Chapter 8 - The Summit Showdown Prep
The drive from DC to Montana took three days, and it was the best three days of my life. We took the back roads, stopping at diners for greasy burgers and pie, visiting national parks, sleeping in cheap motels with neon signs out front. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t have a gun on my hip, didn’t have a comms piece in my ear, didn’t have to check over my shoulder every five minutes. I was just Claire. Not Captain Whitmore, not the hero of the summit, not the disappointment my parents had called me for so long. Just me.
When we pulled up to the ranch, I cried.
It was perfect. A big, sprawling log house with a wide front porch that looked out over the Rocky Mountains, a barn with three horses in the pasture, a stream running through the property, wildflowers growing everywhere. The air was crisp and clean, smelling like pine and fresh-cut grass, so different from the diesel and exhaust of DC, the rot of the docks, the cold sterility of the hospital.
“Home sweet home,” Grandpa said, grinning, as we carried our bags up the porch steps.
The next few weeks were pure magic. We woke up early every morning, drinking coffee on the porch while the sun came up over the mountains. We rode horses, fished in the stream, fixed up the old barn, cooked big dinners every night. Jake and Lila came to visit for a week — Lila’s cancer was in remission, she was running around the pasture laughing, chasing the horses, happier than I’d ever seen her. Jake was talking about going back to school, becoming a social worker to help kids like Lila. Torres came out for a long weekend, bringing his wife and two little girls, who called Grandpa “Papa Whitmore” and followed him around like little ducklings.
For the first time in my life, I knew what it felt like to have a real family. The kind that loved you no matter what. The kind that showed up. The kind that didn’t lock you in a shed or call you a failure or sell you out for money.
But the past wouldn’t stay gone forever.
Three months after we moved to Montana, I got a letter.
It was from the federal prison in Florence, Colorado. Maximum security. The worst of the worst.
The return address: Viktor Rook, ADX Florence, Inmate #47291.
I almost threw it away. But something made me open it.
Inside, written in Rook’s neat, slanted handwriting:
Claire — You think you won. You think you destroyed the Protocol. You think I’m rotting in this cell, forgotten. But you’re wrong. I made a backup. A copy of the Protocol, hidden where no one will ever find it. And I gave the key to someone you’d never suspect. Someone you love. Someone who’s been with you this whole time. In six months, it’s gonna be sold. The highest bidder gets it. And this time, there’s no kill switch. No old man to save you. No last-minute heroics. You’re gonna watch everything you love burn. And you’ll never see it coming. — V
I read the letter three times, my hands shaking. A backup. Someone I love. Someone who’d been with me this whole time.
Who? Jake? Torres? Grandpa? No. It couldn’t be. They’d fought beside me. Risked their lives for me.
But Rook was right about one thing — he was a master manipulator. He’d turned Hale, turned Jake, turned my own parents. He could have turned someone else. Someone close.
I found Grandpa on the porch, whittling a piece of wood, and handed him the letter. He read it slowly, his face growing harder with every line. When he finished, he crumpled the letter in his hand, throwing it into the fire pit beside his chair.
“Bullshit,” he said, his voice flat. “I built the Protocol. I know every line of code. There’s no way to make a backup without me knowing. It’s a mind game, Claire. That’s all it is. He’s locked in a cell 23 hours a day. He has no access to the outside world. No phone, no internet, no visitors but his lawyer. He’s just trying to get in your head. To make you paranoid. To ruin the peace we’ve built.”
He put his hand on mine. “Don’t let him win, kiddo. He’s got nothing left. He’s just a bitter old man rotting in a cell. Ignore him. He’ll go away.”
I wanted to believe him. I really did. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that Rook was telling the truth. That there was something I was missing.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I got up at 2 AM, went into the small office we’d set up in the spare bedroom, and pulled up every file we had on Rook. His trial testimony, his prison records, every letter he’d sent or received since he was locked up. I went through them one by one, looking for anything out of the ordinary.
And then I found it.
A letter Rook had sent to his lawyer three weeks after he was locked up. It was full of legal jargon, requests for appeals, demands for better prison conditions. But hidden in the margins, written in tiny, invisible ink that only showed up when I ran the file through our old code-breaking software, was a message.
A name. An address. A date.
Brandon Hale. 123 Oak Street, Chicago, IL. December 14th.
Brandon Hale. Director Hale’s son. The 22-year-old kid I’d met once at a Christmas party, quiet, shy, a computer science student at Northwestern. Rook had gotten to him. Used his grief over his father’s death to turn him. He was the backup. He had the Protocol. And he was gonna sell it on December 14th — in two weeks.
