Chapter 13 - TWO ROBERT WADES
Elias Vale stood outside the damaged gate wearing another man’s identity.
Rain ran across his borrowed face.
The resemblance to Colonel Wade was nearly perfect from a distance, but Mike could now see the flaws.
The ears.
The left hand.
The slight stiffness around the mouth where a synthetic overlay met real skin.
Vale stopped ten yards beyond the barrier.
“You have Sarah’s photograph,” he said.
Mike did not answer.
Vale’s voice matched Wade’s closely, but lacked the colonel’s controlled pauses.
“I taught her how to hide keys inside ordinary things.”
Mike touched the photograph beneath his vest.
“You taught her to fear you.”
“I taught her to survive.”
“You murdered her family.”
Vale’s expression remained calm.
“I did not order their deaths.”
“Someone using your network did.”
“My network has been controlled by many hands.”
“That does not make yours clean.”
Vale looked toward Bill inside the booth.
“The sheriff understands compromise.”
Mike turned slightly.
Bill stood in the doorway, Wade’s real ring no longer on the counter.
He had picked it up.
Vale saw it.
“So does Colonel Wade,” he said.
The real Wade’s voice came through Mike’s earpiece.
“Do not engage him. Keep him talking.”
Mike almost laughed.
“You helped this man disappear.”
Wade answered quietly.
“Twenty-two years ago, Vale agreed to testify against Gatehouse leadership. The extraction was compromised. I created a false death record to protect him.”
“And then?”
“He vanished before the hearing.”
Vale spread his hands.
“You believed I betrayed you, Robert.”
“You rebuilt the system.”
“I preserved it.”
“You turned it into a criminal marketplace.”
“I kept it from becoming a political weapon.”
Mike looked at the dark vehicles.
“You routed murder footage through a military base.”
Vale’s borrowed smile faded.
“That was not my decision.”
“Whose was it?”
Vale studied him.
“The person who killed Sarah wants you to believe Gatehouse is a single organization. It is not. It is a road. Anyone with the right access can drive on it.”
“Give me a name.”
“I can give you Lena Torres.”
Mike’s body stiffened.
“What about her?”
“She is alive.”
Wade’s voice sharpened in Mike’s ear.
“Do not believe him.”
Vale looked toward the drainage channel.
“She followed a signal into the service tunnel. Someone else was waiting.”
“Who?”
“Ask Robert.”
Mike heard Wade breathe.
Vale continued.
“Captain Torres was recruited into military intelligence because of a sealed childhood file. Who authorized the recruitment, Robert?”
Wade said nothing.
Mike turned his head slightly.
“Answer him.”
Wade’s voice came low.
“I did.”
Mike’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew Torres before tonight.”
“I knew her record.”
“You knew her connection to Sarah.”
“I suspected it.”
Torres had entered the office after Wade sent a priority request before Mike arrived.
He had brought her into the room deliberately.
“Why?” Mike asked.
Wade answered, “Because Sarah contacted me last week.”
Bill stepped out of the booth.
Mike turned fully.
Wade continued.
“She said Gatehouse had resurfaced. She said Torres possessed a memory she did not understand.”
Vale’s false face hardened.
“Robert, stop.”
Mike looked at him.
That reaction mattered.
“What memory?”
Wade spoke through the earpiece.
“When Torres was thirteen, she witnessed the final activation test of Gatehouse’s civilian-control failsafe.”
Vale stepped closer to the gate.
“You are discussing classified information over an unsecured channel.”
Mike ignored him.
“What did she see?”
“She saw who held the second key.”
Vale’s calm vanished.
The first real emotion crossed his features.
Fear.
Mike understood.
“Torres knows who controls Gatehouse.”
“She may,” Wade said.
“Even if she doesn’t remember.”
Vale looked toward the dark service road.
The second vehicle began backing away.
He had come for the photograph.
But Torres had become more important.
Mike took one step forward.
“Where did they take her?”
Vale looked at him.
“I can help you find her.”
“In exchange for the photograph.”
“In exchange for my ring.”
Bill tightened his grip around Wade’s damaged service ring.
Mike noticed.
So did Vale.
The false colonel raised one hand.
The sleeve shifted.
Beneath the synthetic face and gray hair stood an older man, likely in his late sixties. Thin wrist. Medical adhesive near the skin.
Not strong.
Not invulnerable.
Dependent on systems and distance.
Mike stepped toward the gate.
Vale did not retreat.
“Sarah believed you were dead,” Mike said.
“She needed to.”
“She spent her life hiding from you.”
“She spent her life protected by me.”
“Her children are dead.”
Vale’s jaw trembled once.
It was the first sign that Sarah’s death had touched him.
Before Mike could press further, the short-range earpiece emitted a burst of static.
Then Torres’s voice whispered, “Mike, don’t give him the ring.”
Mike went still.
“Lena, location?”
Her breathing was shallow.
“I’m beneath Building Twelve.”
Vale’s head turned sharply toward the base.
Torres continued.
“There’s another control room.”
“Are you injured?”
“Yes.”
“Can you move?”
“For now.”
A mechanical noise sounded behind her.
She lowered her voice.
“I found the original access log.”
Vale stepped backward.
“End the transmission,” he ordered.
Mike smiled without warmth.
“You don’t control this channel.”
Torres said, “The authorization from Wade’s office was real.”
The colonel’s breathing stopped in Mike’s ear.
“But Robert Wade didn’t send it.”
Mike looked at Vale.
“Who did?”
Torres whispered, “Sheriff Bill Kane.”
May you like
Mike turned.
Bill stood behind him holding Wade’s ring and the family photograph.
