Chapter 17 - The Senator at the Center
Senator Cade publicly claimed he left because of a medical emergency.
Hospital records showed he never arrived.
His security detail stopped answering federal calls.
A government vehicle connected to him was found abandoned near a private airport.
Inside were copies of Meridian files and a photograph of me taken during my psychiatric confinement.
On the back, someone had written:
She remembers Room Seven.
I remembered it.
Room Seven was where a civilian doctor repeatedly questioned me about the mission.
He never gave his name.
He asked what I saw inside the damaged transport ship.
At the time, I believed he was evaluating trauma.
Now I remembered the detail he cared about most.
A sealed equipment case recovered from the wreckage.
The case disappeared before the official inventory.
Commander Ellis located the facility roster.
The doctor in Room Seven was Senator Cade’s brother, Dr. Nathan Cade.
He had no military medical credentials.
He worked for a Meridian-funded behavioral research company.
“They were not evaluating me,” I said. “They were trying to learn whether I saw the case.”
“What was inside?” Ellis asked.
“I never opened it.”
But I knew who did.
Chief Petty Officer Daniel Reyes.
He died three weeks after the mission in an apparent car accident.
His widow received an anonymous payment of $900,000.
I visited her that afternoon under Navy protection.
Maria Reyes opened the door holding an old photograph of Daniel.
“He said you would come someday,” she told me.
Daniel had left a sealed letter for me.
Inside, he wrote that the equipment case contained a prototype command chip designed to remotely override allied naval systems.
Vance Maritime built it.
Meridian planned to sell copies internationally.
Daniel hid the chip before leaving the ship.
He sent coordinates to one person he trusted.
Admiral Marcus Thorne.
I stared at the letter.
Thorne had known about the chip for three years.
When confronted, he said the coordinates were incomplete.
“I searched,” he said. “We never found it.”
Daniel’s final line suggested otherwise.
The chip is where Captain Vance first learned to command.
That could mean only one place.
May you like
The decommissioned training vessel where I served as a young ensign.
📖 The missing override chip was hidden aboard Clarissa’s first ship, but Senator Cade’s men were already moving toward it. 👇
