CHAPTER 5 — The Enemy Wearing a Badge
Maxwell arrived at Juliet's apartment twenty minutes later.
He found the broken window.
The empty envelope.
The dog tag.
Juliet handed it to him.
"My father's grave was opened."
Maxwell examined the tag.
"No."
He looked at the engraving.
"This isn't the one buried with him."
Juliet frowned.
"What?"
"This one has coordinates."
Tiny numbers had been carved into the back.
Coordinates outside Chicago.
An abandoned military training facility.
Maxwell immediately ordered helicopters.
"I'll go."
Juliet shook her head.
"I'm coming."
"It's dangerous."
"So is staying alive."
For a second...
Maxwell almost smiled.
"You sound like your father."
Two hours later...
The convoy arrived at the abandoned base.
Rusted fences surrounded empty buildings.
Nature had swallowed most of the compound.
But somebody had been there recently.
Fresh tire tracks.
New footprints.
Lights inside the main warehouse.
Maxwell signaled his men.
They moved silently.
Juliet followed close behind.
The warehouse doors creaked open.
Inside...
Hundreds of dusty filing cabinets filled the room.
Military records.
Boxes.
Computers.
Everything abandoned.
Until Juliet noticed one cabinet labeled...
MASON.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside were dozens of classified files.
Her father's name appeared everywhere.
Captain Thomas Mason.
Deep Cover Operative.
Special Assignment.
Then she found the final report.
She read one sentence.
And nearly collapsed.
"My father..."
Her voice cracked.
"...was protecting someone."
Maxwell took the file.
His face hardened.
The protected witness wasn't a politician.
It wasn't a judge.
It wasn't Maxwell.
It was...
Maxwell's late wife.
Sophia Buchanan.
According to the report...
Sophia had been an undercover federal witness years before she supposedly died in a car accident.
Juliet stared at Maxwell.
"You didn't know?"
His silence answered everything.
His wife hadn't died in an accident.
She had been executed.
Someone had erased every record.
Every witness.
Except one.
Thomas Mason.
Juliet's father.
Suddenly...
Gunfire erupted from every corner of the warehouse.
Bullets shattered glass.
Metal screamed.
The ambush had begun.
Maxwell pushed Juliet behind a steel container.
Smoke grenades exploded.
Visibility vanished.
One bodyguard shouted,
"Federal agents!"
Another immediately corrected him.
"No..."
"They're fake."
The attackers wore FBI jackets.
But their movements were military.
Professional.
Precise.
They weren't law enforcement.
They wanted everyone dead.
In the middle of the chaos...
Juliet saw a familiar face.
Richard Hale.
The name from the classified file.
He hadn't aged much.
Silver hair.
Cold blue eyes.
He calmly lowered his rifle.
"So..."
May you like
he smiled.
"The captain's daughter finally found the truth."
