Preparing.
For what?
Then he ran.
It happened so suddenly that for half a second nobody reacted.
Cross shoved one security officer aside and sprinted toward a parked vehicle.
Jackson moved first.
Despite being nearly fifty, he accelerated hard.
Aria followed.
Cross reached the vehicle.
His hand went beneath his jacket.
“Stop!” Harper shouted.
Aria saw metal.
Not a weapon.
A phone.
Cross tapped the screen.
Thomas yelled, “The drive!”
Harper looked down.
A red light blinked on the device in her hand.
“Throw it!” Thomas shouted.
She did.
The drive struck the dirt.
Nothing happened.
Cross froze.
Thomas laughed.
“You really thought I'd bring the real one?”
Jackson reached Cross and tackled him.
They rolled.
Security officers surrounded them.
Cross didn't resist once he understood.
The device in his hand was taken.
A remote wipe command.
Harper stared at him.
“You tried to destroy evidence.”
Cross sat in the dirt.
His breathing slowed.
Then, remarkably, he smiled.
“No.”
Thomas approached.
“You always were clever.”
Cross looked up.
“And you always assumed you were the smartest man in the room.”
Aria stopped beside her father.
Something in Cross's calmness bothered her.
“You wanted us to see you do that.”
Cross smiled wider.
Thomas's expression changed.
Jackson noticed.
“What?”
Cross looked at Aria.
“You still don't understand what Sentinel was.”
Thomas said, “Don't.”
Cross ignored him.
“You think your father refused the final test.”
“He did.”
“No.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“Daniel.”
Cross laughed.
“He passed.”
Aria looked at her father.
Thomas had gone pale.
“What does he mean?”
“Nothing.”
Cross continued.
“Sentinel's final test wasn't following an illegal command.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
Cross's voice carried clearly.
“It was whether an operator could identify an illegal command and then deceive the people issuing it.”
Aria stared at her father.
Cross nodded toward him.
“Thomas was the only one who succeeded.”
Jackson whispered, “No.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
Cross looked at Thomas.
“Tell her.”
Thomas said nothing.
“Tell her what the mission actually was.”
Aria turned to her father.
“Dad.”
His eyes filled with pain.
“Aria—”
“Tell me.”
He looked around the field.
At Harper.
At Jackson.
At the soldiers.
Then at his daughter.
“The final Sentinel mission was supposed to test whether we'd follow an unauthorized kill order.”
Aria's stomach tightened.
“Against whom?”
“A civilian.”
“Who?”
Thomas swallowed.
“Daniel Cross.”
Everyone went still.
Aria looked at Cross.
He was smiling.
“You were the target?”
“Twenty-seven years old,” Cross said. “Intelligence analyst. I discovered financial irregularities connected to several unauthorized operations.”
Thomas continued.
“We received orders saying Daniel was a hostile asset.”
“But you knew he wasn't.”
“I suspected.”
“What did you do?”
“I warned him.”
Cross's smile disappeared.
Thomas continued.
“I helped him disappear temporarily. Then I created records showing the mission had succeeded.”
Aria stared.
“So that's what they wanted? To see whether you'd refuse?”
“No.”
Thomas's face hardened.
“They wanted to see whether I could commit to the deception.”
Aria slowly understood.
“They weren't testing obedience.”
“No.”
“They were testing whether you could lie to your own command.”
“Yes.”
Jackson stepped forward.
“Thomas, you told me something else.”
“I had to.”
“You manipulated me.”
“I protected you.”
Jackson's voice rose.
“Stop saying that!”
The words echoed across the field.
For the first time, Aria saw their friendship differently.
Jackson had spent twenty-three years haunted by a story Thomas had constructed.
“You used him,” Aria said.
Thomas looked at her.
“Yes.”
The admission hurt more than denial would have.