A scar running along his left temple.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Mara had carried his face inside her memory for eleven years.
Daniel.
Her brother.
Alive.
For several seconds, Mara became twenty years old again.
Standing in the rain.
Watching an empty coffin disappear into the earth.
Daniel came down the stairs.
Mara could not move.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Hey, Mare.”
The childhood nickname shattered her.
She crossed the distance and struck him.
Hard.
Daniel staggered.
She hit him again.
“You let me think you were dead!”
He did not defend himself.
“You let Mom think—”
Mara looked toward Elizabeth.
Stopped.
Understood.
“You both knew.”
Daniel nodded.
Mara slapped him.
Then grabbed him.
Then collapsed against him.
Daniel wrapped his arms around her.
Both of them were crying.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to say that.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to come back.”
“I know.”
Mara shoved him away.
Knox stared at Daniel as though a ghost had stepped through the wall.
“You’re alive.”
Daniel looked at him.
“So are you.”
Knox let out one broken laugh.
“You absolute bastard.”
Daniel managed a smile through his tears.
“Good to see you too.”
Mercer remained at the center of the room.
Watching.
Thinking.
Mara suddenly realized he was far too calm.
“Daniel.”
Her brother looked at her.
“Mercer.”
Daniel nodded once.
“I know.”
“Why isn’t he running?”
Mercer smiled.
Because he had been waiting.
Then every door in the room locked.
Vale spun around.
Mercer lowered his raised hands.
“You brought everyone together for me.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
Mercer continued.
“Elizabeth. Daniel. Elias. Owen. Adrian.”
Then he looked toward Mara.
“And the one person I could never locate.”
Mara whispered:
“Me.”
“Yes.”
The room lights shifted to red.
Mercer reached into his pocket.
Knox raised the pistol higher.
“Don’t.”
Mercer produced a small transmitter.
“Kill me and every copy of the archive becomes public.”
Vale stared at him.
“You said the archive was secure.”
Mercer laughed.
“You still believe in secure systems?”
Daniel stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
“What my mother wanted.”
Mercer looked around the room.
“Proof.”
“Proof of what?” Mara asked.
“That loyalty is fiction.”
He pressed the transmitter.
Screens around the gym came alive.
Files appeared.
Thousands of them.
Secrets.
Operations.
Names.
Families.
Mara stared.
Mercer said:
“In twelve minutes, every one of these files is sent to every major media outlet and foreign intelligence service I prepared.”
Vale went pale.
“That would expose active operations.”
“Correct.”
“People would die.”
“Probably.”
Daniel moved another step.
“How do we stop it?”
Mercer smiled.
“One terminal.”
A screen in the center of the room illuminated.
“Someone logs in using Vale’s master credentials and cancels the transfer.”
Vale started forward.
Mercer raised one finger.
“There is one complication.”
Vale stopped.
“Of course there is.”
“The cancellation command automatically transfers the complete archive to a protected government server where it becomes permanent record.”
Elizabeth understood before everyone else.
“If he stops the leak, his own program is exposed.”
Vale stared at the monitor.
His entire career.
Harbor.
The hidden experiments.
Everything.
Mercer smiled.
“Twelve minutes.”
Mara almost laughed.
After every layer of deception and manipulation, everything had come down to another choice.
Vale looked toward her.
Mara shook her head.