PART 2
The black SUV stopped at the edge of the firing line, and every sound on the range seemed to die with the engine.
No one moved.
Not the recruits standing with rifles half-raised.
Not Drill Sergeant Dawson, whose face had gone from irritation to suspicion to something dangerously close to fear.
Not me.
I kept my hands at my sides, boots planted in the red Georgia dust, heart beating with a rhythm I had trained myself to hide.
But inside, I knew one thing with absolute certainty.
They had not come here by accident.
The driver’s door opened first. Then the rear passenger door.
A man stepped out in a charcoal suit that looked violently out of place among camouflage, weapons racks, sandbags, and sweat. He wore sunglasses, even though the sun was already behind him. Two more men followed him, both wearing the blank expressions of people who had learned long ago that emotion was a liability.
Drill Sergeant Dawson barked, “Range is hot. Identify yourselves.”
The man in the suit did not answer him.
He looked directly at me.
And for the first time since I had arrived at Fort Moore, someone called me by a name I had buried.
“
Falcon Seven.
”
A ripple passed through the recruits behind me.
Dawson’s head snapped toward me. “What did he just call you?”
I did not respond.
The man removed his sunglasses slowly. His face was older than I remembered, cut deeper by lines around his eyes, but I knew him immediately.
Elliot Graves.
Former handler. Former ghost. Former reason I had once believed silence was the same as duty.
“Private Walker,” he said, correcting himself for the crowd, “you need to come with us.”
Dawson stepped between us.
It was brave. Stupid, but brave.
“She is under my supervision,” he said. “Nobody removes a recruit from my range without command authorization.”
Graves looked past him toward the administrative building.
“You’ll have it in about ten seconds.”
As if the base itself obeyed him, Colonel Mitchell appeared at the far end of the field, walking fast with two officers behind him. His face was pale, the same classified letter folded tight in his fist.
May you like
The recruits straightened. Dawson stiffened.
“Sir,” Dawson said, “these men are trying to remove Walker.”
Colonel Mitchell didn’t look at him.
He looked at me.
There was something different in his eyes now. Not anger. Not suspicion.
Recognition.
“Private Walker,” he said quietly, “is there something you failed to tell me?”
I almost laughed.
There were so many things I had failed to tell him that the question itself felt impossible.
Graves answered for me.
“There’s been a breach.”
The word struck me harder than gunfire.
My fingers went cold.
Colonel Mitchell’s jaw tightened. “What kind of breach?”
Graves glanced at the recruits, then at Dawson. “The kind that gets people killed if we discuss it in public.”
Dawson turned toward me, his voice low and rough. “Walker, what the hell are you?”
Before I could answer, one of the young recruits behind me spoke without meaning to.
“She’s the girl from the videos.”
Everyone turned.
The recruit, a nineteen-year-old named Carson, looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him. “My brother was deployed outside Mosul. He told me there was this operator they weren’t allowed to name. Young. Female. They called her Falcon because she could disappear on rooftops and reappear behind enemy lines.” His eyes locked on the medals on my chest. “He said she dragged six men out after an ambush.”
The silence that followed felt alive.
Dawson stared at me.
Colonel Mitchell stopped breathing.
Because suddenly this was no longer about medals.
It was about ghosts becoming visible.
Graves stepped forward. “Emma. We need to go.”
I hated the way he said my first name, as if the years between us had not happened, as if I was still seventeen and sitting in a windowless room while grown men explained that my age made me useful.
I looked at Colonel Mitchell. “Sir, request permission to remain.”
Graves’ expression hardened. “Denied.”
“You don’t command me anymore,” I said.
His eyes sharpened. “No. But the people hunting the breach remember your face.”
The recruits shifted uneasily.
Dawson lowered his voice. “Hunting?”
Graves ignored him and opened a black folder. “Two hours ago, an encrypted file tied to your old operations was accessed from inside this base.”
My stomach sank.
Colonel Mitchell took one step closer. “Inside Fort Moore?”
“Yes.”
“By whom?”
Graves’ answer was quiet.
“We don’t know yet.”
A hot wind swept across the range, carrying dust over our boots.