“Do we show this to Mom?” Milo asked. His voice was low, unsure.

I shook my head. “Not yet. Let’s figure out what it means first.”

That night, after Mom went to bed, we pulled out the big storage box from the closet. The one with Dad’s old journals, his medals, some dusty VHS tapes, and a thick binder labeled ‘Operation Vega’.

We’d looked through it before, but never like this. Never searching for something.

There were pages of codes, maps with pins, faded field reports, and a name that kept popping up: Blaine Kessler.

It rang no bells, until Milo did a late-night search on the ancient laptop we barely used anymore. And there he was—former diplomat turned arms dealer, captured in 2009 during a covert mission in Eastern Europe. No photos of who arrested him, just speculation.