrison or Webb. There's someone above him who authorized Protocol Seven. Someone with enough power to coordinate across three branches of the military. Someone who's still running things now that Morrison's dead—probably Webb's superior, if Webb even has one. We need to find them."
"We will."
"And when we do, you don't get to disappear them like the old days. This goes through proper channels. Federal courts. Public testimony. Everything documented and admissible."
"Agreed."
"Even if it means Khalid has to testify?"
Dylan's shoulders tense. "If it comes to that, we'll figure it out. But I won't force him."
"Fair enough. Then let's find enough evidence that we don't need Khalid's testimony. The Committee documentedeverything. They were arrogant enough to believe nobody would ever see these files. Let's prove them wrong."
For the next hour, we work in silence. Dylan pulls up personnel records. I cross-reference them against authorization signatures. Slowly, the picture emerges.
Morrison didn't act alone. He had support from senior leadership. People with the power to authorize black operations and the paranoia to ensure those operations stayed buried.
"Here." Dylan highlights a name. "Goes way back. Webb. He was Morrison's second-in-command during the Somalia operation in 1993. Webb was there when Morrison authorized the elimination of witnesses. When Morrison was killed, Webb was the natural to take over and he's doing the work of the Committee now."
Dylan pulls up more files. "He's connected to three defense contractors and sits on the boards of two intelligence think tanks. Morrison built Protocol Seven, but Webb helped him run it. Now Webb's in charge of the whole operation."
"Can we prove it?"
"Maybe. If Tommy can access the archived personnel records from the eighties. Webb was involved in covert operations during the Cold War. If he's been involved in Protocol Seven since the beginning, there will be patterns."
My computer buzzes with a message from an unidentified source.
Stop digging or join the body count. Last warning. - Cipher
My hands go cold on the keyboard. Cipher. The source who fed me the initial intelligence. The one who set me up.
"Dylan." I show him the screen.
His expression hardens. "They know you're still alive. Know you're accessing classified databases. Probably tracking our connection through Echo Base."
"Can they find us?"
"Tommy's running counter-surveillance. If they were tracking us, he'd know." Dylan takes my laptop, forwards the message to Kane. "But it confirms you're a priority target. They're not just hunting you. They're trying to scare you into stopping."
"I'm not stopping."
"I know." His eyebrows raise slightly. "But understand what that means. They'll escalate. Send teams to eliminate you. Target your family, your friends, anyone connected to your investigation."
"I don't have family. Parents died years ago. No siblings." The words come out flatter than I intend. "Friends know better than to ask what I'm working on. Hazard of investigative journalism."
"Then they'll target you directly. Full surveillance. Assassination teams. Whatever it takes to silence you before you can publish."
"Let them try." The Committee network diagram comes up again. "I've spent six months building this case. Six months following money through systems designed to be invisible. I'm not walking away now because someone threatened me."
"They murdered three hundred forty-seven civilians and documented it for scientific research. You think they'll hesitate to add one journalist to the body count?"
