Hawkins’s voice dropped.

“Master Chief.”

Not guilty.

Not pleading.

Disappointed.

Like Hawkins had failed to keep up.

“You don’t know what you’re looking at,” Greer said.

“I know what a dead drop looks like.”

“You know what TV taught you.”

Hawkins took one step closer.

“I know you sent me to hassle the admiral so she’d be late.”

Greer’s head turned toward me.

Not confession.

Not enough for court.

Enough for the room.

“You think this is about being late?” Greer asked.

His voice had changed.

Less Navy.

More old basement.

More buried thing.

“You people still think clocks matter.”

Ronan’s hand moved toward his sidearm.

I lifted two fingers.

Hold.

Greer saw it and smiled faintly.

“Always calm, Evelyn.”

My first name.

Ronan stiffened.

Nora’s face went white.

Hawkins looked from Greer to me.

The board changed again.

“You know me?” I asked.

Greer tilted his head.

“Everybody knows Admiral Cross.”

“No,” I said. “That was not how you said it.”

He smiled a little wider.

Old grief moved somewhere behind his eyes.

Not remorse.

Grief.

Men did terrible things for money.

But they did more terrible things for ghosts.

“Daniel Ives,” I said.

The smile vanished.

There.

The name was the key.

Hawkins whispered, “Ives?”

Greer did not look at him.

“Don’t say his name like you knew him.”

“I knew his file,” Hawkins said.

“You knew paper.”

Greer’s hand rested on the back of a chair.

Not reaching.

Ronan noticed.

So did I.

“Daniel Ives died in a training accident,” I said.

Greer’s eyes cut to me.

“You signed that.”

“I signed what the investigation supported.”

“You signed a lie.”

The room dropped into something colder.

Nora’s pen stopped moving though she had not been writing.

Greer’s voice stayed quiet.

That made it worse.

“He told you Black Lantern had people inside the chain. He told you the interdiction cell was rotten. He told you the next shipment was not weapons.”

I did not answer.

Because he was right about one thing.

Daniel had told me.

Twelve years ago.

In a hallway outside a secure briefing in Bahrain.

His face gray from three days without sleep.

His hands shaking around a foam cup.

Evelyn, they’re not moving rifles. They’re moving children.

Six hours later, his boat exploded during a night exercise.

Eight people died.

The report called it fuel vapor ignition.

I had been a commander then.

Not an admiral.

Not powerful enough to break the wall.

Not weak enough to forget the sound.

Greer watched my face and found what he wanted.

Pain.

“Ah,” he said. “So you do remember.”

“Every name.”

“You buried them anyway.”

“No,” I said. “I survived long enough to keep digging.”

He laughed once.

A dry, hateful sound.

“Congratulations on your promotion.”

Hawkins looked like the floor had shifted under him.

“Master Chief, what did you do?”

Greer’s gaze flicked toward him.

That was the mistake.

The first true mistake.

His hand moved.

Not toward his sidearm.

Toward his belt.

A panic button.

A transmitter.

Small. Black. Clipped behind his radio.

I grabbed the coffee cup from the table and threw it.

Not at his face.

At his hand.

Hot coffee burst across his wrist.

The device dropped.

Ronan had his pistol out before the plastic hit the floor.

“Hands,” Ronan barked.

Hawkins moved at the same time.

Fast now.

Clean now.

He slammed Greer against the wall with a violence that shook the SCIF paneling.

Greer did not fight like an old man.

He twisted under Hawkins’s grip and drove an elbow into his ribs. Hawkins grunted but held on. Ronan crossed the room. Nora stepped back, one hand already on the secure phone.

I picked up the fallen device with a napkin.

A single red light blinked.

Transmitting.

Or trying to.

Nora looked at me.

I held the device up.

“Cut external signals. Lock the room.”

She moved.

The SCIF door sealed harder.

The red light above it turned steady.

Greer laughed again, cheek pressed to the wall under Hawkins’s forearm.

“You’re late,” he said.

Hawkins leaned in.

“For what?”

Greer’s eyes found mine.

Not defeated.

Satisfied.

“For the real briefing.”

The lights went out.

Not flicker.

Not dim.

Out.

Dark swallowed the room whole.

For one breath, nobody moved.

Then the emergency strips along the floor lit red.

The map screen died.

The secure phone clicked.

Once.

Twice.

Then a voice came through the speaker.

Male.

Distorted.

Calm.

“Admiral Cross,” it said, “you were warned not to trust Trident Team Three.”

Nora froze at the phone.

Ronan aimed at Greer’s head in the red wash of emergency light.

Hawkins held Greer against the wall, breathing hard.

My own pulse did not speed up.

It became clearer.

That was different.

The voice continued.

“You changed the route. Good. That proves you are still useful.”

I looked at the dead screen.

At Greer’s smile.

At Hawkins’s hand shaking slightly from adrenaline and something uglier than fear.

“Who is this?” I asked.

A soft sound came through the speaker.

Almost a laugh.

Then the voice said two words that reached into a grave twelve years deep and pulled the dirt off with bare hands.

“Daniel Ives.”

Nora whispered, “Impossible.”

The line crackled.

Then another sound filled the room.

Not static.

Not interference.

Rotor blades.

Live audio.

Outside.

Hawkins turned his head toward the hangar door.

Ronan cursed.

I stepped to the SCIF wall and pressed my palm against the metal.

Through it, faint but rising, came the thump of helicopters spooling up without clearance.

Then the secure phone spoke again.

This time, the voice was closer.

Clearer.

Almost familiar.

“Your raid leaves in twelve minutes, Admiral. But not for San Aurelio.”

A pause.

Then:

“They already moved Keene to North Island.”

The SCIF door handle began to turn from the outside.

Comments 2

Continue please

Yes, I liked the story so far. Will I be hearing the rest of the story?