Chapter 3 - The Team That Died
Richard was waiting outside.
I walked past him.
He caught my arm.
“Harper.”
I looked at his hand.
He let go immediately.
“Did you hear my transmission?”
His face changed.
Not enough.
“Answer me.”
“This is not the place.”
I stepped closer.
“You had five years to find a place.”
Chloe stood nearby with tears on her face.
For once she said nothing.
Richard looked toward McAllister.
The Admiral remained behind me.
Watching.
“Yes.”
My father’s answer was barely audible.
“Yes, what?”
“I heard part of it.”
The beach seemed to narrow around him.
“What part?”
“Your voice.”
“Which words?”
He swallowed.
“Team compromised.”
“And?”
Nothing.
I wanted him to lie.
Just once more.
Because then anger would be easier than whatever came next.
“And?”
He looked at me.
“I heard you say you didn’t leave them.”
My hands went cold.
Chloe whispered:
“Dad.”
He turned toward her.
“Not now.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You told me she ran.”
“I told you what the official report said.”
“You knew she didn’t.”
Richard said nothing.
Chloe looked at me.
For the first time, shame appeared where cruelty had been.
I was not ready to care.
McAllister spoke.
“Captain, security needs your cooperation.”
Richard stiffened.
“I have cooperated with every review for five years.”
“No. You cooperated with the review you were given.”
“That is not the same thing?”
“No.”
McAllister handed him a tablet.
A communications log.
Richard read.
His face paled.
“That isn’t possible.”
“What?”
I asked.
He looked at McAllister.
“My token.”
“Exactly.”
The log showed my distress transmission entered the command system at 02:17.
Richard acknowledged it at 02:19.
At 02:24, another message went out using his secure credentials:
PRIOR STERLING TRANSMISSION UNRELIABLE. SUBJECT DISORIENTED. POSSIBLE COMPROMISE.
I stared at him.
“You sent that?”
“No.”
“Your name.”
“I did not send it.”
McAllister said:
“The system says you did.”
Richard looked furious now.
“I left the operations room at 02:21.”
“Why?”
“I was ordered to brief Rear Admiral Vale.”
The name meant something.
Malcolm Vale.
Retired now.
At the gala earlier.
He had given my father’s opening toast.
Called Richard “one of the most honorable men he had ever served beside.”
“Where is Vale?”
McAllister asked security.
An officer answered through radio.
“Not located on beach.”
Richard turned.
“He left?”
“Apparently.”
McAllister’s jaw tightened.
Two people gone.
Ethan Cross.
Malcolm Vale.
Both connected to the mission.
Then a security officer approached me.
“Ma’am, we need to ask whether you can identify anyone else from Black Harbor planning.”
I looked across the gala.
Uniforms.
Retired officers.
Contractors.
Politicians.
People who had been clapping for Richard an hour earlier.
“I barely knew the planning cell.”
“Anyone you recognize?”
My eyes stopped on a man beside the champagne bar.
Captain Douglas Kane.
McAllister’s current chief of staff.
Five years earlier, he had been a junior communications officer assigned to Pacific Special Operations.
I remembered his face from briefings.
He saw me looking.
Then smiled politely.
Nothing unusual.
Except he was holding his phone too tightly.
“Douglas Kane.”
McAllister followed my gaze.
“My chief of staff?”
“He worked Black Harbor communications.”
McAllister’s expression did not change.
“He was junior.”
“So was I.”
Fair.
Then another officer arrived.
“Admiral, we found Cross’s access badge.”
“Where?”
“Service path near the north parking area.”
“Vehicle?”
“Gone.”
“Track it.”
The officer nodded.
Before leaving, he looked at me.
“There’s another thing.”
“What?”
“A message was found on Cross’s phone backup from seven months ago.”
He held out the tablet.
Sender unidentified.
IF STERLING EVER RESURFACES, DO NOT LET MCALLISTER SEE THE SCARS.
My stomach tightened.
Why the scars?
McAllister answered before I asked.
“Because your injuries are physical evidence.”
“Of what?”
“The official report says you abandoned the convoy before the secondary explosion.”
I touched my back.
The long burn.
The crescent scar.
The surgical lines.
McAllister’s voice lowered.
“The munition that caused those injuries detonated inside the convoy perimeter twelve minutes after the report says you fled.”
Chloe covered her mouth.
May you like
Meaning the scars alone proved one thing.
I had still been there.
