CHAPTER 12: THE COLD TRAFFIC
CHAPTER 12: THE COLD TRAFFIC
Agent Bennett arrived at the lakeside sanctuary before the midnight fog could settle over the water.
He didn't come with a convoy this time. He arrived alone, his face pale under the headlights of his unmarked sedan, carrying a heavily encrypted federal intelligence file.
James Carter sat at the kitchen table, methodically loading a magazine into his sidearm.
"His name is Victor Vance," Bennett said, laying a classified dossier onto the table.
"Marcus Vance’s older brother," I inferred, staring at the old black-and-white military profile.
"Worse," Bennett corrected. "He was a shadow operator for military intelligence who went rogue in 1975. He didn't steal money, Daniel. He stole weapon manufacturing schematics during the evacuation of Saigon."
"The 1983 ledger books," James murmured without looking up. "They didn't just contain financial records."
"No," Bennett affirmed. "They contained the encrypted coordinates for the deep-water storage vaults where Victor hid the stolen hardware along the Atlantic coast."
"Marcus was trying to sell the coordinates to clear his debts."
"But Victor doesn't need money. He wants his legacy back."
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The phone line hadn't been a negotiation. It was a tactical warning.
Through the wide glass windows of the living room, the quiet mountain lake suddenly looked like a dark, open mouth waiting to swallow our sanctuary whole.
