Chapter 6: The Commander Makes His Move
Marsh arrived in fifty-three minutes.
She came through the temporary panel with two additional agents and a laptop already open, and she sat at my kitchen table without taking off her coat.
"Harrison left the federal building at 08:40," she said.
"His attorney claims he stepped out to take a call.
He did not return."
"Where is he now?"
"His personal vehicle was found at Reagan National at 09:15.
He did not board any commercial flight.
We're checking private terminals."
I sat down across from her.
"He has contacts at every private airfield within two hundred miles of this city," I said.
"He spent six years coordinating logistics for covert transport operations.
If he wants to move without a commercial record, he can."
"We know that." Marsh turned the laptop toward me.
On the screen was a map — the eastern seaboard, with three locations marked in red.
"These are the three private facilities with the operational capacity to move him quickly.
We have agents at two of them already.
The third is a private strip in rural Virginia, forty minutes from here.
We're en route."
"What do you need from me?"
"Two things." She pulled a single sheet from the folder.
"First, I need your formal authorization to access the complete server logs from your network — not the summary we've been working from, but the raw data.
Harrison's attorneys will challenge the summary in tribunal.
We need the source."
I took the sheet and signed it.
"Second thing?" I asked.
Marsh looked at me steadily.
"Harrison made a call from the federal building before he walked out," she said.
"The call lasted ninety seconds.
It was placed to a number registered to a communications firm in Alexandria.
That firm's registered address is a building that also houses three other entities." She paused.
"One of them is a private legal consultancy that has represented your interests in the past."
I went very still.
"Say the name," I said.
"Hargrove and Associates," she said.
"Your divorce attorney."
The kitchen was completely quiet.
"Daniel Hargrove represented me for eleven months," I said.
"He filed the divorce petition.
He was present when the judge finalized the decree yesterday morning."
"Yes."
"Harrison called him."
"Yes."
I stood up and walked to the window and stood there with my back to the room.
Daniel Hargrove had sat across from me in his office on a Tuesday afternoon eleven months ago and told me that everything I shared with him was protected.
That I was safe.
That the process would be clean and quiet and final.
He had asked me, twice, whether I had any documentation related to Harrison's professional activities.
I had told him no.
"He knew I was building a case," I said.
"He was feeding information back to Harrison the entire time."
"That's what we believe," Marsh said.
I turned around.
"The photograph," I said.
"Taken eight days after I first contacted your office.
Hargrove knew I'd contacted you because I told him I had legal protection if Harrison retaliated.
I didn't give him your name, but I told him I had made contact with a federal oversight body."
"That would be consistent with the timeline," Marsh said quietly.
I sat back down.
"So Harrison has a compromised attorney, a fourteen-month head start on my movements, and a private airfield forty minutes from here," I said.
"And Patricia is sitting in a federal building filing a sworn statement that names me as her co-conspirator." I looked at Marsh.
"What exactly is working in our favor right now?"
Marsh reached into the folder and placed one more document on the table.
"This," she said.
It was a transcript.
Forty-one pages.
The header read: *Solace Group — Internal Communications Archive — Recovered from Encrypted Partition — Authentication Confirmed.*
"We recovered the full archive two days ago," Marsh said.
"Not the summary.
The complete record.
Every message.
Every routing instruction.
Every authorization." She tapped the top page.
"Patricia's name appears on sixty-three of them.
Harrison's name appears on nine.
Daniel Hargrove's name appears on four."
I looked at the transcript.
"And mine?" I asked.
"Yours does not appear once," Marsh said.
"Not in sixty-three pages of documented financial conspiracy.
Not a single reference, instruction, or communication involving Claire Vance in any operational capacity."
I exhaled slowly.
"Patricia's sworn statement falls apart the moment this is authenticated," I said.
"It already has been authenticated," Marsh said.
"This morning.
Before she filed."
Her phone buzzed on the table.
She looked at it.
"They found the vehicle at the Virginia strip," she said, standing.
"Harrison was there.
He did not board." She picked up the laptop.
"He turned back.
We don't know why yet."
She moved toward the door, then stopped.
"Claire," she said.
"Whatever made him turn back — it wasn't fear of us.
He knows we were close.
Something changed his calculation." She looked at me.
"Is there anything you haven't told me?"
I thought about the encrypted message on my phone.
*She told him everything.*
May you like
"Not yet," I said.
"But I think I'm about to find out."
