Chapter 4 - THE DEAD MAN'S RENDEZVOUS
Aaron Pike had been dead for two years.
I had read his autopsy.
I had seen photographs from the recovery boat.
I had studied dental confirmation, fingerprints, dive computer logs, and a burial record signed by his family.
Yet Brock Sullivan sat on the boathouse floor telling me Pike wanted to meet us offshore at ten that night.
"You have thirty seconds before I decide you're wasting mine."
Sullivan did not blink.
"The body recovered after the dive accident wasn't Pike."
"Dental records matched."
"Switched."
"Fingerprints matched."
"Inserted."
"DNA?"
"Never independently tested."
I looked at Mercer.
His face told me Sullivan was right about at least that part.
"Why wasn't it?"
Mercer answered reluctantly.
"The family requested immediate release."
"Did the family request that?"
"I don't know."
"You signed the burial authorization."
His eyes sharpened.
"I signed what came through legal."
Sullivan leaned back against the boat trailer.
"That's Meridian."
Reed stepped closer.
"You keep saying that like it explains everything."
"It explains more than your loyalty does."
Reed's expression hardened.
"Careful."
"Why?"
Sullivan smiled faintly.
"You going to hit me?"
Reed moved before I could stop him.
I put an arm across his chest.
"Not now."
His eyes stayed on Sullivan.
"He knows exactly what he's doing."
"So do I."
I turned back to Sullivan.
"Start with Somalia."
He took a breath.
"My team was tasked to retrieve a courier carrying satellite access keys."
"Whose courier?"
"We were told Al-Shabaab."
"And?"
"He was CIA."
Mercer cursed under his breath.
Sullivan continued.
"Not officially assigned to Somalia."
"Name?"
"Daniel Harker."
I knew that name too.
Harker had supposedly died in a helicopter crash in Djibouti six months before Sullivan's Somalia operation.
"Another dead man."
"That's the pattern."
Sullivan nodded toward the map.
"Meridian buries identities when it needs people to disappear."
"Why?"
"Because dead men don't appear on manifests."
Reed folded his arms.
"What was Harker selling?"
Sullivan's eyes went flat.
"A list of protected assets."
I felt the answer before he said the rest.
"Americans?"
"Military officers, intelligence sources, partner forces, covert locations, family addresses."
Mercer stared at him.
"You reported none of this."
"I tried."
"To whom?"
"Voss."
The room went silent again.
Rear Admiral Elias Voss.
The man who created my cover package.
The man whose aircraft had vanished over the Pacific.
Sullivan looked at me.
"I gave Voss the evidence."
"And what happened?"
"He congratulated me for protecting national security."
"Then?"
"He ordered me to forget Harker ever existed."
"You obeyed?"
Sullivan's face tightened.
"For six days."
That answer surprised me.
"Then Pike came to me with a copy of the courtyard video."
"Video of what?"
Sullivan looked toward the open bay.
"Harker naming the buyers."
My throat tightened.
"Who were they?"
"I never saw the full recording."
"Why not?"
"Pike split it into encrypted segments and hid them."
Reed laughed once.
"Smart."
"Smart enough to survive."
I looked down at the offshore coordinates.
"If Pike is alive, why wait two years?"
"Because he didn't trust me."
"Do you blame him?"
Sullivan actually smiled.
"No."
Mercer picked up the map.
"This could be an ambush."
"It is an ambush."
Sullivan's certainty made all of us look at him.
"Pike told me anyone who comes will be watched."
"By Meridian?"
"By everyone."
"Then why go?"
"Because he has one segment left."
"What does it show?"
Sullivan looked at Mercer.
"The man who approved the sale."
Mercer's face tightened.
"You think that man is me."
"I think Pike thinks it might be."
Mercer stepped forward, but I stopped him with a look.
"Enough."
I took the map.
"We go."
Mercer shook his head.
"Absolutely not."
"You want the truth?"
"I want you alive."
"Those may not be compatible goals."
Reed nodded toward Sullivan.
"He doesn't come."
Sullivan laughed.
"Pike won't surface without me."
"Then Pike stays hidden."
"And Meridian keeps killing people."
I hated that Sullivan was right.
By 2100, we were aboard a thirty-four-foot training vessel leaving Coronado under a maintenance designation.
No uniforms.
Not because we were becoming civilians, but because the mission required unmarked maritime gear.
I wore dark Navy tactical clothing with my sidearm concealed under a flotation jacket.
Reed sat near the stern checking a suppressed carbine.
Sullivan sat across from him with his hands cuffed in front.
Mercer had wanted to come.
I had refused.
If the admiral was dirty, bringing him was suicide.
If he was clean, leaving him on base gave us someone with enough authority to react if everything went wrong.
The Pacific was black and cold beyond the navigation lights.
At 2154, we killed the engine six hundred yards from the coordinates.
A small sailboat drifted ahead of us with no visible running lights.
Reed raised binoculars.
"One person on deck."
Sullivan leaned forward.
"Pike?"
"Can't tell."
I took the binoculars.
The figure wore a dark jacket and baseball cap.
He lifted a flashlight.
Three short flashes.
