At my father's funeral, the gravedigger grabbed my arm and whispered words that shattered everything I believed: ""Your father paid me to bury an empty coffin."" Before I could even ask what he meant, he pressed a brass key into my hand and warned me never to go home. Seconds later, my mother's strange text message appeared on my phone, and I realized my father's funeral might have been the beginning of a carefully planned operation.

My heart hammered against my ribs. I'm not dead.

The video continued. "Twenty years ago, I uncovered a faction within the intelligence community known as Vanguard," my father explained, his eyes piercing through the camera. "They manipulate global markets, orchestrate assassinations, and engineer geopolitical conflicts. Helen was their leash on me. I couldn't run without putting a target on your back."

He paused, swallowing hard. "I engineered the stroke. I had a synthetic decoy built to fool the coroner—a man on our payroll. I let Vanguard think they finally won. I let them think I took my secrets to the grave. But I'm going into the belly of the beast. I am breaking into Site Echo."

Vance cursed under his breath. "Site Echo is a myth. It’s a black-site prison operating in international waters."

"It’s real," I said, my eyes never leaving the screen.

"Sarah," my father concluded. "The remaining files on this drive contain Vanguard's financial infrastructure. Expose them. Burn them to the ground. But do not come looking for me. It's a suicide mission. I love you."

The video ended.

I looked at Vance. "Where is Site Echo?"

"Commander, you heard him. It’s a suicide mission. Vanguard has eyes everywhere. Naval Intelligence, the CIA, the Pentagon. You are officially a ghost. If you step out of the shadows, they will kill you."

"I spent fifteen years analyzing maritime threats," I said coldly, pulling up the navigation interface on the trawler's console. "If Site Echo is on the water, I can find it. But I need to know what we're up against. Tell me about Helen."

Before Vance could speak, the proximity alarm on the trawler blared. A piercing red light bathed the cabin.

"They found us," Vance growled, racking the slide of his weapon.

"How?" I demanded. "I left my phone!"

Vance looked at the collar of my Navy dress uniform. "Your dress blues. Helen helped you pick them up from the dry cleaners yesterday."

I ripped the jacket off and tore the thick fabric of the collar. A micro-tracker, the size of a grain of rice, was embedded in the seam. She hadn't just texted me to get me back to the house. She was tracking me the entire time.