Chapter 6 - Gathering the Allies
Two hours later, we arrived at a secure, gated compound in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Colonel Thomas Vance, a grizzled veteran with a no-nonsense attitude, met us at the gate. He took one look at my bruised face, my shivering daughter, and the terror in Laura’s eyes, and immediately ushered us inside.
"David," Vance said, his voice deep and grounding. "Your text said it was a code red. What's going on?"
I laid it all out on his conference table: the ledgers, the USB drives, the fake life insurance policy, and the custody agreement.
Vance sat in silence as he reviewed the files. His face grew darker with every video clip he watched, every page of the ledger he read. When he finished, he slammed his fist on the table.
"This is sickening," Vance growled. "This woman belongs in a federal penitentiary. And the police chief of Aurora? He's been on her payroll for years. We've had our eye on him for administrative corruption, but we never had the leverage. This... this is the silver bullet."
"Can you protect them?" I asked, looking at Laura and Sophie, who were being fed warm soup by one of Vance's staff in the next room.
"I can keep them secure here," Vance said. "My compound is off the grid. Evelyn’s thugs won't dare cross my perimeter. But David, if we want to end this, we have to go on the offensive. We need to secure the original confession Laura wrote. It’s the only leverage Evelyn has over your wife. If we destroy that, Laura is free, and we can bring the full weight of the FBI down on Evelyn."
"Where would she keep it?" I asked.
"Not at her house," Laura said, walking into the room. Her face was pale, but her eyes were steady. "She has a private safe deposit box at the Aurora National Bank. She is a major shareholder there. She keeps all her blackmail material in it. But to get in, you need her biometric keycard and her signature."
"Then we have to get them," I said.
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"It's a suicide mission to go in there alone," Vance warned. "Evelyn will have the bank heavily guarded. She knows you're running."
"I'm not going alone," I said, looking at Vance. "And we're not going to play by her rules anymore."
