Chapter 10 - The Dead Father
William Morgan had been dead by the time the Prague photograph was taken.
So Mercer’s statement seemed impossible.
It wasn't.
“North” was not William himself.
It was the codename attached to an investigative file William created before his death.
Aaron used the same name for the person who inherited that investigation.
Who?
A woman named Rebecca Cole.
Former Defense Criminal Investigative Service analyst.
Rachel found her retired in Maryland.
Rebecca confirmed everything.
William discovered unauthorized maintenance architecture embedded in several contractor systems.
He reported it.
The complaint disappeared.
He privately contacted Rebecca.
Before they could complete the investigation, William died of pancreatic cancer.
No assassination.
No mysterious death.
Cancer.
The truth did not need every death to be murder.
Aaron later found William’s notes and contacted Rebecca.
Together they reopened the case.
Prague was part of that work.
Why Prague?
An Aegis engineer had relocated there.
He provided design files showing the hidden access door had been requested by a legitimate government office.
Not foreign spies.
Not rogue contractors.
A U.S. compartmented security program.
Rachel stared.
“So the backdoor was authorized?”
“Yes.”
“Then what was the crime?”
“It wasn't supposed to be used operationally.”
The hidden access existed for emergency counterintelligence monitoring.
Someone discovered it and began abusing it.
That person did not create the door.
They exploited a secret already built into the system.
Who knew it existed?
A very small group.
William.
Rebecca.
Aegis leadership.
General Pike.
And—
Hale.
Rachel's suspicion swung again.
Hale had claimed he knew only ORPHEUS.
Rebecca corrected that.
“Hale was briefed on the maintenance architecture.”
Rachel confronted him.
He admitted it.
Another lie by omission.
“Why?”
“Because revealing it would expose the program.”
“You keep choosing secrets over people.”
Hale accepted the accusation.
But Rebecca added context.
Hale had reported suspicious use months before Kestrel.
His report was suppressed.
By Pike?
No.
By Rebecca’s own supervisor.
Director Paul Voss.
Now deceased.
Voss had overseen the original hidden-access program.
Was he the mastermind?
Records showed unexplained money.
Foreign travel.
Encrypted contacts.
For one chapter of Rachel’s investigation, Voss seemed perfect.
Then Rebecca revealed the money funded an authorized informant network.
Travel was official.
Encrypted contacts were government assets.
Again, appearances misled.
Voss had made one questionable decision, however.
He refused to close the hidden access after abuse was suspected because doing so would expose its existence.
That allowed the attacker to continue.
Another person protecting a system until the protection became dangerous.
Rachel asked Rebecca the question that mattered.
“Did Aaron survive after Germany?”
Rebecca looked surprised.
“You know about Germany?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Then:
“I saw him six months later.”
Rachel’s heart hammered.
“Where?”
“Virginia.”
“Why didn't he contact us?”
“He wanted to.”
“Then why didn't he?”
“Because by then he had discovered the person abusing the system knew your family.”
Rachel went cold.
“Who?”
Rebecca opened an old case folder.
The attacker had accessed personnel files on Aaron.
Rachel.
Their mother.
And William.
But one access stood apart.
Two days before Kestrel, someone searched Rachel Morgan’s application records.
Rachel had not yet joined the Army.
She was a college student.
“What application?”
Rebecca pushed the document toward her.
An application to a federal summer internship.
Rachel remembered it.
She had never been accepted.
The person who reviewed it was Paul Voss.
But a handwritten note appeared in the margin:
DO NOT BRING HER IN. A.M. WILL REACT.
Initials beneath it:
May you like
D.M.
Daniel Mercer.
