Chapter 18 - THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
I refused the condition.
"He doesn't get to dictate my safety," I told Desai.
"If he's alive, he can speak through counsel and investigators."
I was shaking so badly that I had to put down my coffee.
The request had reopened a wound I thought had scarred.
Desai worked to verify the attorney, the identity claim, and whether Ethan was genuinely seeking to cooperate.
A controlled video interview was arranged with appropriate safeguards.
When the screen came on, I saw a man with Ethan's eyes and a narrow white scar near his jaw.
He looked older, thinner, and exhausted.
For one impossible second I wanted to reach toward him.
Then I remembered the grave where I had left flowers for eight years.
"Hannah," he said.
I kept my hands in my lap.
"Tell them what you know."
He flinched.
Ethan admitted he had disappeared during an investigation, but said the arrangement had collapsed after a leak exposed him.
He had lived under aliases, moving when he believed Caleb's associates were close.
He claimed he learned about Derek only after our marriage.
He had tried to warn me without revealing himself, but the messages were intercepted or never delivered.
I asked why he had not gone to law enforcement again.
He described threats, compromised contacts, and a fear that any approach would put me in immediate danger.
Desai pressed him for verifiable names, dates, and records.
Some details matched the ledger.
Others required independent confirmation.
When the official questions ended, Ethan asked for one minute with me on the monitored connection.
"I loved you," he whispered.
"You abandoned me to a funeral," I answered.
"I thought staying away would keep you safe."
"It didn't. My daughter nearly died."
He closed his eyes.
"I know."
I leaned toward the screen.
"Did you know Lily was a target?"
"Not until recently."
"Did you ever help Derek?"
"No."
"Then tell us how to find Blackbird."
His expression changed.
"Blackbird isn't a person," he said.
"It's an authorization phrase. Whoever controls the ledger can give the order."
The room fell silent.
If Ethan was right, we had been chasing a woman who might only be the visible face of a system.
He offered investigators a possible decoding method for a set of account references.
Before the call ended, he said one more thing.
"Caleb is not the one who began this. Look at who approved your original deployment assignment."
I stared at the blank screen long after his image disappeared.
Then I called Colonel Shaw and asked her to preserve every record relating to the assignment.
She was silent for several seconds.
May you like
"Hannah," she said at last, "you need to come in tomorrow. There's something I should have told you years ago."
