Chapter 6 - The Fire Beneath the Library
Flames moved behind the library windows when we arrived. Arthur was still giving interviews outside the ballroom, so someone else had started the fire for him.
Audrey ran toward the front steps.
Agent Morris caught her arm.
“You cannot enter.”
“The safe is below the floor. Heat will trigger the secondary lock.”
“Then tell the firefighters where it is.”
Audrey gave firefighters the code to a concealed panel beneath Arthur’s desk. Ten minutes later, they carried out a black metal case. The outer files had burned. The safe survived.
Morris opened it under camera. The first drawer held signature templates for board members, procurement officers, and both Vance daughters. Mine included voice samples and the military message I sent to Evelyn the year before.
Arthur had converted a greeting into a weapon.
The second drawer held Audrey’s foundation credential and its uses outside charity accounts.
Resolute authorization.
Harbor Mercy payments.
Property Seventeen equipment.
Audrey pressed one hand against the workbench.
“I signed some of these.”
“Which ones?” Morris asked.
“Payments marked medical research. Technology education. Veterans housing.”
The harmless descriptions concealed payments to the laboratory and Ortiz’s confinement.
One form was different.
It carried a plain instruction:
If Commander Vance reappears, release the instability file and initiate family response.
Audrey’s signature appeared at the bottom.
I looked at her.
“What did you think family response meant?”
She did not answer immediately.
“Dad said you might return and make public accusations because you were angry about the company succession.”
“And you authorized a response.”
“I thought it meant attorneys and public relations.”
“You did not ask.”
“No.”
The word had become a pattern between us.
Audrey opened her phone and showed Morris a call received thirty seconds earlier. Arthur was asking her to contact him through an encrypted application.
Morris approved a monitored return call.
Arthur’s face appeared from the rear cabin of a private car.
“Audrey, listen carefully. The documents in that safe were fabricated by Charles.”
“You used my name on the Resolute.”
“I used what the company needed.”
She closed her eyes briefly.
“You knew Clarissa was alive.”
A pause.
“I knew she was connected to people trying to destroy us.”
“She was burned.”
“Do not become sentimental now. You wanted the company.”
Audrey looked toward me.
Arthur had made affection feel scarce enough to compete for. Now he offered the same prize while the house burned.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Take the foundation drive before Morris catalogs it. Destroy the Vance response folder. I will make you chief executive after the merger.”
“And Clarissa?”
“She returns to whatever uniform kept her away.”
Audrey’s voice became steadier.
“What if she refuses?”
Arthur looked directly into the camera.
“Then the espionage evidence finishes her.”
Morris traced the call to a Maryland airfield. Federal officers stopped Arthur’s car before the runway gate and detained him for obstruction and attempted destruction of evidence.
Audrey handed over her phone.
“I spent my whole life waiting for him to choose me,” she whispered. “He finally did when he needed someone willing to become him.”
Investigators found an incendiary device beneath the curtains. The trigger used Charles Wynn’s phone, but the activation came from Arthur’s vehicle. The fire was procedure, not panic.
A hidden compartment inside the safe contained the most important file. It was labeled Ortiz Protocol.
The protocol described how to neutralize survivors. One would be declared dead and isolated. Another would be framed as a saboteur through medical records and family statements. The attack against me had been prepared five years earlier.
At the end was an audio script generated in my voice.
I heard myself confess to entering the emergency command. Then another recording began. This one was not generated.
Audrey’s real voice said, “If Clarissa comes back, use whatever keeps her from taking the company.”
The date was after she received my hospital photograph.
She covered her mouth.
“I forgot saying that.”
Arthur answered in the recording.
“I did not.”
Morris placed the file into evidence.
Audrey looked at me.
“I am sorry.”
“I believe you.”
I continued.
“Believing your apology does not erase your choice.”
Before she could respond, the forensic analyst opened the final page of the protocol.
May you like
The listed author was Admiral Marcus Thorne.
Continue to the next part: The protocol used to imprison Ortiz and frame Clarissa appears to have been written by the admiral who defended her.
