Chapter 3 - Ghosts of Cape Henry
The sun was dipping below the horizon by the time I parked my unmarked Navy SUV near the rusted chain-link fence of the abandoned Cape Henry testing annex. The salt marshes stretched out on either side like desolate grey fingers, and the skeletal remains of the old concrete gantries rose against the purple evening sky like ancient monuments to paranoia.
The gate lock had been cleanly cut. Not blasted off with explosives, not forced with a crowbar—cut with precision wire cutters, the kind we kept in standard EOD toolkit inventories.
I drew my sidearm, flicking off the safety with my thumb, and slipped through the gap in the fence. The air here always smelled different—thick with the metallic tang of old rust, stagnant seawater, and creosote.
As I made my way toward Building 4—the subterranean evaluation bunker where we used to test pressure charges—I expected to find a warning, a dead drop, or perhaps an old rival from the intelligence community waiting in the dark.
Instead, I found my ex-husband, David.
He was sitting on an overturned plastic crate just outside the heavy steel blast doors of the bunker, nursing a thermos of coffee as if he were waiting for a commuter bus. He wore a civilian windbreaker over a plaid shirt, his silver-streaked hair catching the pale moonlight. He looked older, tired, but entirely unsurprised to see me.
"You're late, Sarah," David said calmly, not even flinching as I kept my service pistol leveled at his chest.
"David?" The name scraped against my throat. I hadn't seen him in four years—not since the divorce papers were finalized and he packed up his lab equipment and took a civilian contract with defense contractor Northrop Grumman out in San Diego. "What the hell are you doing here? You're supposed to be on the West Coast."
"I was," David said, standing up slowly with his hands visible, palms open. "Until three days ago, when someone broke into my lab, stole my encryption keys, and left a note on my console with your current coordinates and a warning that if I didn't come to Virginia, the next package wouldn't be an inert mine at a children's school."
My finger stayed on the trigger, my mind racing through every scenario. "You think I'm behind this?"
"No, Sarah," David sighed, stepping away from the crate. "I know you're not. Because the person who brought me here isn't trying to threaten you. They're trying to protect you from what you're about to find inside this bunker."
I lowered my weapon by a fraction of an inch, though my instincts screamed at me to keep my guard up. "What's inside, David? Talk to me. Now."
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"The Vanguard files weren't destroyed, Sarah," he said quietly, the wind carrying his words away into the marsh. "And the man who gave the order to cover up the explosion twelve years ago? He didn't retire. He just got a promotion. And he's currently sitting on the joint chiefs' advisory board."
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