I sat back, my mind racing. Grandpa was wrong. There was a backup. And Rook hadn’t been lying about it being someone close — Hale had been my boss. His son was practically family.
I didn’t wake Grandpa. I didn’t want to worry him. Not yet. Instead, I called Torres. He answered on the second ring, his voice thick with sleep.
“Captain? Everything okay?”
“Pack your gear,” I said, my voice steady. “We’ve got a new mission. Chicago. Two weeks. And bring the best team you’ve got. Rook’s not done with us yet.”
The next two weeks were a blur of prep, just like old times. We tracked Brandon Hale, watched his apartment, monitored his phone calls, his emails, his movements. He was smart — smarter than his father, maybe. He communicated through encrypted apps, used burner phones, never stayed in one place too long. But we were smarter. We followed him to meetings with known arms dealers, watched him transfer large sums of money, confirmed he had the Protocol. The real thing. A full, unencrypted copy.
The sale was gonna go down at an abandoned warehouse on the south side of Chicago on December 14th, at midnight. The buyer was a Russian oligarch, the same one Rook had tried to sell to 20 years earlier. He was gonna pay $150 million in cash. And then he was gonna use the Protocol to bring down the US power grid as revenge for sanctions against his country.
We couldn’t let that happen.
On the night of December 14th, our team was in position. I was crouched on the roof of a building across from the warehouse, a rifle in my hand, my thermal scope scanning the area. Torres was leading the entry team at the back door. Grandpa was in the van with our tech team, monitoring the comms, ready to hack Brandon’s system the second we gave the word.
“Target approaching,” I murmured into my comms, watching a black SUV pull up to the warehouse. Brandon got out, a laptop case slung over his shoulder, looking nervous, his eyes darting around. A minute later, a second SUV pulled up. Three big Russian men got out, one of them carrying a large duffel bag — the money.
They went inside.
“Wait for it,” I said, watching the heat signatures through the scope. They met in the center of the warehouse. Brandon set the laptop on a crate, opening it, turning it on. The Russian handed him the duffel bag. Brandon unzipped it, checking the cash, nodding.
“Now,” I said.
The entry team breached the back door, flashbangs going off, shouting “FEDERAL AGENTS! DOWN ON THE GROUND! NOW!”
Chaos erupted. The Russians reached for their guns, but our team was faster, taking them down with precise shots before they could fire. Brandon froze, his hands raised, his face white with terror.
I ran down from the roof, bursting into the warehouse, my pistol raised. “Brandon Hale! You’re under arrest for treason, conspiracy, and — ”
I stopped.
The laptop screen was blank. No Protocol. No files. Nothing.
And then Brandon smiled. A cold, cruel smile that looked exactly like his father’s.
“You’re too late, Captain,” he said, laughing softly. “The upload finished 10 seconds ago. The Protocol is already on the dark web. Hundreds of buyers are already bidding. By morning, every enemy of this country will have a copy. You can’t stop it. No one can. My father’s legacy will live on. Rook’s legacy will live on. And it’s all your fault.”
I stared at him, my blood running cold. He was right. The upload was done. The Protocol was out there. We’d lost.
And then I heard Grandpa’s voice in my earpiece, calm and steady. “Don’t worry, kiddo. I got it.”
A second later, Brandon’s laptop made a loud beep. The screen flashed bright white, and then went black. Permanently.
“What did you do?” Brandon screamed, lunging for the laptop. “What did you do to it?”
Grandpa walked into the warehouse, leaning on his cane, smiling. “I built a backdoor into the Protocol 22 years ago. A hidden little worm that activates the second anyone tries to upload an unencrypted copy to the public internet. It erases every single copy, everywhere in the world, in 0.2 seconds. And it traces every single person who tried to download it. We already have their names, their addresses, their bank accounts. Every last one of them. By morning, they’ll all be in custody.”
He looked at Brandon, his smile fading. “Your father was a traitor. Rook was a traitor. And now you’re a traitor, too. You’re gonna spend the rest of your life in a cell right next to Rook. And you’ll never see the light of day again.”
Brandon collapsed to his knees, sobbing, as Torres cuffed him and led him away. I walked over to Grandpa, throwing my arms around him, laughing and crying at the same time.
“You old fox,” I said, squeezing him tight. “You never told me about the worm.”
He laughed, hugging me back. “Didn’t want to spoil the surprise. Told you Rook was just playing mind games. I always have a plan B. Always.”
As we walked out of the warehouse into the cold Chicago night, snow starting to fall, I knew it was really over this time. No more backups. No more moles. No more Rook.
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We drove back to Montana the next day, ready to get back to our quiet life. The ranch was waiting for us. The horses, the porch, the mountains. Peace.
And this time, it was gonna last.
