Chapter 11 - The Senator’s Dinner
Senator Richard Holbrook was Wyatt's uncle, not his father.
He had built his career promising integrity while Northbridge companies funded his campaigns through layered donations.
When Vale requested his financial records, the senator went on television and called the investigation a conspiracy manufactured by a bitter father.
He said Nora's assault was terrible but insisted there was no connection to national security.
Then the senator's office released my classified service history.
Not the complete records.
Only the fragments that made me look dangerous.
An old photograph showed me standing near a destroyed building overseas.
A commentator described me as a disgraced covert operative.
A second story claimed I had threatened the four students.
I sat in the hospital cafeteria watching strangers debate whether Nora had invented her injuries to help me settle an old score.
My hands trembled around a paper cup.
I had never felt so powerless.
Nora's physician found me there.
"She doesn't need you to win an argument on television," she said.
"She needs you to come upstairs."
I returned to Nora's room.
She held out her notepad.
YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE LEAVING AGAIN.
I sat down immediately.
"I'm here."
She wrote, PROVE IT.
So I turned off my phone and stayed until she fell asleep.
In the morning Vale summoned me to a secure interview.
His investigators had found an audio recording from a Northbridge fundraiser.
Nathan was speaking to Senator Holbrook.
"He'll come when we touch the girl," Nathan said.
Holbrook asked why David Vance mattered after so many years.
Nathan answered, "Because he is the last authorization I need."
Vale paused the recording.
"What authorization?"
I searched my memory for the things I'd signed at Vanguard.
There had been emergency protocols, compartmented accounts, and contingency plans meant for disaster response.
One of them allowed the commanding officer to authenticate the release of sensitive civilian witness files.
The process required a physical token and a biometric challenge.
Only two officers had ever been authorized.
Nathan and me.
"If my credentials were withdrawn when I retired, he wouldn't need me," I said.
Vale checked the file.
They hadn't been withdrawn.
Someone had renewed them every year in secret.
May you like
The renewal officer's signature belonged to Bishop.
