Page 56 of Ground Zero

She understood his dilemma because she was fighting the same battle herself.

“Let’s think through our options.” She needed to approach this like the FBI agent she was trained to be. “We have three choices as I see it.”

Maverick stopped pacing and looked at her.

“First option: We go official. I call Cook, you call your bosses, and we dump everything we know, hoping the good guys outnumber the bad guys.”

“We risk exposing ourselves,” Maverick muttered. “But we potentially save thousands of lives.”

“Right. Option two: We stay dark. Try to stop this ourselves using whatever resources we can scrape together.”

“Without backup, without authority, without real resources.” He shook his head. “Against a terrorist organization that’s been planning this for months.”

“Which brings us to option three.” Sheridan met his eyes. “Selective trust. We identify one person—maybe your friend Trey—we believe we can rely on. Someone completely outside this mess.”

Maverick set his phone on the coffee table and sat down across from her. “Each option could get us killed. But doing nothingdefinitelygets people killed.”

The weight of the responsibility pressed heavy in his gaze, the same weight Sheridan felt crushing her own chest. They held thousands of lives in their hands, and one wrong decision would mean catastrophe.

“There’s another problem.” Something had been nagging at her about the evidence they’d found, those hidden files. “I know we talked about this before, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that this attack isn’t just cyber.”

“I agree,” Maverick said, his face grim. “I believe it’s centered on the naval base and that someone is already physically inside.”

He started to say more but stopped.

“What is it?” she asked.

He hesitated before continuing. “Honestly? I don’t want to be a fear monger. But I have a really bad feeling about this. Someone is gathering intelligence and giving it to our enemies. They named this mission Ground Zero. You know the last time that phrase was used by the media? After 9/11.”

“You think they’re planning something equally as horrific?” She held her breath as she waited for his answer.

He shrugged. “I’m not ruling that possibility out.”

This was even worse than she thought.

CHAPTER 32

Sheridan and Maverick sat in silence, both processing the implications of what they’d just concluded. Sheridan had grabbed the sandwiches, and they both nibbled on them as their thoughts churned.

Just as they feared, this looked like it wasn’t just a cyberattack they were trying to stop. It was a physical assault on one of the country’s most important naval installations.

Maverick clicked on another file and froze. “No . . .”

“Why are you saying that?” She leaned closer, trying to figure out his response.

“Look at this.” He pointed to something on the screen. “These are shipments of bomb-making materials.”

“So they’re planning to blow up something on base . . .” She shook her head. “That’s terrible.”

“Yes, it is.” He squinted as he looked closer. “There’s some random mentions of the Frog Box.”

“What’s the Frog Box?”

“I have no idea. But it seems like it might be relevant. Whoever found these files was not only able to find documents that make me look guilty. They also found encrypted messages showing what this plan is.”

“And then this person planted this information, probably hoping you’d find it.”

Silence stretched for a moment.