Chapter 7 - The Ghost of Point Loma
The rain continued to hammer against the asphalt as we drove through the dark, winding streets toward Point Loma.
I sat behind the wheel of my truck, my hands gripping the leather steering wheel until my knuckles turned stark white.
Maya sat in the passenger seat, an encrypted tablet resting on her lap, constantly monitoring base communications and local emergency dispatch channels.
She moved with the quiet, effortless economy of an operator who had spent years operating behind hostile lines.
Every few seconds, her eyes flicked to the side mirror, scanning the dark headlights following us across the bay.
"You're checking our six," I noted quietly, keeping my speed precisely two miles below the posted limit.
"Your father knows you broke into his study, Bryce," Maya answered without looking at me.
"He knows you took Nathan’s journal, and he knows Admiral Bennett didn't throw you into the brig tonight."
"A man like Richard Anderson doesn't wait for the law to catch up with him; he activates contingencies."
We crossed the bridge and entered a quiet, tree-lined residential neighborhood nestled on the hillside overlooking San Diego Bay.
The houses here were modest mid-century cottages, hidden behind overgrown bougainvillea and tall wooden privacy fences.
We pulled into the driveway of a small bungalow that showed no lights through its shuttered windows.
Maya stepped out into the mist before I even killed the headlights, her hand resting naturally against the concealed holster beneath her jacket.
I followed her up the slick flagstone path, the smell of damp eucalyptus and sea salt heavy in the cold air.
Maya tapped on the weathered oak door in a distinctive, uneven rhythm: three fast knocks, a pause, then two slow taps.
A moment later, the bolt slid back, and the front door opened inward.
Standing in the warm entryway was a woman in her late forties, wearing a faded navy cardigan and dark slacks.
Her hair was threaded with elegant strands of silver, pulled back into a neat, sensible knot at the base of her neck.
Her posture was straight and unyielding, carrying the unmistakable muscle memory of a sailor who had spent twenty years in uniform.
When her dark eyes met mine, she froze entirely, the breath catching in her throat.
"Nathan," she whispered, her voice trembling with such raw, agonizing grief that it broke my heart into pieces.
"No, Evelyn," Maya said gently, stepping between us and placing a reassuring hand on her mother's arm.
"It's Bryce."
Evelyn Underwood looked closer, taking in my wet uniform trousers, my exhausted face, and the torn silver nameplate Maya held in her hand.
A long, ragged sigh escaped her lips, and she stepped back to let us enter the house.
"You have his shoulders," Evelyn said quietly, shutting and locking the door behind us.
"And you have the same stubborn, foolish look in your eyes that Nathan had whenever he decided to do something dangerous."
I stood in her modest living room, surrounded by framed photographs of Maya as a little girl growing up on military bases across the country.
In not a single photograph was Nathan present, yet his memory lived in every corner of the room.
On the small mantelpiece sat a folded American flag encased in polished oak, resting beside a pair of silver naval aviator wings that had belonged to my brother.
"Evelyn, I am so sorry," I choked out, unable to keep the tears from spilling over my lashes.
"Tonight, at the ball... I humiliated Maya in front of three hundred people."
"I tore her uniform because I thought she was an imposter spitting on my family's honor."
Evelyn did not scream, nor did she slap me as my father had.
She walked across the room, stopped directly in front of me, and looked into my eyes with an expression of profound, weary understanding.
"You didn't know, Bryce," Evelyn said softly, reaching up to rest a warm, calloused palm against my cheek.
"Richard spent fifteen years making sure you would never know."
"He told you Nathan died a glorious hero because he needed you to worship the Anderson name and carry the torch into the teams."
"If you knew Nathan died fighting his own father, you never would have put on that uniform."
I closed my eyes, letting the crushing weight of her forgiveness wash over me.
"How did you survive, Evelyn?" I asked, opening my eyes to look at her.
"My father had the power of the entire naval establishment behind him."
"Because Nathan was smarter than your father gave him credit for," Evelyn answered, walking toward an antique writing desk in the corner.
She pulled a small silver key from around her neck and unlocked the bottom drawer.
From inside, she produced a heavy, military-grade encrypted hard drive wrapped in a lead-lined pouch.
"Nathan gave me this the night before he deployed to Afghanistan," Evelyn said, holding the drive out toward me.
"He told me that if anything happened to him, I was never to go to the local authorities or the local press."
"He said Richard owned the local politicians and half the flag officers in the Pacific Fleet."
"He told me to wait until Katherine Bennett became Chief of Naval Operations."
"Why Admiral Bennett?" I asked, looking between Evelyn and Maya.
"Because Katherine was Nathan's first commanding officer when he was an ensign," Evelyn explained.
"She loved him like a son, and she always suspected that Richard Anderson was a cancer eating away at the service."
Suddenly, the tablet on the coffee table let out a sharp, high-pitched electronic chime.
Maya lunged forward, snatching the device and staring at the flashing red icons on the perimeter map.
"We have motion sensors tripping along the driveway and the back alley," Maya said, her voice dropping into a deadly combat cadence.
"Three vehicles just cut their headlights at the corner of the block."
Evelyn didn't hesitate; she reached under the sofa cushion and pulled out a standard-issue SIG Sauer P226 pistol, racking the slide with practiced ease.
"Richard's clean-up crew is here," Maya said, pulling her own sidearm from her holster.
May you like
"They aren't here to talk, Bryce."
"They're here to erase the last three people who know the truth about FOB Thunder."
