Chương 14 - THE CALL TO PASADENA
At 10:00 PM Pacific Standard Time, the phone rang inside a comfortable, dark-wood-paneled study in Pasadena, California.
Brandon Owens sat behind his executive desk, reviewing a series of commercial mortgage documents for a new real estate development project in downtown Los Angeles. The desk lamp cast a warm, golden pool of light across the leather blotter.
He picked up the phone on the second ring.
"Brandon Owens."
"Brandon."
The voice was low, smooth, and instantly recognizable. Brandon’s hand tightened around the receiver so hard his knuckles turned white. He set his pen down, his heart giving a sharp, familiar thud against his ribs.
"Cassie?" Brandon breathed, his eyes scanning the quiet shadows of his study as if she might be standing in the corner. "Where are you? I... I tried calling your home line in Arlington three weeks ago, but the operator said the number was no longer in service."
"I’m calling from a secure routing terminal," Cassie said calmly over the line. The background noise was completely sterile—no street noise, no wind, no distant hum of machinery. "I have two minutes before this channel resets."
Brandon swallowed hard, leaning back in his leather chair. Six months had passed since he had stood on the cold, wet asphalt of Pier 4 in San Diego, watching three flag officers render side-boys to his sister as she boarded the USS Sterett. Six months since he had sat in that windowless room in Point Loma and looked through the thick manila folder of her classified history.
"Are you... are you okay?" Brandon asked, his voice stripped of all the old arrogance he had carried for thirty years.
"I am fine, Brandon," Cassie replied softly. "I'm calling because I received a report from our domestic security liaison. An individual named Grant Holloway has been submitting formal inquiries through the Department of the Army, trying to trace an operational marksmanship test that occurred in Colorado earlier today."
Brandon blinked, confused. "Grant Holloway? I don't know who that is, Cassie."
"He is a distant cousin on our father's side of the family," Cassie said smoothly. "He is an Army marksman. He saw something today that he was not meant to see, and his obsession is going to ruin his career if he continues to dig into records that do not exist."
Brandon leaned forward, his brow furrowed. "What do you want me to do?"
"Contact his father," Cassie instructed. "Tell him Grant needs to accept his regional title, take his promotion to Sergeant Major, and focus on his instructional duties at Fort Moore. Tell him that looking for shadows in the high desert will only lead to a quiet discharge without a pension."
"Cassie..." Brandon hesitated, his voice trembling slightly. "Does Mom know about any of this? She called me last Sunday. She said you sent her a postcard from a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont."
There was a brief pause on the line—a pause so subtle that only someone who knew Cassie intimately would have noticed it.
"The postcard was sent from Vermont, Brandon," Cassie said softly. "The bed-and-breakfast has lovely maple trees in the autumn. Mom enjoyed the photograph."
Brandon closed his eyes, tears prickling the corners of his eyelids. He remembered the thick, redacted files in Point Loma—the photos of Cassie in Sarajevo, in Baghdad, in Tokyo. He remembered the cold realization that her entire life was an elaborate, beautiful lie designed to keep her family safe from the horrors she fought every day in the dark.
"I'll call Grant's father tonight," Brandon said quietly. "I'll make sure he drops it."
"Thank you, Brandon," Cassie said. "Take care of Mom. And take care of yourself."
"Cassie, wait!" Brandon called out, rising from his chair. "Will I... will I ever see you again? At Thanksgiving? Or Christmas?"
May you like
"The world is very large, Brandon," Cassie’s voice floated through the receiver, cool, distant, and filled with an unfathomable warmth. "But I am always watching."
The line went dead with a soft, clean click.
