Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the Past
The silence on the other end of the line stretched so long that for a brief second, I thought the encrypted connection had dropped.
Then came the sharp, ragged intake of breath.
"You... what?" Beverly’s voice was barely a squeak. "You authorized it? Nora, what are you saying? You’re trying to destroy your own brother?"
"I authorized a multi-agency federal warrant based on nine hundred pages of classified intelligence, Mother," I replied, my voice steady, completely unyielding. "I did not target Marcus. Marcus targeted his own bank account and chose to ignore federal maritime compliance laws for a ten percent margin."
"Let me speak to her!"
A violent scuffle echoed through the receiver, followed by the heavy, trembling voice of my father.
"Nora! This is your father." Howard’s tone was attempting to project authority—the same manufactured patriarch tone he had used to shut me down whenever I asked why Marcus got a brand-new Jeep for his sixteenth birthday while I was forced to work thirty hours a week at a grocery store to buy my own textbooks. "You listen to me, young lady. Family comes before any uniform. I don't care what papers you signed. You walk into your superior’s office right now, you tell them there’s been a grotesque misunderstanding, and you get these agents to stand down. Marcus is terrified. He’s here in our kitchen, shaking like a leaf!"
A faint, cold smile crossed my lips in the empty, fluorescent-lit corridor.
"Dad," I said softly. "Do you remember the conversation we had on Wednesday evening?"
"What does Wednesday have to do with anything?" he barked. "Your brother’s freedom is on the line!"
"You sat ten feet away from Mom while she called my career a joke," I said, the words slipping out without an ounce of anger, carrying only the terrifying weight of absolute indifference. "You laughed when she said I sat behind a desk pretending to matter. You told me that driving nine hours to support my promotion was a ridiculous waste of your time. And you left two empty chairs in a hall where the Chief of Naval Operations and the White House were watching."
"Nora, that was just family banter!" Howard’s voice grew frantic, cracking at the edges. "You’ve always been so overly sensitive! We were tired, we had things to do! We’re proud of you, you know that! We’ve always been proud of you!"
"You don't even know what my rank is, Dad," I whispered.
"Nora, please—"
"You don't know the name of the ship I served on for three years. You don't know what medal is currently sitting in my briefcase. You don't even know what I do behind this desk." I took a slow breath. "And right now, behind this desk, I am an officer sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic."
"Are you calling your own brother an enemy of the United States?!" Howard roared, panic entirely overtaking his senses.
"I’m telling you that Marcus is currently classified as a fugitive who failed to present himself during the execution of a federal warrant," I replied coldly. "If he is sitting in your kitchen, you have exactly ten minutes to advise him to surrender to the nearest field office before federal marshals arrive at your front door."
"Nora, you wouldn't—"
"Nine minutes and fifty seconds, Dad."
I tapped the red button, cutting the call off instantly.
I stood in the silence of the corridor, staring down at the dark screen. Memories from childhood flickered through my mind like old, worn film reels: the time Marcus accidentally set fire to the garage and blamed it on me, and my parents grounded me for a month without asking a single question; the time I was accepted into the Naval Academy on a full congressional nomination, and my mother remarked that it was a shame Marcus hadn't applied instead, because 'he would have looked much more dashing in white.'
They had starved me of love, thinking the hunger would keep me desperate for their approval.
They had failed to realize that hunger, when endured long enough, simply turns into armor.
I turned around, swiped my cryptographic security badge against the heavy steel door, and stepped back inside the operations center.
Captain Hayes looked up from the tracking display. "Everything all right, Commander?"
"Everything is clear, Captain," I said, pulling up my tactical tablet. "Send the location ping from the incoming cellular signal to the Cincinnati FBI field office. Marcus Whitaker is currently located at 1442 Elmwood Drive, Dayton, Ohio."
Hayes blinked in surprise. "Isn't that your home of record, Commander?"
May you like
"It’s an address," I answered without looking up. "Execute the order."
***
