Chapter 6 - The Secondary Target
I didn't wait for the processing convoy.
The moment the RHIB touched down on the mainland shore at 5:30 AM, I commandeered a tactical SUV and sped through the dawn light toward my own residence—a suburban home in Odenton, Maryland, ten miles from Fort Meade.
Rain was still misting down as I pulled into my driveway. The house stood quiet and dark, looking perfectly normal from the outside. The wreath I had hung on the front door three weeks ago was still there. The morning newspaper lay wrapped in plastic on the porch steps.
I drew my sidearm, cleared the front lock, and stepped inside.
The house was eerie in its stillness. I moved through the foyer, checking the perimeter angles. Everything appeared untouched in the living room: the leather sofa, the framed photos of our wedding on the mantelpiece, the dining table.
Then I reached my home office.
The door was unlocked. Inside, my military-issued safe—a heavy, fireproof steel vault containing classified tactical briefs, personal defense weapons, and my encrypted military network keys—lay wide open.
Ryan hadn't used a crowbar here. He knew the combination. I had trusted him with access to our home security codes.
I stepped up to the open safe.
My classified military tablet was gone. But more importantly, a sealed metal case containing my mother’s primary estate documents and the original land deeds to her family’s historic farm in Western Maryland had been pulled from the shelf and opened.
On the desk beside the open safe lay a single, white envelope addressed to me in Ryan’s handwriting.
I opened it using my gloved finger.
Inside was a single printed document—a Deed of Transfer transferring ownership of my mother’s three-hundred-acre timber farm in Garrett County to a real estate holding firm owned by... Victor Vance, Ryan’s older brother.
I stared at the document in sudden, terrifying realization.
This wasn't just about maritime money laundering or four million dollars in kickbacks.
The timber farm in Western Maryland sat directly over the Marcellus Shale formation—one of the largest natural gas reserves on the East Coast. Three months ago, the Department of Energy had quietly approved a multi-billion-dollar subterranean pipeline project that required an easement through that exact property.
If the land was transferred before my mother realized what was happening, the holding company stood to collect twenty-five million dollars in land acquisition payouts from the energy conglomerate.
Ryan hadn't gone to my mother's house just to get the bank codes.
He had gone to force her to sign the land transfer deed at gunpoint. When she refused and fought back, he tried to break her until she complied. And when that failed, he came to my house to steal the original land titles to forge her signature.
My phone rang in my pocket. It was the head nurse from Saint Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
"Lieutenant Colonel Kelsey?" the nurse said, her voice laced with deep concern. "You need to come back to the hospital immediately."
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"What happened? Is my mother alright?"
"Your mother is stable, Colonel," the nurse replied. "But a man named Victor Vance just walked into the lobby claiming to be her power of attorney, and he’s demanding to sign her discharge papers right now."
