Chapter 3 - Grandpa’s Last Warning
My mother's first question wasn't about the military.
It wasn't about my rank.
It wasn't even about General Hale.
She simply looked at me beneath the chapel awning and whispered, "Were you alive?"
I stared at her.
Rainwater ran from my coat onto the stone floor.
"Mom—"
"For five years," she said. "Were you alive?"
Her voice cracked on the final word.
Rebecca stood several feet away, suddenly silent.
My father looked older than I remembered. His shoulders had always been broad, his manner controlled. Now he looked as though someone had removed the floor beneath him.
I wanted to tell them everything.
I couldn't.
General Hale stood nearby, giving us the illusion of privacy.
"I was alive," I said.
Mom pressed a hand over her mouth.
"Then why couldn't you tell me?"
"I wasn't allowed."
"Not allowed?"
Rebecca recovered enough to snap, "Who doesn't allow someone to tell her mother she's alive?"
I met her eyes.
"The United States government."
Silence.
Rebecca almost laughed.
Almost.
Then she saw Hale standing behind me and thought better of it.
Dad spoke.
"What branch?"
"Joint assignment."
"Joint what?"
"I can't explain more."
Rebecca stared.
"So we're supposed to accept this?"
"No."
That surprised her.
I continued.
"You don't have to accept anything. You asked where I was. That's all I can legally tell you."
Mom wiped her cheek.
"We thought you hated us."
That hurt.
"I never hated you."
Rebecca crossed her arms.
"Funny way of showing it."
Before I could answer, the chapel doors opened.
The service was beginning.
Hale glanced toward me.
Duty.
Even now.
I nodded.
"Afterward."
My family went inside.
I remained outside with Hale for three additional seconds.
"How bad?" I asked.
"Potentially catastrophic."
"Grandpa?"
"We don't know whether his death was connected."
Grandpa had died in his sleep at eighty-six.
Natural causes.
At least that was what I'd been told.
Hale added, "Do not react to anyone."
"I know."
"Your operational identity may already be burned."
That frightened me more than anything Rebecca had said.
I entered the chapel.
The service passed in fragments.
A chaplain spoke about service.
An old Marine general described Grandpa's leadership during a crisis thirty years earlier.
Rebecca gave a polished eulogy.
Then Dad stood.
He couldn't finish his.
When the honor guard folded the flag, I finally stopped being Commander Whitmore.
For a few minutes, I became Claire.
Grandpa's Claire.
I remembered his hands showing me how to tie fishing knots.
His ridiculous pancakes.
The voicemail he'd left six years ago after I received my first serious assignment.
"Whatever uniform you wear, kiddo, don't let it become more important than the person inside it."
He had known I was joining something unusual.
He just hadn't known what.
Or maybe he had known more than I'd realized.
After the burial, guests moved toward waiting vehicles.
Rebecca cornered me beside a row of trees.
"Commander?"
I kept walking.
She followed.
"What are you commander of?"
"Rebecca."
"Five years, Claire."
"I know."
"No, you don't."
She grabbed my arm.
My body reacted before my mind.
I turned, broke the grip, shifted my weight and had her wrist controlled in less than a second.
Rebecca gasped.
So did I.
I immediately released her.
Her eyes widened.
"What the hell was that?"
"Reflex."
"Who are you?"
The question landed harder than anything else.
I looked at my sister.
"I don't know anymore."
For once, Rebecca had no answer.
At Grandpa's house that afternoon, the family gathered for the reception.
The Whitmore home sat in McLean, Virginia, on four wooded acres.
It was large but never ostentatious.
Grandpa had refused to renovate his study even when Rebecca told him the wood paneling looked like "a Cold War museum."
I slipped away from the reception and headed upstairs.
Hale was waiting near the study.
Two men in plain clothes stood outside.
"Door hasn't been touched since our team arrived," he said.
I entered.
Grandpa's smell remained in the room.
Coffee.
Old leather.
Pipe tobacco, although he'd quit twenty years earlier.
Photographs covered one wall.
Grandpa shaking hands with presidents.
Grandpa with troops in Afghanistan.
Grandpa beside me at age nine, holding the smallest fish ever caught in Virginia.
I almost smiled.
Hale moved toward the bookshelf.
"Here."
He pressed one volume inward.
A section of paneling unlocked.
Behind it was a steel compartment.
I stared.
"I never knew about this."
"Neither did we."
Inside were three objects.
An old brass key.
A black notebook.
And a photograph.
I picked up the photograph first.
Grandpa stood outside a hotel.
The image had been taken secretly from across a street.
Beside him stood a man I recognized.
Victor Langford.
CEO of Langford Strategic Systems.
One of Grandpa's closest friends.
And one of the largest defense contractors in the country.
On the back, Grandpa had written:
ASK WHO BENEFITS WHEN PATRIOTS STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.
Hale opened the notebook.
Most pages contained ordinary dates and initials.
Then one page stopped me.
C.W.
My initials.
Beside them:
Nightingale.
My mouth went dry.
Hale saw my expression.
"What is it?"
"That name shouldn't mean anything to him."
"What does it mean?"
I hesitated.
Hale was cleared.
Still, saying it aloud felt wrong.
"Nightingale was the designation for my first classified operation."
"When?"
"Five years ago."
The year I disappeared.
Hale studied the notebook.
"How could your grandfather know?"
"I don't know."
A sound came from the hall.
We both turned.
Rebecca stood in the doorway.
She looked pale.
Her eyes were fixed on the photograph in my hand.
"Where did you get that?"
I didn't answer.
Rebecca stepped closer.
"Claire."
"You've seen it?"
Her expression changed.
That was enough.
"Where?" I demanded.
She looked toward Hale.
"Grandpa had one like it."
"When?"
"Three weeks ago."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Because I didn't know it mattered!"
"What happened three weeks ago?"
Rebecca swallowed.
"He asked me to come here."
"For what?"
"He wanted me to take something to a safe-deposit box."
Hale and I exchanged a glance.
"What?"
"A folder."
"What was inside?"
"I didn't look."
Rebecca folded her arms defensively.
"Despite what you think, some of us respected Grandpa's privacy."
I stepped closer.
"Which bank?"
She told us.
Hale immediately called someone.
I kept watching my sister.
"Did Grandpa say anything else?"
Rebecca shook her head.
Then stopped.
"Actually..."
"What?"
"He said something strange."
My pulse increased.
"He said if you came home, I wasn't supposed to trust the first uniform that saluted you."
My gaze slowly moved toward General Hale.
Nobody spoke.
Hale's expression didn't change.
But for the first time in five years, I wondered whether the man who had just publicly revealed my identity was there to protect me...
May you like
...or expose me.
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