Tears spilled over. I wasn’t just a scorned wife anymore. I was the daughter of a murdered patriot.

And underneath the grief, something would not lie flat.

A dead man’s switch explains a dossier sealed eleven years ago. It does not explain an encrypted channel twelve months ago, or a man on the other end of it who knew my current clearance codes, or a stranger in my living room repeating a sentence I had heard in my father’s voice.

I told myself Maya had been handled by someone using his name. It was the only answer available, and I noted, the way he taught me to note things, that it was also the only answer I wanted.

Then the red klaxon of my primary firewall began to blare.

Chapter 7 — Changing the Destination

The screens strobed crimson. Rachel burst in, laptop in hand.