Chapter 30 - The Shadow Looming
I stood up from my desk, my heart slamming against my ribs with an urgency far greater than the torpedo alarm weeks ago. My father and Kevin were small-time criminals blinded by greed, used as sacrificial lambs by a master strategist operating at the highest levels of the Pentagon's procurement chain.
I snatched the secure red phone on my desk to contact Admiral Vance directly.
Before my finger could dial his direct extension, the office phone rang with an internal priority code. I picked it up immediately.
"Commander Whitaker," I answered tensely.
"Eleanor," Admiral Vance’s voice came through, but it sounded completely altered. Gone was the steady, unshakable cadence of the seasoned flag officer. His breath was ragged, coming in short, strained gasps over the encrypted line.
"Admiral? What's wrong? Where are you?" I demanded, leaning over the desk.
"Don't trust... the Pentagon dispatch..." Vance whispered, the sound of breaking glass and distant gunfire echoing faintly in the background of his call. "The intelligence on your father... it wasn't NCIS that uncovered it. It was leaked to you... intentionally. To draw the *Farragut* out of Norfolk."
"Admiral, who is with you?!"
"They're inside headquarters, Eleanor," Vance gasped, a violent explosion cutting off the sound of his voice before static hissed through the earpiece. "Run."
May you like
The line went dead.
At that exact second, the heavy steel door of my command office locked from the outside with an electronic hiss, and the overhead fluorescent lights blinked out, plunging the room into total, suffocating darkness.
