Chapter 41 - Echoes in the Crypt
The air inside the temporary forward interrogation holding cells beneath Northern Command smelled faintly of ozone and old iron. We had secured the underground bunker following a secondary raid on a dormant proxy server farm in the Aleutian Islands, but the prize we pulled from the ruins was far more unsettling than a stack of hard drives.
Sitting behind the reinforced Lexan glass of holding cell 4 was Marcus Sterling Jr.—the estranged nephew and chief financial architect of the late corporate broker who had tried to siphon twenty-eight million dollars through my father's defunct firm three months ago. Unlike his uncle, who had relied on slick handshakes and bespoke Italian wool suits, Marcus Jr. looked like a cornered rat. His fingers tapped a rapid, frantic tattoo against the stainless-steel table, his eyes bloodshot and wide with a mixture of terror and bitter defiance as my boots clicked rhythmically down the empty concrete corridor.
I stopped in front of the glass, my hands clasped neatly behind my back, my dress-uniform blues spotless under the harsh, clinical glare of the overhead LED fixtures.
“Captain—ah, forgive me. Colonel Lawson,” Marcus sneered, his voice dripping with forced condescension as he stood up and pressed his face close to the transparent barrier. “Word travels fast through the DOD grapevine. You managed to decapitate the Janus network, secure a promotion, and inherit a multi-million-dollar empire built on other people’s ruined portfolios. Impressive resume for a girl who used to stand in the rain outside an Austin academy gate.”
I didn’t blink. I didn’t flinch. For months, I had let the words of my abusers roll off me like water on armor, but hearing a low-level syndicate acolyte try to weaponize my childhood against me triggered only a cold, methodical amusement.
“You’re quoting my stepfamily’s favorite talking points, Marcus,” I said, my voice steady, measured, and terrifyingly calm. “Which tells me you’ve spent the last forty-eight hours reviewing their deposition transcripts while sitting in federal holding. How did you enjoy reading about my father’s forty-year sentence?”
Marcus’s smirk faltered for a fraction of a second, his jaw tightening as the bravado drained from his features. “My uncle warned us about you,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a raspy whisper. “He said you were just a stubborn tactical officer with a chip on your shoulder. But you’re worse than that. You’re a wrecking ball with a security clearance.”
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“Your uncle thought he could sell American logistics corridors to foreign intelligence brokers while my father laundered the profits through dormant family trusts,” I replied, stepping closer to the glass until my reflection mirrored his terrified expression. “He found out the hard way that a high-level military cryptographic gateway doesn't care about corporate pedigree. Now, you’re going to tell me who authorized your uncle’s secondary backup servers in the Aleutians, or you’ll spend the next four decades sharing a concrete block with Victor Lawson.”
Marcus swallowed hard, his throat bobbing as the cold reality of his situation settled in. “You think my uncle was the head of the snake, Colonel?” he laughed, a bitter, hysterical sound that echoed down the empty corridor. “He was middle management. The real power—the shadow board that’s been funding the Janus network for twenty years—they aren’t sitting in a boardroom in Zurich or an underground bunker in the Barents Sea. They’re inside the Pentagon. They’re sitting right at the table with the men who signed your promotion decree.”
