Chapter 5 - THE NAME SHE BURIED
Mike heard the words.
He understood each one.
Together, they made no sense.
“You said you didn’t know her.”
“I said I didn’t know Sarah Kane.”
“That was her name.”
“Not when I met her.”
Colonel Wade watched Torres with increasing alarm.
“What name did she use?”
Torres looked toward the door, then at the ceiling.
“If this room is compromised, I won’t say it here.”
Mike stepped closer.
“You’ll say it now.”
She did not retreat.
“I was thirteen. She was seventeen. We were in the same temporary placement outside San Antonio.”
“Placement?”
“State care.”
Mike stared at her.
Sarah had never lived in state care.
Their parents had raised them in a small house outside Abilene. Their mother died when Mike was twenty. Their father died six years later. Sarah had been there through all of it.
Or so he had believed.
“You’re lying.”
“I remember her face.”
“You met someone who looked like her.”
“She had the same crescent scar beneath her left ear.”
Mike’s breath stopped.
Sarah had covered that scar with her hair since childhood.
She claimed she had fallen against a fence when she was six.
Only family knew it existed.
“How long?” Mike asked.
“Three weeks. Then she disappeared.”
“Ran away?”
“The staff said she had been returned to family.”
Mike looked at Wade.
The colonel’s expression was unreadable.
“Did you know this?”
“No.”
Mike turned back to Torres.
“What does ‘the woman with Mike’s face’ mean?”
“When I knew her, she carried a photograph of a boy in a baseball uniform. Dark hair. Same eyes as yours. She said he was her brother.”
Mike remembered the photograph.
Little League, age eleven.
Blue uniform.
Missing front tooth.
Sarah had kept it in a wooden box beneath her bed.
He felt the room tilt beneath him.
Sheriff Bill remained on the line.
“Mike, I can send you a picture of the receipt.”
“Do it.”
The image arrived on the secure command phone.
Sarah’s handwriting filled the paper.
Lena Torres — 4:30 — south loading dock.
The woman with Mike’s face will know what to do.
Below that, almost hidden beneath a grease stain, was another line.
DO NOT LET ROBERT SEE THE FILE.
Mike raised his eyes.
Colonel Wade had already read it.
Wade’s face became stone.
“Robert,” Mike said.
Torres moved between them.
“Don’t assume it means Colonel Wade.”
“How many Roberts knew my sister?”
Wade’s voice remained measured.
“I never met Sarah.”
“You recognized the intelligence format.”
“I recognized a command-analysis header.”
“You warned me not to answer the call.”
“Because whoever called had breached a military system.”
“You tried to touch the access log.”
“Because it originated from my terminal.”
Mike gave a hard, humorless laugh.
“That is not helping you.”
Wade removed his sidearm slowly.
Mike’s body tightened.
The colonel placed the weapon on the desk and slid it away.
“I am not your enemy.”
Torres looked at the pistol, then at Wade.
“That remains unverified.”
Wade’s gaze sharpened.
“You are still under my command.”
“And this base may have helped murder four American civilians.”
The words struck the room like a physical blow.
Mike turned to the door.
“We’re going to the south loading dock.”
Wade shook his head.
“Not until we know which one.”
Torres opened the base logistics directory on her tablet.
The installation had nine south-facing loading docks.
Only one building matched Mark’s structural grid references.
Building 12.
Grid 6.
Section 8.
Bay 4.
Room 3.
A decommissioned communications warehouse near the western perimeter.
Wade stared at the location.
“That building has been empty for eight years.”
“Then nobody will notice us searching it,” Mike said.
“Or somebody is waiting there.”
Mike slipped the satellite phone into his vest.
“Either way, I’m done waiting in this office.”
Wade picked up his sidearm.
Mike’s eyes dropped to it.
“Leave it.”
Wade hesitated.
Then he locked the weapon in the desk drawer.
Torres retrieved her tablet.
The office door unlocked without command.
Mike opened it.
Two military police officers stood outside.
Both carried rifles pointed toward the floor.
The senior officer looked at Wade.
“Sir, we received an automated security alert. Captain Torres and Master Sergeant Kane are to be detained for unauthorized access to restricted systems.”
Wade’s posture stiffened.
“By whose authority?”
The officer handed him a printed order.
Wade read the signature line.
May you like
His eyes lifted slowly.
The detention order carried Colonel Robert Wade’s digital authorization.
