CHAPTER 4: UNIT 314
Black smoke was visible from the highway.
By the time we reached the storage facility, three fire engines surrounded the property. Flames had consumed the northern row of units, sending orange light through thick clouds rolling across the evening sky.
Unit 314 was located in the center of that row.
Agent Castillo parked behind an unmarked federal vehicle.
“You stay here.”
“I’m not staying in the car.”
“This is an active fire scene.”
“My father left the key for me.”
“And that will be very meaningful at your funeral.”
Duane opened the passenger door.
“She’ll remain behind the barrier.”
Castillo gave him a look.
“You are not helping.”
“I rarely do.”
We approached the emergency perimeter.
Firefighters had already cut through several steel doors. Water rushed across the pavement, carrying ash, insulation, and charred fragments of cardboard.
The facility manager stood near an ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
Castillo showed her credentials.
“When did the fire start?”
“About forty minutes ago.”
“Any witnesses?”
“A renter saw a man leaving the northern building.”
“Description?”
“Tall. Dark jacket. Baseball cap.”
“Vehicle?”
“Black SUV.”
That description matched half the city, but the timing did not feel accidental.
A firefighter approached us.
“Agent Castillo?”
“Yes.”
“Unit 314 didn’t burn.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“The fire spread along the roof, but that unit had an internal fire barrier. Whoever installed it knew what they were doing.”
The steel door was blackened but intact.
The brass key opened the padlock.
Inside, there were no boxes.
No furniture.
No stacks of files.
Only a chair, a projector, a locked metal cabinet, and a white envelope sitting on a table.
My name was written across the front.
Rebecca.
I stepped inside.
Castillo checked the walls and ceiling before allowing anyone else to enter.
Duane stood near the doorway.
“Your father prepared this.”
“He prepared for everything except surviving.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Becca,
If you are reading this, Elaine has either found the key or failed to destroy it.
I stopped.
My mother had possessed the key.
She had hidden the photograph.
But she had not destroyed either one.
I continued reading.
I spent years believing I could protect this family by keeping its ugliest truths hidden. I called that loyalty. It was cowardice.
Curtis is involved, but he is not the architect.
Neither is Elaine.
The man behind Meridian has been part of Titan since its earliest days. He knows our contracts, our weaknesses, and the truth about your service.
Do not trust the board.
Do not trust the will.
Trust the scar.
I looked at Duane.
He gave a slow nod.
Beneath the letter was a remote control.
I pressed the power button.
The projector activated.
My father’s face appeared on the far wall.
He looked thinner than I remembered. His skin was pale, his voice strained, but his eyes remained clear.
“If Rebecca is watching this,” he said, “then I am dead, and Victor Sloan has made his move.”
Daniel whispered a curse.
The recording continued.
“Victor joined Titan as outside counsel twenty-three years ago. What no one knew was that he had previously worked under a defense procurement official named Malcolm Voss.”
Duane stiffened.
I recognized the name.
General Malcolm Voss had overseen regional operations during the Kandar extraction. He was also the official who had delayed our rescue authorization for forty-seven minutes.
Forty-seven minutes that cost three lives.
“Voss created Meridian Strategic Logistics as a laundering mechanism,” my father said. “He used Titan subcontractors to install hidden access channels in export technology. Victor protected the contracts. Curtis approved payments in exchange for personal compensation.”
My hands tightened around the letter.
“Elaine discovered some of the transfers,” my father continued. “Instead of reporting them, she demanded a share.”
The image seemed to tilt as my knees weakened.
Duane pulled the chair behind me.
My father looked directly into the camera.
“I am sorry, Becca. Your mother knew Curtis was stealing from the company. She helped him hide it because she believed Titan should belong to him.”
The old wound should not have hurt.
Elaine had lied under oath.
She had accused me of stealing a dead soldier’s identity.
Yet hearing my father confirm her motive cut deeper than I expected.
“She always believed Curtis was the rightful heir,” he said. “I spent too many years allowing that belief to shape our home.”
The recording jumped.
My father now held a small electronic device.
“This drive contains financial ledgers, vendor communications, and copies of the original will. It also contains evidence that Victor arranged unauthorized changes to my medication after I entered hospice care.”
Castillo leaned closer.
Daniel whispered, “That’s murder.”
“Not necessarily,” Duane said. “But it could be.”
My father’s voice weakened.
“I was dying. Victor merely ensured I could no longer speak before I exposed him.”
My vision blurred.
During the final days, my father had struggled to remain awake. Doctors said the cancer had advanced.
I remembered Elaine controlling his medication.
Curtis refusing to let me spend time alone with him.
Sloan bringing papers to the house after midnight.
“The drive is not in this unit,” my father said. “The cabinet contains the next location. I separated the evidence because Victor would destroy anything he found.”
Castillo examined the metal cabinet.
It had a digital keypad.
My father raised his scarred left palm toward the camera.
A thin white line crossed the center.
“Trust the one who carries the scar.”
Duane looked at his own hand.
“Not mine,” he said.
I stared at the screen.
My father had received that scar while building Titan’s first prototype in our garage. A sheet of metal sliced through his palm.
He used to joke that the company had taken blood before it made money.
“What did he mean?” Daniel asked.
I remembered something.
“When I was eight, he taught me a sequence for the workshop alarm.”
I entered the six digits.
My birthday.
The cabinet unlocked.
Inside was a military field radio, a map, and a sealed envelope addressed to Commander Carney.
Duane opened it.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
He handed the letter to Castillo.
“Your father scheduled a dead-man transmission.”
“For when?”
“Tonight at midnight.”
The map showed an abandoned Titan testing facility near Black Ridge.
A red circle marked the underground communications bunker.
My father’s letter explained that the primary evidence drive had been sealed inside the bunker’s emergency transmitter. Unless someone entered a cancellation code by midnight, the entire archive would be transmitted automatically to four federal agencies and three investigative journalists.
Daniel looked at his watch.
It was 9:18 p.m.
“Why would Sloan burn this place if the evidence is somewhere else?”
“He didn’t know where it was,” I said. “He was trying to stop us from finding the map.”
Castillo’s phone rang.
She listened for several seconds.
“When?”
Her gaze shifted toward me.
“Understood.”
She ended the call.
“Sloan is gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“He left the courthouse during the evacuation created by the fire alert. His vehicle was found abandoned six blocks away.”
Duane looked at the map.
“He’s heading for Black Ridge.”
Castillo began issuing orders.
Daniel folded the letter.
“We have less than three hours.”
“No,” Duane said.
He pointed toward a handwritten note near the bunker entrance.
“If Sloan reaches the transmitter, he doesn’t need the cancellation code.”
“What does he need?”
“Explosives.”
I looked again at the red circle.
Black Ridge had been closed for seventeen years.
The underground tunnels were unstable.
May you like
My father had hidden the truth inside a place designed to test weapons.
And Victor Sloan was already on his way there.
