Chapter 8 - The Man Behind the Window
The recovery residence stood behind a line of oak trees, far from the tourist roads.
Its name appeared on a modest sign near the gate.
Inside, the receptionist checked Naomi's documentation and led us to a private meeting room.
We waited while the director confirmed Dad's capacity and willingness to see me.
Those minutes felt longer than any mission I remembered.
Finally, a nurse opened the door.
“He asked you to come in alone at first,” she said.
I entered a sunlit room where a man sat near the window, a folded newspaper resting on his knees.
His left hand lay curled against the chair arm.
His right hand gripped a wooden pencil.
“Dad?”
The pencil fell.
He looked up slowly.
The eyes were the same.
I had imagined this moment as anger, an argument, perhaps an apology.
Instead, I crossed the floor and knelt beside his chair.
He touched my face with trembling fingers.
“Maya,” he whispered.
I could not remember the last time anyone had said my name with so much relief.
“You're alive.”
He nodded.
“I'm sorry.”
His speech was slow but clear enough for me to understand.
He told me he had trusted the wrong people after Sentinel.
He believed he possessed records that could expose an unauthorized modification to the extraction plan.
A consultant convinced him that disappearing briefly would protect me while investigators secured those records.
Judith helped stage his death, initially under the same belief.
Then the months became years.
“She said you hated me,” he whispered.
“She said you asked never to be contacted.”
I closed my eyes.
“She told me you were dead.”
He shook his head as tears tracked down his cheeks.
On a small table lay a stack of envelopes addressed to me.
Every one had been returned or withheld.
Dad had kept writing anyway.
He pointed toward a blue binder in the drawer.
“Find the second map,” he said.
“Don't trust the one they showed you.”
I opened the binder.
A photocopy of a route diagram lay beneath medical appointment sheets.
Two coordinates were circled in red.
One was where the rescue convoy should have gone.
The other was where my team had been sent.
Beside the second, Dad had written a single name.
May you like
Dean.
