Chapter 6: The Decoy Drive
The speedboat in the distance carved a white line across the grey water, its engines roaring before fading into the distance toward international shipping lanes. Christopher stood on the wooden dock, the cold sea breeze whipping through his dark hair as he stared at the encrypted hard drive blinking innocently in Detective Miller’s palm.
“It’s a dummy,” Christopher said quietly, his voice devoid of surprise.
Miller frowned, tapping the screen of his handheld terminal. “What do you mean? The checksum matches your home network protocols. The file structure is identical to your classified logs.”
“It matches because she wanted us to find it,” Christopher explained, his tactical mind overriding the anger burning in his chest. “She knew I’d secure my home office the moment suspicion arose. This drive was staged on the caterer so we would focus on recovering data that’s already been backed up off-site three days ago.”
The detective pocketed the drive, his expression turning grave. “If this is a diversion, what were they actually stealing?”
Before Christopher could answer, his cell phone rang in his uniform pocket. He pulled it out, seeing an unknown, restricted caller ID blinking on the screen. He answered immediately, pressing the device hard against his ear.
“Commander Miller,” a distorted, synthetic voice spoke through the speaker.
“Who is this?” Christopher demanded, stepping away from the bustling police activity on the dock.
“The woman you know as Evelyn is currently sitting in the back of a squad car, weeping crocodile tears,” the voice continued smoothly, completely ignoring the question. “She’s lamenting the ruin of her wedding day. But she’s missing the bigger picture, Commander. And so are you.”
“State your demand,” Christopher said, his jaw tightening.
“We don’t want money anymore, Commander. And we certainly don’t want your classified naval files—those were remarkably easy to copy months ago,” the voice chuckled darkly. “We want the archive vault hidden beneath the naval shipyard in Norfolk. And you’re the only officer with biometric clearance to open it.”
Christopher froze. The Norfolk subterranean vault held legacy cryptographic keys dating back to the Cold War—keys that, if compromised, could decrypt secure military communications across the entire Atlantic fleet.
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“You’re out of your mind if you think I’ll trade national security for personal leverage,” Christopher snarled.
“We aren't asking for a trade, Commander. We’re asking you to make a choice.” The line clicked, and a secondary notification popped up on Christopher’s phone screen—a live video feed showing his six-year-old daughter, Lily, sitting blindfolded in an unfamiliar, windowless concrete room.
