Chapter 15 - BLACK TIDE
Sarah turned and ran down three steps before the stairwell doors locked above and below her.
Steel bolts slammed into place.
She was trapped between floors.
“Captain, report.”
Static answered.
Then Hale’s voice came through her radio.
“Continue to the server room, Commander.”
Sarah gripped the railing.
“What happened to Mercer?”
“Alive.”
“Rebecca?”
“Also alive, though less cooperative.”
“You took the module.”
“I recovered government property.”
Sarah looked at the black memory casing in her hand.
“Helen said the gold module was not the key.”
“Helen lies.”
“So do you.”
A pause.
Then Hale answered calmly.
“Yes.”
The admission carried more weight than denial.
Sarah moved to the locked lower door and examined the emergency release.
Disabled electronically.
“Hale, who controls Project Anchor?”
“You will know soon.”
“Black Tide activates in less than three minutes.”
“That is why you must reach Helen.”
“You locked me in the stairwell.”
“To separate you from Adrian.”
Sarah heard a faint scrape above.
Someone moving on the next landing.
She looked upward.
A shadow passed beneath the door.
“Helen is not in the server room,” Hale said.
Sarah’s body went still.
The video feed had shown her there.
“The image is delayed?”
“By eight minutes.”
“Where is she now?”
“Coming to you.”
The upper door unlocked.
Sarah stepped backward.
It opened slowly.
Helen Ward entered wearing Sarah’s face, Sarah’s uniform, and a matching gold-and-black insignia.
In person, the resemblance was even more disturbing.
She carried no visible weapon.
A narrow black case hung from her left hand.
The stairwell door locked behind her.
For several seconds, the two women studied each other.
Helen’s gaze traveled over Sarah’s wet hair, the replaced uniform, and the small abrasion where Jake had grabbed her chair.
“You handled the mess hall better than expected.”
“You arranged it.”
“I suggested an emotional pressure point to Ethan’s replacement. Jake supplied the cruelty himself.”
“Where is Teresa?”
“Safe with a team loyal to neither Hale nor Adrian.”
“Who are they loyal to?”
Helen lifted the black case.
“To the person inside this.”
Sarah looked at it.
“The physical dossier.”
“Part of it.”
“What is the other part?”
“You.”
Sarah’s breathing slowed.
Helen stepped closer.
“You were never assigned to Calder Point merely to investigate stolen equipment.”
“I assigned myself after reviewing the inventory anomalies.”
“No. You discovered the anomalies because they were placed where your system would find them.”
“By you?”
“By the architect.”
“Secretary Voss?”
Helen’s expression shifted.
“Roland Voss was a recruiter, not the architect.”
The base alarm changed.
A deeper tone rolled through the stairwell.
Sarah’s radio displayed an emergency message.
BLACK TIDE EXERCISE STATUS: LIVE EVENT CONFIRMATION PENDING.
Two minutes remained.
Sarah held up the black module.
“What does this unlock?”
Helen opened the narrow case.
Inside was an old photograph, a bloodless medical scan, and a sealed evidence envelope with Sarah’s name written across it in her father’s handwriting.
Sarah’s composure cracked.
“You were at my father’s house.”
“I lived there for six months after his death.”
“Why?”
“To find what he hid from Rebecca.”
Helen lifted the photograph.
It showed Thomas Mitchell standing beside Admiral Hale, Adrian Vale, and a fourth person whose face had been cut away.
In Thomas’s hand was the same gold-and-black insignia.
Sarah stared.
“My father was never Navy.”
“That is what he told you.”
“Who was he?”
“The first director of the Joint Maritime Recovery Group.”
The stairwell seemed to narrow around Sarah.
“That unit was created fifteen years ago.”
“The public version was.”
Helen handed her the medical scan.
It showed two infant fingerprints, two sets of genetic markers, and a classified project code.
Sarah read the birth date.
Her birth date.
Two female subjects.
Her throat tightened.
“Rebecca and I are not twins.”
“No.”
“One of these is me.”
“Yes.”
“Who is the other?”
Helen reached toward her own jaw.
Sarah tensed, expecting another mask.
But Helen did not remove her face.
Instead, she pulled back the skin beneath her left ear, revealing a small surgical scar and an implanted black chip.
“I am.”
Sarah stared at her.
“No.”
“Your father did not create a duplicate after you joined the Navy. He raised one daughter and trained the other in secret.”
“My mother would have known.”
“Your mother died before she could tell you.”
“She died in a car accident.”
Helen’s eyes held hers.
“Your father was driving.”
Sarah stepped back as if struck.
The emergency message changed.
LIVE EVENT CONFIRMATION REQUIRED: MITCHELL AUTHORIZATION.
Helen pointed toward the black module.
“The system needs both of us.”
“For what?”
“To stop Black Tide.”
“Then why threaten Teresa?”
“To force Hale, Adrian, and Rebecca into the same room.”
“They are killing each other below us.”
“That was not the plan.”
“Plans change when built on lies.”
Helen’s face hardened.
“You sound like him.”
“Who?”
“Our father.”
Sarah looked at the envelope bearing her name.
“What is inside?”
“The identity of the architect.”
“Open it.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It is sealed with a third biometric key.”
“Whose?”
Helen did not answer.
The radio activated.
A man’s voice spoke through heavy distortion.
Not Hale.
Not Adrian.
Not Mercer.
“Sarah, do not trust the woman in front of you.”
Both women froze.
Helen’s confidence vanished.
Sarah raised the radio.
“Identify yourself.”
The voice replied with a phrase only one person had ever used with Sarah—a private sentence whispered beside her hospital bed after her first childhood surgery.
Her father’s voice.
“The daughter I raised was never supposed to meet the daughter I kept.”
May you like
The emergency clock reached sixty seconds.
The sealed evidence envelope began vibrating inside Helen’s case.
