“Still pretending to be a soldier?” my brother laughed as my entire family humiliated me at our backyard barbecue, but seconds later, a V-22 Osprey landed outside, two officers saluted me, and my father finally realized he had no idea who his daughter really was. / Chapter 8 / 100

Chapter 8 - The Father’s Plea

"Emily? Emily, is that you?"

My father's voice didn't have any of the old thunder left in it. The booming, arrogant tone of the man who ruled his backyard like a petty king had vanished entirely. In its place was a ragged, wheezing desperation that sounded twenty years older than his actual age.

"I’m here, Arthur," I said, using his first name for the first time in my life.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

"Arthur? Emily, why are you calling me that? I’m your father!"

"My father told me to take the bus three hours ago," I said, my voice as flat and even as a frozen lake. "State your business."

"Emily, listen to me!" Dad pleaded, his voice breaking into a wet cough. "They came to the house! The FBI! Wayne Higgins was with them, but he wouldn't help me! They threw Jake against the wall! They took him in handcuffs! Martha is in the hospital, Emily! Her blood pressure went through the roof! She’s on an IV drip right now!"

I felt a slight pinch behind my eyes—not of guilt, but of exhaustion.

"Is Mom stable?" I asked.

"The doctor says she’s stabilized, but she won't stop crying! She keeps asking for you! She keeps asking why you did this to our family!"

A cold, bitter smile touched the corner of my lips. "Why *I* did this?"

"Yes! You!" Dad shouted, that old familiar anger flaring up for half a second before collapsing back into panic. "You came here with that war machine! You brought the federal government down on our heads! Jake is a good boy, Emily! He’s your brother! He runs a logistics business! Whatever paperwork mistake he made, you have to call your bosses and tell them it was an accident! You work in that building! You can fix this!"

I walked over to the window. Outside, the Osprey’s crew was completing their pre-flight checks, the turbine whine beginning to spool up again.

"Dad," I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, lethal register. "Jake didn't make a paperwork mistake."

"He told me Carl Vance handled everything—"

"Jake signed for an eighty-million-dollar stolen military avionics package," I interrupted, cutting through his excuses like a scalpel. "He bypassed federal weigh stations. He used military jamming gear to blind satellite telemetry. And he did it for a ten-thousand-dollar watch and a title on a business card."

The line went completely dead for five seconds.

"Stolen... military?" Dad whispered. "No. No, not Jake. Jake wouldn't do that. He’s a patriot. He loves this country."

"Your 'patriot' almost handed our fifth-generation fighter technology to a foreign adversarial syndicate, Dad," I said. "And if my team hadn't intercepted that trailer forty minutes ago, Jake would be facing charges that carry the death penalty under federal espionage statutes."

A terrible, choking sound came through the receiver. It was the sound of a proud, stubborn man finally breaking completely in half.

"The... death penalty?" Arthur gasped. "My boy? Emily... no. No, please God, no. You can't let that happen. You’re his sister. You’re our blood."

"Now I’m blood?" I asked.

The silence on the line was thick and suffocating.

"Where was that blood when you took my college fund and gave it to Jake so he could buy custom rims for his truck?" I asked, my voice rising just enough to let the razor-wire beneath it show. "Where was that blood when I deployed to Iraq for eighteen months and you didn't call me once because you were busy painting Jake’s garage? Where was that blood when you stood by your grill three hours ago and told me the bus stop was down the road?"

"Emily... I was joking... I was just—"

"You weren't joking, Arthur," I said. "You’ve spent your entire life believing that Jake was gold and I was dirt. You treated me like an inconvenient tenant who didn't know her place. You laughed when he asked if I was replacing printer cartridges."

I took a deep breath of the air-conditioned office air.

"Well, Dad? How do you like the cartridges I’m replacing now?"

Arthur was weeping now. Full, ugly, broken sobs from an old man sitting alone in an empty house with a torn screen door and a ruined lawn.

"Please, Emily," he begged. "What do I do? What do I do to save my son?"

"You don't do anything," I said. "You hire the best criminal defense lawyer your remaining retirement money can buy. And you pray that the Assistant United States Attorney accepts the cooperation agreement I’m about to put on their desk."

Arthur’s weeping caught in his throat. "Cooperation? You... you’re going to help him?"

"I’m not helping Jake," I said coldly. "I’m helping the Department of Defense. If Jake testifies fully against Carl Vance and provides the electronic keys to the offshore accounts, the government will drop the espionage charges and charge him with secondary federal conspiracy and negligent handling of defense materials."

"How much time?" Arthur whispered terrified.

"With time served, full cooperation, and five hundred hours of hard federal community labor? Maybe three to five years in a minimum-security camp," I answered. "Instead of forty years in a federal penitentiary."

Arthur let out a shuddering breath that sounded like a dying tire. "Three to five years... my God."

"That is the only mercy Jake is going to get, Arthur," I said. "And he is only getting it because his sister—the girl who was supposed to take the bus—happens to be the Director who intercepted the cargo."

I didn't wait for him to respond.

"I'm coming to the hospital to see Mom," I said. "Not for you. For her. Have her room cleared of visitors in thirty minutes."

I hung up the phone.

I turned to Major Vance, who was standing by the door with my duffel bag in his hand.

"Director," Vance said. "The aircraft is fueled. Coast Guard reports they have boarded the *Mar del Plata* in Houston. Two foreign operatives have been taken into custody without incident. The network is rolled up."