Chapter 16 - HARBOR GLASS
By early afternoon, Daniel Warren was in surgery under armed guard.
Ethan and Mason were both in federal custody with attorneys present.
Lucas Bell remained hospitalized but stable.
For the first time since three in the morning, Abigail had enough quiet to notice how exhausted she was.
Her hands hurt.
Her neck hurt.
Her uniform had dried blood on one sleeve that did not belong to her.
She stood in a secure consultation room at the federal medical facility where Lucas had been taken and drank fresh coffee.
It was hot.
She almost disliked it.
Caleb sat across from her with his forearm rebandaged.
"You should sleep."
"So should you."
"I asked first."
"No, you made a statement."
"Occupational habit."
"Retired occupation."
He smiled faintly.
Then Ruiz entered carrying a sealed file box.
"I hate to interrupt marital diplomacy."
Abigail looked at the box.
"You found Harbor Glass."
"Maybe."
She groaned.
"If you say maybe one more time today, I'm throwing something at you."
Ruiz set the box down.
"Then definitely maybe."
Caleb almost laughed.
Ruiz became serious.
"Harbor Glass does not appear in normal defense databases."
"Classified?" Caleb asked.
"Buried."
"Difference?"
"Classified programs still leave administrative fingerprints."
He opened the box.
"Harbor Glass was erased."
Inside were copies of documents recovered from the Anchor vault.
Most were heavily coded.
Dates.
Locations.
Initials.
Payment ledgers.
Abigail pointed at one column.
"Those look like account numbers."
"They are."
Ruiz slid over another page.
"Money moved through contractor accounts tied to Victor Dane."
"For what?"
"Officially, advanced resistance research."
Caleb's expression hardened.
"Unofficially?"
"Behavioral leverage collection."
Abigail stared at him.
"Blackmail."
"Yes."
Ruiz sat.
"Harbor Glass appears to have started as an intelligence contingency project after several security breaches overseas."
"The idea was to identify vulnerabilities in people with access to sensitive operations."
Caleb nodded slowly.
"Stress-test them before enemies could."
"Exactly."
"That's not unusual in principle."
"No."
Ruiz tapped Dane's name.
"Then Dane changed the model."
"How?"
"Instead of testing vulnerabilities and reporting them, he collected proof and preserved it privately."
Abigail understood.
"So the government thought it was getting security assessments."
"While Dane was building leverage files."
"On whom?"
Ruiz opened another folder.
Hundreds of names.
Military officers.
Intelligence analysts.
Defense contractors.
Foreign liaison personnel.
Some were now retired.
Some were dead.
Several held senior positions.
Caleb scanned the pages.
"Keene protected him."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Ruiz looked at him.
"Because Keene had an Anchor file too."
Abigail leaned back.
"Dane blackmailed the admiral who was protecting him."
"At first."
"At first?"
"Evidence suggests Keene eventually realized the archive was useful to him too."
Caleb gave a humorless smile.
"Everybody discovers principles until leverage becomes convenient."
Ruiz nodded.
"Hale came later."
"What did he do?"
"Operational cleanup."
"Meaning?"
"Changed records."
"Moved people."
"Suppressed investigations."
Abigail thought of Lucas's transfer disappearing from the system.
"And Nathan Cross discovered all of it."
"It looks that way."
Ruiz placed Nathan's journal on the table.
A newly recovered page had been tucked into another file box.
The handwriting was shaky.
Dane isn't testing us anymore.
He's cataloging us.
Keene knows.
Hale knows.
Warren is helping.
C.P. doesn't.
Caleb read the last line twice.
Abigail touched his hand.
Nathan had cleared him from the beginning.
Ruiz continued.
"Cross copied portions of the archive."
"Then he tried to lock Dane out."
"Using the two-key vault system."
Caleb nodded.
"My training key and his own."
"Why Caleb?" Abigail asked.
Ruiz turned a page.
Nathan had written the answer.
Preston is the only one Dane couldn't turn because Preston doesn't bargain when someone else pays the price.
Abigail looked at her husband.
Caleb stared at the words.
