Chapter 17 - The Interrogation of Daniel Cole
To breach an offshore black site without triggering a retaliatory strike, Vance needed the original clearance codes assigned to Daniel Cole’s transport unit—codes Daniel had stored in the only place the federal authorities hadn't yet searched: his personal military lockbox, hidden in the holding facility beneath the state penitentiary.
Two hours later, using Vance’s covert executive credentials and Brooke’s status as lead defense counsel, we walked into the concrete interrogation room of the maximum-security wing where Daniel Cole was being held pending federal indictment.
When the heavy steel door opened, the man sitting at the metal table barely looked human. Stripped of his tailored suits and county prestige, Daniel was a hollow shell. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot, his hands trembling violently in heavy wrist restraints.
When he looked up and saw me walking in alongside Vance Sterling, the color drained completely from his face.
"Vance..." Daniel gasped, shrinking back against his chair as if he had seen a demon. "No. No, this isn't possible. You were discharged... you were dead."
"I was waiting, Daniel," Vance said, pulling out a chair and sitting down with cold, deliberate poise. "Waiting for you to make a mistake big enough to break through Mercer’s political armor. And thanks to your daughter—the girl you tried to erase—the whole kingdom has fallen."
Daniel turned his gaze toward me, his lips trembling with pathetic desperation. "Rebecca... sweetheart, please. You don't understand what they threatened me with! If I didn't hide you, Mercer’s contractors were going to execute you in your bassinet! I saved your life!"
"You didn't save my life!" I slammed my hands onto the metal table, the sound detonating like a gunshot in the sterile room. Daniel flinched, terror flashing in his eyes. "You stole my name! You let Eleanor treat me like garbage, you fabricated a police record, you convinced the entire town of Cedar Ridge that I was a convicted felon rotting in prison while you paraded Hannah around as your only child! You sold my mother to a black site so you could play small-town royalty!"
"Eleanor made me do it!" Daniel sobbed, tears spilling down his hollow cheeks. "Once she found out whose daughter you were, she went insane! She threatened to go to the newspapers, to tell Hunt’s people where we were unless I gave her complete control over you! She wanted you erased, Rebecca! She hated Sarah because Sarah was everything Eleanor could never be!"
"Enough," Brooke snapped, stepping forward with an affidavit. "Where are the flight logistics keys for Site Obsidian, Daniel? We know you kept the encrypted bypass key from the 1999 transport. Where is it?"
Daniel shook his head hysterically. "If I give you that, Hunt will kill me in this cell! He has guards on the payroll! He'll poison my food!"
I leaned across the table, grabbing the front of Daniel's prison jumpsuit, pulling him forward until his terrified eyes were inches from mine.
"Listen to me very carefully, Daniel," I said, my voice drops to a deadly whisper. "Director Hunt might kill you tomorrow. But if you don't give me the code to reach my mother right now, I will personally hand Brooke the financial ledgers that implicate you in Mercer’s hit-and-run cover-up. You won't go to a federal prison. You will be placed in general population under the jurisdiction of the very men you betrayed. You will survive less than twenty-four hours."
Daniel stared into my gray eyes—the same gray eyes of Sarah Cross—and broke entirely.
"The old church," Daniel wept, his spirit completely crushed. "Saint Jude's... outside the county line. The boiler room behind the altar. In the floor drain, wrapped in oiled cloth. The clearance card and the digital transponder are there. Just... don't let Hunt know I gave it to you. Please, Rebecca... I raised you!"
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"You didn't raise me," I said, releasing his collar with pure disgust. "You held me hostage."
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