A Variety of Strange Military Research

The vault in Karen's Arlington home, roughly the size of a small warehouse, had been built along with the house. It was nearly thirty years old.

But...

Strictly speaking, the house itself was not that old. Arlington County's home had been rebuilt once.

That was when Karen had met Anna, and Langley had sent assassins to ensure Anna would not survive long enough to attend the hearing. The house had been blown apart amid a hail of bullets. The house that stood there now had, in fact, been rebuilt.

Karen remembered as well. "I recall that when we rebuilt it, we took everything out of the vault and sent it to the dormitory at the Quantico base for safekeeping."

As for valuables such as gold bars, Karen had taken advantage of the opportunity to have bank employees come to the house and transfer them directly to an underground bank vault in Washington D.C. for storage.

"The jewelry box went to Quantico too?"

"Yes."

"Then it must have been switched at Quantico."

Lake answered honestly. He remembered Karen taking out the jewelry box the year before Anna appeared. Thinking back, the sandalwood pendant had probably not been switched at that time.

After all...

Feelings could be mistaken, but appearances were unlikely to be. The grain patterns were completely different, so identifying it was not difficult.

Therefore, the sandalwood pendant must have been switched during the only period when it had left the house.

Well, damn.

If General Ross found out about this, he would probably be furious enough to kill someone.

Someone had stolen his belongings right under his nose at Quantico, and it had taken all these years for them to discover it. If Lake were in his place, he would want to kill someone too.

Still, nothing in the