His eyes were wet.
He looked away.
"Nathan thought too highly of me."
"Or accurately," Abigail said.
Caleb shook his head.
"I left him there."
"You were young."
"So was he."
"You didn't know he would die."
"I knew he was scared."
Abigail did not erase the truth.
"Yes."
Caleb looked at her.
"You don't have to protect me from that."
"I'm not."
She squeezed his hand.
"I'm reminding you that regret is not the same thing as guilt."
Ruiz gave them a moment.
Then he opened one final folder.
"There is more."
Abigail sighed.
"Of course there is."
The folder contained records from the last eighteen months.
Harbor Glass had been reactivated.
Not officially.
Through contractor funding.
Redwater sessions resumed under Warren.
Young trainees were used as test subjects.
Some were told it was elite selection preparation.
Others were punished for disciplinary issues.
Lucas had been targeted because he found a hidden camera in a locker room after a session.
He copied footage before reporting it.
Warren learned what he had done.
Then Lucas was subjected to escalating drills meant to frighten him into silence.
Abigail read the report with clenched teeth.
"He didn't fail training."
"No," Ruiz said.
"He found evidence."
"Yes."
"Then Warren almost drowned him."
"Yes."
Caleb looked at the records.
"Why bring back Harbor Glass after thirteen years?"
Ruiz pushed forward a financial ledger.
"Because Dane was selling access."
"To whom?"
"We don't know yet."
"Foreign intelligence?"
"Possibly."
Abigail gave Ruiz a look.
He raised both hands.
"That one is genuinely unknown."
Caleb studied the ledger.
One payment repeated every three months.
Large amount.
Shell company.
Foreign bank.
Code name MIRROR.
"This is why Nathan had to die," Caleb said.
Ruiz nodded.
"He wasn't just exposing abusive training."
"He was exposing espionage."
"Or preparation for it."
Abigail thought of Warren's final words.
Anchor is insurance.
"Dane kept the files so nobody could expose the sale without exposing themselves."
"Exactly."
"And Keene protected the archive because he was compromised."
"Then later used it."
"Hale cleaned records."
"Yes."
"Warren enforced silence."
"Yes."
Abigail stared at the folder.
"Where is Hale?"
Ruiz's expression turned grim.
"Missing."
Caleb looked up.
"Since when?"
"Since we arrested Keene."
"Home?"
"Empty."
"Office?"
"Cleared out."
"Vehicle?"
"Found near Norfolk with keys inside."
Caleb leaned back.
"Dane warned him."
Ruiz shook his head.
"Dane was already in custody."
"Keene?"
"No communication after arrest."
"Then someone else did."
Ruiz nodded.
"That's what worries me."
A knock sounded.
A young NCIS analyst entered carrying a laptop.
"Sir, we decrypted part of Warren's boat hard drive."
Ruiz stood.
"What did you get?"
"A contact list."
"Hale?"
"Yes."
"Keene?"
"Yes."
"Dane?"
"Yes."
The analyst hesitated.
"And somebody else."
"Who?"
She turned the laptop around.
One contact was labeled only MIRROR.
The associated number belonged to a secure federal office.
Ruiz stared at it.
"That's impossible."
Caleb looked at him.
"Whose office?"
Ruiz took a breath.
"The deputy director of the joint review team."
Abigail felt the pattern return.
Every time they reached the top, another floor appeared.
Then Lucas's heart monitor alarm sounded from down the corridor.
Abigail was on her feet before anyone else moved.
She ran toward his room.
Two nurses were already inside.
Lucas was convulsing.
His oxygen saturation was dropping.
Abigail reached the bedside.
"What happened?"
One nurse held up an IV bag.
"He was fine thirty seconds ago."
Abigail looked at the medication line.
A syringe lay uncapped on the tray.
It did not belong there.
"Stop the infusion!"
The nurse clamped the line.
Abigail grabbed the syringe with a towel.
"Who was just in this room?"
No one answered.
The door at the end of the corridor was slowly closing.
A man in hospital scrubs disappeared through it.
Caleb saw him too.
May you like
"Hale."
