Chapter 33 - The Silent Witness
Back in Seattle, inside the gleaming glass-and-steel monolith of Apex Global Security’s downtown headquarters, Director Marcus Vance—no relation to Daniel, but sharing the same ruthless ambition—slammed his fist onto the polished mahogany surface of his executive desk.
"What do you mean you lost them?" Marcus roared at the two tactical operatives standing rigidly before him, their uniforms dust-covered and their faces bruised from the flash-bang blast. "They were in a civilian truck on a dead-end pass! How does a rogue SEAL captain and a nurse outmaneuver an entire tactical squad?"
"Sir, the terrain was compromised," the lead operative stammered, his eyes fixed on the floor. "He used localized explosive ordnance and took the logging trail through the Miller’s Creek ridge. Our vehicles couldn't follow without bottoming out."
Marcus sneered, pacing across the plush carpet toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glittering expanse of Puget Sound. "Excuses. The board of directors is breathing down my neck. If the Obsidian Ledger goes public, the pharmaceutical contracts with the Department of Defense are dead, and our entire operation gets dismantled from the inside out."
He turned back around, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "Find them. I don't care if you have to tear down every tree in the Olympic Peninsula. Bring me the drive, and eliminate the SEAL."
As the operatives hurried out of the office, Marcus walked over to his private computer terminal to check the status of the Zurich server node. He reached out and tapped the keyboard—but instead of the familiar login screen of the secure vault, a single, unmovable image appeared on the monitor.
It was a photograph.
Taken years ago, it showed a young Daniel Vance standing in uniform beside a plaque honoring naval intelligence operatives—and right beside him, standing in the shadows of the background, was Marcus’s own estranged brother, who had vanished from the military under mysterious circumstances five years prior.
Beneath the photograph, a single line of text pulsed in stark, blinking red letters:
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*I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED AT ST. JUDE, MARCUS. LET’S TALK FACE TO FACE.*
Marcus froze, the blood draining completely from his face as a cold sweat broke out across his forehead. The hunter had just become the hunted.
