“Impressed.”
He looked down at Rex.
“And there he is.”
Rex growled.
Vale smiled.
“All this trouble because of a dog collar.”
“No,” I said.
“All this trouble because you murdered good men.”
His expression changed.
“War murders good men.”
“You sold equipment to the people killing them.”
“I funded operations Congress wouldn’t.”
“Don’t.”
“You think the world runs on clean hands, Mercer?”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“But I know the difference between dirty hands and bloody ones.”
Vale lifted the pistol.
Rex stiffened.
“Stay.”
Vale looked almost amused.
“That dog always listened better than you.”
“You knew Larkin found you.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered the ambush.”
Vale didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
My hands tightened.
Sarah whispered, “Jack.”
Vale smiled.
“There she is. Still keeping you on a leash.”
I ignored him.
“Where’s the collar?”
Vale lifted the wooden box.
“Not here.”
My heart sank.
Then he threw the box onto the floor.
Empty.
“I searched everything.”
A strange expression crossed Sarah’s face.
Then she began laughing.
Vale stared at her.
“What?”
Sarah looked at me.
I had never seen that smile before.
Not exactly.
“What?” I asked.
She stepped toward Rex.
“Larkin knew better.”
“Sarah?”
She knelt.
Rex allowed her to touch his current collar.
She ran her fingers underneath the leather.
Then stopped.
My breath caught.
“No.”
Sarah pulled free a tiny metal capsule.
Old.
Scratched.
Almost invisible beneath years of wear.
Vale’s face drained of color.
“You replaced the collar,” I said.
Sarah nodded.
“But you transferred the identification capsule.”
I remembered the veterinarian doing it years ago.
A tiny piece of Rex’s old service equipment moved to every new collar because I had insisted.
Sentiment.
Habit.
Nothing more.
For six years, Rex had carried the evidence around his neck every single day.
Vale raised his weapon toward Sarah.
“Give it to me.”
I stepped between them.
“Wrong choice.”
“Move.”
“No.”
His finger tightened.
Rex exploded forward.
Not at Vale.
At the wooden box.
He struck it with his shoulder.
The box slid across the floor into Vale’s shin.
Vale lost balance for half a second.
I moved.
The gun fired.
The window shattered.
Sarah dropped.
I reached Vale.
We crashed against the desk.
He was sixty-three but still strong.
Desperation helped.
He drove an elbow into my jaw.
I saw white.
He reached for the fallen weapon.
Rex stood between him and it.
Vale froze.
Rex’s lips lifted.
A low growl filled the room.
Not loud.
Not theatrical.
Final.
Vale looked at me.
I wiped blood from my mouth.
“You once said he was the best soldier you ever saw.”
Vale stared at Rex.
“I was being polite.”
Rex barked once.
Vale slowly raised his hands.
Sirens filled the distance.
Federal vehicles poured onto the property.
Sarah stood.
Alive.
Vale looked toward the windows.
Then at the capsule in her hand.
“It won’t matter.”
Sarah smiled.
“That’s what you said eighteen months ago.”
Agents entered.
Vale was arrested before sunrise.
The data inside that capsule opened investigations across four states and three military commands.
Larkin had copied transaction records.
Names.
Dates.
Shipping routes.
Account numbers.
Audio files.
Everything.
Harlan’s quarry was only one storage hub.
General Vale had built a network that stretched back more than a decade.
Sheriff Harlan eventually made a deal.
Butch made one faster.
Emily’s father’s remains were found beneath a sealed portion of the quarry.
So were two other missing men.
Cross survived.
He retired from retirement, as he called it, long enough to testify before three different investigative panels.
Sarah spent months answering questions.
So did I.
But the hardest conversation happened three days after Vale’s arrest.
Sarah and I sat on the porch.
The same porch where she had asked me to come home eighteen months earlier.
Rex slept between us.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Finally Sarah said, “You don’t have to forgive me.”
“I know.”
“I should’ve found another way.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”