Ethan raised a pistol taken from security.
"Step away."
Mercer smiled.
"No."
Noah entered.
Mercer's expression changed.
Interest.
"So that's him."
Ethan moved between them.
"Don't."
Mercer laughed.
"Protective now?"
Ethan's jaw tightened.
Mercer looked at Noah.
"Do you know why your father watched you for seven years but never approached?"
Noah froze.
Ethan said:
"Adrian."
Mercer ignored him.
"Because after Sloane released him, nobody was stopping him."
Noah looked at Ethan.
"Is that true?"
Ethan said nothing.
The silence answered.
Mercer smiled.
"There."
"The missing eight years."
Noah's face changed.
Ethan had explained fourteen years of captivity.
But not the remaining eight.
For seven of those, he watched Noah from a distance.
He could have approached.
Why didn't he?
Ethan lowered the pistol slightly.
"Because your mother remarried."
Noah stared.
"What?"
"She built a life."
"With Daniel Hart."
Noah nodded.
Daniel Hart.
The man who raised him from age six.
The man Noah called Dad until he died four years earlier.
Ethan continued.
"You were happy."
"You don't know that."
"I watched."
The word hurt.
Noah's voice sharpened.
"You watched?"
"From a distance."
"You watched birthdays?"
"Some."
"School?"
"Yes."
"Daniel teaching me to drive?"
Ethan looked down.
"Yes."
Noah's eyes filled.
"And you decided what?"
"That showing up would destroy everything."
"That wasn't your decision."
Ethan closed his eyes.
"I know."
"No."
Noah stepped closer.
"You keep saying people made decisions for you."
"The Navy."
"Sloane."
"Mercer."
"But then you did the same thing to me."
Ethan had no defense.
Mercer smiled.
"Families."
Whitmore glared at him.
"Shut up."
Mercer laughed.
Noah looked at Ethan.
"Did Mom know?"
Ethan answered:
"No."
"Not once?"
"No."
"Did you ever try?"
"Three times."
Noah stopped.
Ethan explained.
He wrote letters.
Destroyed two.
Sent one.
It came back unopened.
Why?
Noah knew.
His mother moved after Daniel's death.
The address was wrong.
Ethan believed it was a sign.
Noah laughed bitterly.
"You let the Postal Service decide our relationship?"
Ethan almost smiled.
"That sounds worse when you say it."
"It should."
Mercer watched.
Then looked at the monitors.
"You see why systems are better than people."
Ethan turned.
"No."
"This is exactly why systems fail."
Mercer frowned.
"People hide inside them."
Mercer's smile disappeared.
Whitmore stepped closer.
"You're under arrest."
Mercer looked at him.
"For what?"
"Treason."
"Sabotage."
"Attempted attack on U.S. forces."
"Kidnapping."
"Conspiracy."
Mercer shrugged.
"Then arrest Margaret too."
Silence.
Sloane stared.
Mercer turned one monitor.
A file appeared.
AUTHORIZATION: BLACKWOOD CONTAINMENT.
Signed twenty-two years earlier.
Margaret Sloane.
Whitmore looked at her.
Ethan already knew.
But Noah did not.
Sloane had authorized Ethan's indefinite detention.
No trial.
No hearing.
No family notification.
No legal identity.
Noah stared.
"You did this."
Sloane answered:
"Yes."
No excuses.
No appeal.
Noah asked:
"Why aren't you in prison?"
Sloane said:
"Perhaps I should be."
Whitmore stared at her.
Margaret continued.
"I believed Ethan possessed an authentication component that could trigger a national-security catastrophe."
"So you erased him."
"Yes."
"Was there another way?"
Sloane looked at Ethan.
"Probably."
That answer surprised everyone.
"I was thirty-nine."
"I had authority."
"Fear."
"Bad intelligence."
"And people above me telling me we had hours, not weeks."
She looked at Noah.