My own father called me a “worthless soldier” and tried to have me locked away after six soldiers died on my mission—but when I rolled into a Senate hearing with scars covering my back, one recording played over the speakers that made the decorated colonel realize his lies were finally catching up with him.

Twenty minutes later, we were in the back of an up-armored Chevy Suburban speeding west on Interstate 66, flanked by two unmarked pursuit vehicles driven by active-duty Navy SEALs loyal to Admiral Foster.

My back burned like a furnace. Alvarez handed me a bottle of sterile saline and a clean dressing, helping me clean the sweat from my freshly irritated scar tissue.

“Is what he said true?” Alvarez asked, looking in the rearview mirror. “About the threat on your life?”

“My father is a narcissist and an opportunist,” I said, gritting my teeth as the gauze touched the raw burns. “He lies to survive. But he only panics when he’s trapped. He was genuinely terrified back there.”

Admiral Foster sat in the front passenger seat, an encrypted Toughbook open on his knees. His satellite phone was pressed to his ear.

“David Chen isn’t answering,” Foster said, ending the call and turning around. “His apartment in Arlington is dark. Arlington police responded to a wellness check ten minutes ago—door was kicked in, hard drives missing, security cameras wiped with an electromagnetic degausser.”

“They took him,” Alvarez said, her face draining of color.

“No,” I said, leaning forward. “Chen wouldn't stay in his apartment. When he gave me that encrypted audio file in the hospital corridor, he didn't use a military flash drive. He used an outdated, proprietary magnetic-storage chip from an old AN/PSC-5 radio.”

Foster frowned. “The old tactical field transceivers?”

“Chen spent fifteen years designing field comms for SOCOM before Orion hired him,” I explained, my military tactical training kicking into high gear, washing away the physical pain. “He told me once—during a briefing at MacDill—that modern networks are designed to be backdoored by their manufacturers. He said if the sky ever fell, he’d go completely analog.”

“Where?” Foster asked.

“His father owned an old marine salvage yard off the Anacostia River,” I said. “He told me the only place you can safely test unshielded radar systems without satellite interception is inside an iron-hulled drydock.”

Foster tapped the driver’s shoulder. “Turn off at Navy Yard. Cut our transponders.”

The Suburban swerved hard across two lanes of traffic, taking the south exit toward the dark industrial fringe of Washington, D.C.

I looked down at my phone. A news alert popped up on the screen, accompanied by a picture of my face:

*BREAKING: SENATE COMMITTEE SHOCKED BY PURPLE HEART HERO’S FRIENDLY-FIRE ACCUSATIONS. PENTAGON ISSUES STATEMENT DENYING SYSTEM DEFECT; GENERAL HARRIS PLACED ON ADMINISTRATIVE LEAVE.*

Underneath the article, a single text message appeared from an unknown, burner number: