Chapter 6 - The Clarissa Protocol
Admiral Thorne confiscated the earpiece.
The message originated from a secure server hidden behind several international relays.
But the phrase Clarissa protocol appeared elsewhere.
Inside internal Vance Maritime files recovered from Dr. Rourke.
The protocol had been created three years earlier, immediately after the failed mission.
Its purpose was not assassination.
It was character destruction.
The plan included forged medical records, altered psychological evaluations, staged photographs, bribed witnesses, and a media strategy designed to portray me as unstable.
That was how Arthur removed me from command without risking a public trial where I could expose the software failure.
“You had doctors falsify my records,” I said.
Arthur’s voice dropped.
“I was told you would be medically retired with full benefits.”
“I was locked in a military psychiatric facility for nine weeks.”
Audrey looked away.
She had visited me once during that confinement.
She stood outside the glass and said our father was embarrassed by me.
Now I understood why.
She was checking whether the protocol had broken me.
Admiral Thorne’s expression tightened.
“I signed the temporary evaluation order.”
I faced him.
The room seemed to disappear around us.
“You put me there?”
“I believed the evidence.”
“You knew my service.”
“I failed you.”
His admission carried no excuse.
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“Marcus always discovers morality after the damage is done.”
Thorne accepted the blow.
“I should have investigated deeper.”
“You should have listened when I said the mission data was corrupted.”
“Yes.”
He turned toward the officers.
“Record that statement.”
My anger toward him did not vanish.
But unlike my father, he was willing to place his failure into evidence.
Commander Ellis opened another document.
The Clarissa protocol had a final stage labeled Terminal Containment.
It would activate if I recovered physical proof.
The instructions called for a staged overdose using medication listed in my forged psychiatric records.
My death would appear self-inflicted.
Arthur stared at the page.
“I never approved that.”
Audrey began backing toward the service corridor.
A security officer blocked her.
“You knew,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why are you running?”
She looked at our father.
“Tell her.”
Arthur’s face became stone.
Audrey’s eyes filled with panic.
“He didn’t create the final stage.”
“Who did?”
She whispered a name I had not heard since childhood.
“Mother.”
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My mother, Eleanor Vance, had supposedly died twenty years earlier.
📖 Audrey claimed their dead mother designed the plan to silence Clarissa, forcing the entire family to confront a secret buried for two decades. 👇
