Chapter 13 - Back on the Resolute
The port lights reflected off black water.
Hannah walked toward the same ramp where Kane had thrown her into the Pacific.
Rusk stood halfway up.
Sophie was beside him, wrists tied.
No visible guards.
Which meant there were guards.
“Hannah Mercer Cole,” Rusk said.
“Malcolm Rusk.”
“You’ve made this emotional.”
“You killed my father.”
“Your father helped create the system.”
“And tried to destroy what you made it.”
Rusk smiled.
“History rarely remembers corrections.”
“Then we’ll give it evidence.”
She held up Thorne’s key card.
Rusk’s eyes followed it.
“The card.”
“Release Sophie.”
He pushed Sophie forward.
She walked three steps.
A red laser dot appeared on her back.
Hannah stopped.
Rusk smiled.
“Card first.”
“Do you know what it opens?”
“A vault.”
“No.”
His confidence flickered.
“It authorizes duplication.”
Rusk went still.
“Thorne built a dead-man mirror. Every file in the vault was copied to three inspectors general and a federal judge before I came here.”
It had happened twenty minutes earlier.
But Rusk did not know that.
Sirens rose beyond the gate.
He grabbed Sophie and drew a pistol.
Hannah dropped the report and moved.
The shot went wide.
Sophie drove her heel into Rusk’s shin.
Hannah hit his wrist.
The pistol skidded across the ramp.
Rusk grabbed Hannah’s collar and shoved her toward the edge.
He whispered:
“Like father, like daughter.”
A voice came from the entrance.
“No.”
Victor Kane stood on crutches beside federal agents.
“Not this time.”
Rusk turned.
Hannah twisted free.
Agents rushed him.
He hit the deck screaming that they had no idea what they were destroying.
Hannah stood over him.
“We know exactly what we’re ending.”
An agent ran toward her with a black ledger.
“Commander, we have the second half.”
Hannah’s heart stopped.
“And?”
The agent opened the final page.
“Your father wrote something here.”
Hannah took the book.
May you like
The first line read:
DO NOT PROTECT MY REPUTATION.