Pause.
Two short flashes.
Sullivan exhaled.
"That's him."
We approached slowly.
At thirty yards, the man removed his cap.
Even in poor light, I recognized the face from the death file.
Aaron Pike.
Alive.
Older.
Thinner.
But alive.
Sullivan stood.
"Aaron."
Pike raised a pistol.
"Don't move."
Sullivan froze.
Pike looked at me.
"Captain Hayes?"
"Yes."
"Show me your left hand."
I did.
"Turn it over."
I did.
His shoulders loosened slightly.
"Good."
Reed frowned.
"What's that supposed to prove?"
Pike ignored him.
"Captain, come aboard alone."
"No."
"Then we're done."
Sullivan spoke quietly.
"Do it."
I looked at Reed.
He hated the idea.
That was why I knew he would cover me properly.
I stepped across to Pike's boat.
The sailboat rocked under my weight.
Pike kept the pistol low but ready.
Up close, he looked exhausted.
"You were declared dead."
"That was the only reason I'm still breathing."
"Who helped you disappear?"
"A man I thought was saving me."
"Voss?"
Pike's eyes sharpened.
"You know about Voss."
"I know enough to ask."
He nodded slowly.
"Voss arranged the fake death."
"Why?"
"He said Meridian had penetrated the investigation."
"Was he right?"
"Yes."
"Then why are we suspicious of him?"
Pike gave me a tired smile.
"Because he was Meridian."
The ocean suddenly felt much colder.
"Prove it."
He reached inside his jacket.
I tensed.
He brought out a small waterproof drive.
"This is the last segment of Harker's video."
He held it between two fingers.
"It shows the authorization meeting."
"Who is in it?"
Pike looked past me toward our boat.
His face changed.
"Get down."
The first shot came from the darkness beyond our stern.
Reed shouted.
Glass shattered.
Pike slammed into me as another suppressed round tore through the sailboat's cabin wall.
Our training vessel's engine exploded into flame.
Sullivan disappeared behind the console.
Reed returned fire toward a shape moving fast across the water.
A black speedboat.
No lights.
No markings.
Pike grabbed my jacket.
"They followed you."
"They followed all of us."
He shoved the drive into my hand.
Then his eyes moved over my shoulder.
He went still.
I turned.
On our burning boat, Thomas Reed was standing with his weapon raised.
Not at the attackers.
At Brock Sullivan.
Before boarding the training vessel, I spent twenty minutes testing Sullivan's story.
He passed every question I expected him to fail.
He knew details from Pike's official death that had never been released.
The recovery diver's name.
The color of the replacement tank.
The fact that Pike's right fin had supposedly been found fifty yards from the body even though the current should have carried it north.
"Why didn't you challenge the identification?"
I asked.
"Because I thought he was dead."
"You were his dive buddy."
Sullivan's jaw tightened.
"I lost visual contact during descent."
"For how long?"
"Forty-eight seconds."
"Long enough for a switch?"
"Apparently."
"Who planned the dive?"
"Pike did."
That surprised me.
"He chose the site?"
"Yes."
"He wanted to disappear."
"I think he had already decided."
Reed leaned against the boathouse wall.
"Then why frame you as the man beside him?"
Sullivan looked at him.
"Because if Pike vanished while diving with anyone else, Meridian would know he escaped."
I followed the logic.
Sullivan was already under suspicion inside his own team.
A death beside him looked believable.
A disappearance did not.
"So Pike used your reputation."
"He used my guilt."
Sullivan looked toward the water.
"He knew I wouldn't push too hard because I was afraid of what an investigation might uncover about Somalia."
For once, he did not sound proud or angry.
Just tired.
"You were protecting yourself."
"Yes."
"And that helped him survive."
"Yes."
"That doesn't make what you did noble."
"I didn't say it did."
That was the first moment I believed anything he said.
Not because the facts were verified.
Because he stopped trying to make himself look clean.
Clean people were becoming the least believable people in the case.
Mercer arranged the vessel through a training command that had no connection to my investigation.
Even then, we assumed the request would be visible somewhere.
So I created three false movement plans.
One sent us north toward Oceanside.
One kept us inside San Diego Bay.
One showed a helicopter transfer to Point Mugu.
Only the real route went verbally to Reed.
Sullivan watched me destroy the written coordinates.
"You trust him that much?"
He nodded toward Reed.
"I trust him enough to know what betrayal would cost me."
Reed looked offended.
"That's almost sentimental."
"Don't get used to it."
At the pier, Pike's coordinates waited in my pocket.
The sky had darkened.
The wind was rising.
Every sensible instinct told me the rendezvous was a trap.
But an investigation built around a dead man could not move forward without proving whether the dead man was actually dead.
I stepped aboard.
Sullivan followed under restraint.
Reed cast off the stern line.
As the pier slid away, my phone received one final message from an unknown number.
NO MATTER WHAT PIKE SAYS, ASK WHO SIGNED HIS DEATH CERTIFICATE.
I showed it to Reed.
He read it twice.
"Do we know?"
"Not yet."
He handed the phone back.
May you like
"Then we better meet the dead man."
