Chapter 9 - The Truth Unveiled
The armored transport roared down the deserted highway as rain lashed against the reinforced glass.
Rex leaned closer to his dying father while his heart pounded in his chest.
"What do you mean it wasn't Silas?" Rex demanded urgently.
John coughed up blood and his grip on Rex's hand weakened by the second.
"Silas was just the middleman," John wheezed.
"The order to destroy the helicopter came from someone higher."
Hale turned around in the passenger seat and ignored the searing pain in his shoulder.
"Who ordered the hit on my son?" Hale demanded with wide desperate eyes.
John forced himself to meet Hale’s gaze.
"It was the Director," John whispered as his voice faded away.
With a final rattling exhale John went completely still.
Rex stared at his father's lifeless face as a hollow void opened in his chest.
He didn't cry.
He didn't scream.
He simply reached out and closed his father's empty eyes.
"The Director," Hale repeated while his voice was barely a whisper.
"That is impossible."
Betty gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.
"Arthur, you are the only Director the Silver Hawks have ever had," she said slowly.
Rex slowly turned his head and his tear-filled eyes locked onto Hale.
The atmosphere in the transport shifted instantly from grief to lethal tension.
"Did you order the hit on your own son?" Rex asked with a voice devoid of emotion.
Hale shook his head violently.
"No, I would never do that," Hale protested as true horror washed over his aged face.
"There was a shadow Director," Betty realized as she hit the brakes and pulled the transport over.
"Someone who manipulated the agency from the dark before you even took command."
Hale pulled out his encrypted tablet and his fingers flew across the cracked screen.
He bypassed the final layer of the global network's security grid.
He searched for the original clearance code that authorized the helicopter strike forty years ago.
The tablet chimed and displayed a name that made Hale drop the device onto the floorboards.
Rex picked it up and stared at the glowing letters.
The name on the screen was Thomas Hale.
May you like
"Your son," Rex said as his mind struggled to comprehend the text.
"He ordered his own assassination."
