Chapter 10 - RYAN’S CHOICE
Ryan did not attack Claire.
He wanted the ledger.
Claire refused to give it to him.
By the time Lisa and Captain Cole reached the storage facility, Ryan had locked the outer doors and disabled the security feed.
Lisa stood behind an armored vehicle while Cole’s team prepared entry.
Then her phone rang.
Ryan.
She answered.
“Lisa.”
His voice sounded exhausted.
“You need to listen.”
“You lost the right to tell me what I need.”
“I know.”
“Then surrender.”
“I can’t.”
Lisa looked toward the dark building.
“Why?”
“Because if Cole gets that ledger, my father dies.”
Lisa almost laughed.
“Marcus assaulted me.”
“I know.”
“He helped steal from me.”
“I know.”
“He helped build a fraud network using dead soldiers.”
Ryan’s voice cracked.
“He’s still my father.”
Lisa remembered asking Ryan from the floor whether he would simply stand there.
He had.
Now he expected her to understand loyalty.
“No.”
She said quietly.
“Marcus stopped being your excuse the second you decided his life mattered more than mine.”
Ryan went silent.
Then he said something unexpected.
“I didn’t marry you because Rebecca ordered me to.”
Lisa froze.
“I met you because she ordered me to.”
“That’s not better.”
“I know.”
“But I stayed because I loved you.”
Lisa looked toward the building.
Love without courage.
Love without protection.
Love that remained silent while his father raised a baton.
It no longer mattered what Ryan called it.
Inside the storage unit Claire shouted something.
Then a crash.
Cole gave the signal.
Agents breached the side entrance.
Lisa heard shouting.
Thirty seconds later Claire emerged with her hands visible.
Ryan followed.
He was holding the ledger.
Not the baton.
Marcus’s ceremonial baton lay broken on the concrete floor.
Ryan stopped when he saw Lisa.
Then he did something nobody expected.
He handed the ledger to Captain Cole.
“My father is at Fort Halden.”
Cole frowned.
“That base closed twelve years ago.”
“Not all of it.”
Ryan looked at Lisa.
“Rebecca moved him before the gala.”
Lisa stared.
“Why?”
“Because he tried to make a deal.”
“With whom?”
“Your mother.”
Ryan explained that Marcus realized Sentinel was collapsing and offered Rebecca evidence against Claire, Daniel and Ryan in exchange for protection.
Rebecca accepted.
But she never intended to protect him.
Ryan found a coded message proving Rebecca planned to kill Marcus after retrieving the final access key.
Lisa asked the obvious question.
“What key?”
Ryan looked toward Claire.
Claire’s face changed.
The handwritten ledger contained a sequence of numbers.
Not account numbers.
Coordinates.
James Bennett had built a physical backup vault containing Sentinel’s original records.
Thomas Morgan had hidden the location in the ledger.
Claire had known.
Rebecca knew Claire knew.
And Marcus had apparently discovered it too.
Ryan looked at Lisa.
“Fort Halden is built over the vault.”
Captain Cole immediately began mobilizing.
But Claire grabbed Lisa’s wrist.
“Rebecca isn’t going there for evidence.”
Lisa looked at her.
“What is she going for?”
Claire swallowed.
“Something your father never told you.”
James Bennett had not merely recorded Sentinel.
He had created a failsafe.
A program capable of automatically releasing every Sentinel record to law enforcement, journalists and military oversight offices around the world.
Lisa’s pulse jumped.
“Then why hasn’t he used it?”
Claire’s voice dropped.
“Because the trigger requires the original Orion prototype.”
Lisa stared at her.
“That prototype was destroyed.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“Your mother has it.”
May you like
Then Claire looked toward Ryan.
“And Ryan gave it to her three years ago.”
