Chapter 26 - BENEATH THE MEMORIAL
Shaw escaped the hospital rooftop aboard a government helicopter before air traffic control could ground it.
Her destination was obvious.
Fort Grant.
By the time we arrived, smoke was rising behind the Trident Seven memorial. The marble monument carried the names of soldiers killed in the ambush, including Ethan’s.
He stood beside me wearing hospital clothing beneath a borrowed tactical jacket.
“You should not be here,” I said.
“My name is carved on that wall.”
“For another day, maybe.”
He gave me the same crooked smile.
Commander Keene led us through a maintenance corridor beneath the memorial. Ethan’s chip contained an access sequence that opened a concealed steel door behind an electrical panel.
Beyond it lay a secure archive room.
Rows of servers hummed under emergency lighting.
This was not a backup of Miller’s files.
It was the network’s complete history.
Assassination orders.
Bribes.
Illegal arms transfers.
Manufactured intelligence.
Operations spanning twenty-seven years.
Our father’s name appeared in the earliest investigation file.
He had gathered enough evidence to expose the network in its infancy. Shaw and Miller arranged his death before he could testify.
Ethan stood frozen beside the screen.
“All these years,” he whispered, “we thought Dad made a mistake during training.”
“He didn’t,” I said. “He chose to fight them.”
A slow clap echoed from the entrance.
Shaw stood behind us holding Amelia at gunpoint.
Amelia’s hospital gown was stained with fresh blood. Shaw had taken her from the emergency transport convoy.
“You Logans have a tiresome habit of surviving,” Shaw said.
Commander Keene raised her pistol.
Shaw pressed the barrel against Amelia’s head.
“Lower it.”
Keene obeyed.
Shaw nodded toward the server controls.
“Erase the archive.”
“No,” Ethan said.
“Then Amelia dies.”
Amelia looked at me.
Her face was pale, but her voice was steady.
“Don’t do it, Logan.”
Shaw tightened her grip.
“She betrayed you for years.”
“Yes,” I said.
Amelia’s eyes filled.
“But I won’t let you use what she did to destroy the truth.”
I moved toward the controls.
Shaw smiled, believing she had won.
Instead of erasing the archive, I pressed the emergency transmission command Ethan had identified on the chip.
Every file began uploading simultaneously to JAG, the Defense Department inspector general, federal prosecutors, and multiple international intelligence partners.
Shaw fired.
Amelia drove her elbow backward.
The bullet struck the server cabinet.
Keene shot Shaw’s weapon from her hand.
Ethan tackled her before she reached the manual destruction lever.
Shaw fell beneath the names of the soldiers she had sacrificed.
May you like
Then the server cabinet began sparking.
The archive room’s fire-suppression doors started sealing with all of us still inside.
