Hidden Hero: His Time to Shine novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Dead Man's Login

Caleb and Morris's granddaughter find the director at the annex using Morris's account; she orders him to sign a silence order or lose his clearance.

"Don't touch it," Joanna said, and took the phone out of my hand.

She read the screen, fast and without blinking.

"Who is logged in as my grandfather?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know, or you can't say?"

"Both."

She stared at me for a long second.

"Call me Jo," she said. "I'm driving."

Her car was a dented gray hatchback with a hospital parking tag on the mirror.

She did not ask where to go.

"The Halden Annex," I said. "Columbia. Forty minutes."

"Make it thirty."

She made it twenty-six.

We did not talk, and I was glad.

Every time I closed my eyes I saw Brant in the pulpit, wiping a dry eye for the camera.

"He called you a file clerk," Jo said at a red light.

"I am a file clerk."

"That's what your badge says."

"It's what my badge says."

She turned and looked at me, and the light turned green behind her.

"My grandfather talked about a student for nine years," she said. "He never said a name. He just said, the boy is better than me."

I looked out the window so she would not see my face.

"I used to hate that boy," she said. "He got every Sunday dinner I wanted."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I came to the funeral planning to hate you in person."

"And?"

"And then they dragged you out like a drunk, and I wanted to hit somebody with a candlestick."

I laughed.

It surprised both of us, and it hurt, and it was the first breath I had taken in four days.

The Halden Annex sat at the end of a gray office park.

It was three floors of tan brick with a loading dock and a sign that said RECORDS STORAGE.

Nobody who passed it ever looked twice.

That was the design.

I swiped my badge at the side door and the light went green.

"Stay close," I said. "There's a camera in every hallway."

"Cameras don't scare me. Cardiac arrests do."

We went down to the basement, past shelves of boxed paper nobody would ever open.

Then we went through a steel door that did not look like a door.

Behind it was the real room.

Eleven desks, a wall of monitors and a smell of old coffee.

Morris's desk was at the back, under a green lamp.

His cardigan was still hanging on the chair.

Jo stopped in the doorway with her hand over her mouth.

"This is where he died," she said.

"Sunday night, about two."

"Who found him?"

"I did."

She nodded slowly and did not cry, and I loved her for it a little, which was a stupid thing to think.

A woman was sitting at Morris's desk with her back to us.

She had a silver bob, a gray pantsuit, and Morris's login glowing on the monitor in front of her.

"You are three minutes early, Caleb," she said without turning around. "I expected you to stay for the whole burial."

"Ellen."

Ellen Malone swiveled the chair around.

She was the director of Lantern, and in six years she had never once come to the basement.

Now she looked older than I remembered.

"Who is this?" she said, nodding at Jo.

"Morris's granddaughter."

"Ah."

Ellen's face softened for half a second and then went back to stone.

"I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Keane. Your grandfather was the finest man I ever worked with."

"Then why are you using his password?" Jo said.

Ellen blinked.

"Because I needed the last five days of his activity log, and the system only opens it for him."

"He's dead," Jo said.

"Yes. That's why I needed it."

I stepped forward.

"What did you find?"

Ellen tapped one key and the monitor filled with a column of dates.

"Two months ago, the Halden staff was fourteen people," she said. "Last Monday it was three."

"Morris, me and one analyst."

"Morris signed the staffing cut himself."

"He did not," I said.

"The signature is his."

"He would never have signed that."

"I know," Ellen said, and for the first time she sounded tired.

"Lyle Fitzpatrick brought it to me with a cover letter."

"He said the Salute Tour needed the funding, and Morris had agreed."

"Morris was working fifty hours with no relief," I said. "He did the job of eleven people for three weeks. He died at his desk."

Ellen did not argue.

"Then you understand why I'm here," she said. "And why I can't let this room come apart."

"Come apart?" Jo said. "A man died."

"A man who knew where the key was, yes."

Ellen turned back to me.

"Caleb, in nine days Brant Collier stands up at the Capitol gala and announces Lantern's tenth anniversary."

"I know."

"He will say he is the founder of the Lantern Line."

"That was Morris's decoy order, written fourteen years ago, and it has held."

"Morris picked him?"

"Morris wanted a face that was not yours." She slid a single page across the desk. "And now the Pentagon wants it kept that way."

I looked at the page.

It was a silence order, one paragraph long, with a signature line at the bottom and my name typed under it.

"You will never be publicly acknowledged as Lantern," Ellen said quietly. "Not at the gala. Not after."

"Ellen."

"Sign it tonight, or your clearance is revoked at nine tomorrow morning."

Jo took a step toward her.

I put out a hand to stop her.

I was holding the pen before I knew I had picked it up.

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