"Got a match." Sarah pulls up a personnel file. "Luis Cordova. Former Army intelligence, discharged years ago under circumstances that suggest disciplinary action. Current employment listed as security consultant, but financial records show irregular income patterns consistent with contract work."
"Committee asset." I study Cordova's file, noting the gaps in his employment history that suggest covert operations. "Probably running logistics or surveillance for them in this region."
"Which means Reeve is auditing local Committee support infrastructure, not just intelligence sources." Sarah pulls up more satellite images. "If he's checking security consultants and logistical contractors, he's being thorough. Making sure no one in their regional network has been compromised."
The scope of Reeve's audit is larger than we initially assessed. He's not just verifying intelligence contacts like Masters. He's examining the entire Committee support structure in the PacificNorthwest, every asset and contractor and resource they rely on for operations in this region.
"How many assets does the Committee have in Montana?" The question matters because each one Reeve audits eliminates a potential vulnerability for us to exploit.
"Unknown." Sarah's screens display financial data, tracking payments and transactions. "But based on spending patterns and operational tempo, multiple contractors and assets providing various services. Security, logistics, surveillance, communications support. All operating independently, compartmentalized so no single asset knows about the others."
Compartmentalization. Each asset isolated so if one falls, the rest stay hidden. Which means Reeve has to verify each one individually without revealing how they connect.
Time-consuming. Which gives us a window before he completes his audit and potentially gets close enough to Echo Base to become a direct threat.
Sarah's computer chimes again. Another message from her NSA colleague, brief and clinical in its phrasing.
She reads it, goes still. Her expression shifts, tension replacing the focused intensity she brought to analysis.
"What is it?" I move closer, reading over her shoulder.
The message is simple:Glad to hear you're okay. Rumor was you were dead after what happened in Baltimore. Hope you're staying safe wherever you ended up. -M
Baltimore. Two years ago. When Sarah's cover was blown and the Committee tried to eliminate her, when she barely escaped with her life and had to disappear into networks that wouldn't ask questions about why an NSA analyst suddenly needed to vanish.
"He thought you were dead." The words come out flat, processing implications I should have considered before. "Your colleagues at NSA. They thought the Committee killed you."
Sarah doesn't look at me. Her hands rest flat on the desk, fingers pressed down as if anchoring herself. "I let them think it. Safer that way. If the Committee believed they'd succeeded in eliminating me, they'd stop looking."
"How many people think you're dead?"
"Anyone who knew me at NSA. Anyone who might have tried to find me afterward." She closes the message window, returning to satellite imagery analysis. "It was necessary. The Committee compromised me through someone with access to personnel files. I couldn't risk anyone knowing I'd survived."
Sarah spent two years letting everyone who knew her believe she was dead—colleagues, contacts, probably friends who worked alongside her and mourned her loss.
"I should have been there." The words escape before I can stop them, guilt and regret bleeding through carefully maintained control. "When you were in trouble. When you reached out. I should have been there."
Sarah's hands curl into fists. "You were deep cover. I understand that now. Understood it then, even. But understanding doesn't change what it felt like to send emergency messages and get nothing back. To almost die and have no one to call."
"I never received your messages." I need her to understand this, need her to know I didn't ignore her deliberately. "The blackout was complete. No external communication, no access to dead drops, no way to know anything was happening outside the op. By the time I surfaced and checked the protocols, your messages were old... out of date."
"I know." Her voice is quiet, controlled, carrying the weight of grief that calcified into anger. "Tommy did a deep divewhen you joined Echo Ridge. He told me about the deep cover, the blackout, the intelligence you were gathering, and that you hadn't accessed the dead drop until recently. I know you couldn't have received the messages. But knowing something intellectually and feeling it emotionally are different things."
Knowing I had reasons doesn't erase what she felt. It doesn't change that she was alone and terrified while I was unreachable.
"I read your messages. When I finally surfaced and could check the dead drops." I need her to understand the weight of those words, what they revealed about the hell she endured. "The first one said you'd been ambushed. That you’d been taken and you were wounded. That you needed extraction support or intel on who compromised you."
Sarah turns to face me finally, and the pain in her eyes is stark enough to cut. "Days later, I'd extracted myself but the Committee was hunting me through old contacts. I didn't know who to trust."
Two messages. Both times I could have helped. I should have helped.
"The third message was about Gabe." Her voice goes quieter. "He'd gone missing in Alaska. I begged you to use your CIA connections to find out what happened to him. Told you I couldn't do it alone."
Sarah searched for Gabe while thinking I was dead or indifferent, while her world collapsed and I was nowhere to be found.
"The last message..." She stops, composing herself. "The last message said maybe you were dead. That maybe the Committee had gotten to you, and that's why you weren't responding. It said I hoped you were dead, because that would be easier than believing you'd chosen not to help."
"I'm sorry." Inadequate words for damage that runs this deep. "I know it doesn't change anything. It doesn't undo theterror or the loneliness or all the time you spent thinking I'd abandoned you. But I'm sorry."
