“We will clear Daniel’s name together.”

Suddenly, the agent who had stayed in the hallway ran back into the library.

He had his phone pressed to his ear, his expression tense.

“Colonel,” he said, holding the phone out toward me.

“You need to take this.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It’s General Avery,” the agent said.

“He says the secondary storage unit in Sacramento was just breached by an unauthorized party.”

I snatched the phone from his hand.

“General?” I said into the receiver.

“Natalie, listen to me carefully,” Avery’s voice came through, strained and breathless.

“Someone knew we were coming.”

“Who is there, General?” I asked, gripping the plastic casing of the phone.

“The security team intercepted a rental truck at the gate of the Sacramento facility,” Avery said.

“Who hired them?”

“We have Denise’s personal assistant in custody,” he replied. “She had a list of file numbers that match the secondary archive.”

I looked at the mahogany desk where Gregory’s leather planner sat open.

“Did they get inside the vault?” I asked.

“No,” Avery said. “My men had the perimeter locked down ten minutes before they arrived.”