Chapter 9 - The Decoy Strategy
The front door slammed shut as Caleb stumbled back into the house, his face pale and his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold his phone.
"Did you see him?" Caleb gasped, slamming his back against the parlor wall. "Did you see Victor? He just walked right past me on the porch as if he owned the place! Evelyn, we're done. We have to run. We have to pack whatever we can fit in your truck and get out of the state before the federal warrants drop."
"Shut up, Caleb," I snapped, walking out of the kitchen with the silver dog tag clutched tightly in my palm. The metal was ice cold against my skin.
"Shut up? He just threatened to destroy your entire career! He’s got forged documents, he’s got corporate backing, and he claims—"
"I heard what he claimed," I interrupted, my voice cutting through his panic like a scalpel. I crossed the room to the roll-top desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and dragged out a heavy, steel lockbox. I flipped the latches with quick, practiced precision. "Caleb, listen to me very carefully. If Victor actually had those operational logs, he wouldn't be sneaking around my kitchen trying to blackmail me with a theatrical speech. He would have already leaked them."
Caleb blinked, wiping sweat from his forehead. "What are you talking about? You saw the video feed. You heard what he said about Lewis."
"Lewis was my best friend," I said, my voice dropping into a flat, unyielding tone that brooked no argument. "And whatever games Victor is playing with his brother's ghost, he’s making a fundamental tactical error: he thinks I'm still the nineteen-year-old girl who walked out of this house with a duffel bag and no leverage."
I reached inside the steel box and pulled out a heavy, manila folder stamped with red classification markings—documents I had kept locked away since my final year of service, long before the civilian courts ever got involved in my family's affairs.
"What is that?" Caleb whispered, staring at the thick stack of papers.
"It's the internal JAG investigation report from twenty-eighteen," I said, pulling out a set of encrypted digital thumb drives and sliding them into my tactical vest. "The one that tracked Victor’s offshore accounts through the United Arab Emirates while he was still under federal indictment. My father didn't just lose money to a syndicate last year. He was acting as Victor’s domestic proxy for illegal real estate acquisitions across the Portsmouth waterfront."
Caleb’s jaw went slack. "Dad... Dad was working with him?"
"He thought he was partnering with a high-end commercial developer," I said, grabbing my field jacket and pulling it over my shoulders. "He didn't realize Victor was using the family firm as a money-laundering vehicle to buy back the very land our grandfather refused to sell him thirty years ago."
I looked down at my younger brother, my eyes hard as flint.
"Now, here is what we are going to do. You are going to drive to the hospital, sit by Mom's bedside, and act like you know nothing. I am going to drive down to the Portsmouth marina, meet with the federal marshal who handled Victor's original case, and hand him a brand-new set of coordinates."
Before Caleb could answer, my cell phone buzzed violently on the desk.
I looked at the screen. It wasn't an unknown number. It was a direct satellite ping from an encrypted line I hadn't used since my final deployment.
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The text message contained a single GPS coordinate located deep within the abandoned shipyard district down by the harbor—and a photo of Knox, sitting calmly inside a cage in the back of an unmarked black van.
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