Chapter 2 - The First Warning
Brennan waited in darkness as the lock turned. She stood beside the door with a service flashlight in one hand and her phone recording in the other.
The intruder stopped before crossing the threshold. A small metal object slid across the floor. Then the footsteps retreated.
It was Daniel's twelve-year sobriety medallion.
She had given it to him after his last treatment program. He carried it everywhere.
Brennan called him again. No answer.
She drove north through hard rain, ignoring three calls from Captain Voss. Daniel's townhouse door was open when she arrived. A lamp had been overturned, and blood marked the kitchen tile.
Daniel was alive in the garage, bound to a chair with a split lip. Brennan cut him loose.
"Three men," he said. "Masks. They wanted me to tell you to stop digging."
"Did they say anything else?"
"One called another Marcus."
Daniel gripped her sleeve. "Don't do what you always do, Claire. Don't turn yourself into a weapon and forget you're human."
She remembered Kabul, the convoy, and the decision that had saved nineteen sailors but cost two friends. She remembered a review board praising her judgment while she sat alone afterward, unable to feel her hands.
"I'm not going after them angry," she said. "I'm going after them correctly."
Back at Meridian, Voss reprimanded her for leaving without authorization. Garrett stood beside him with sympathetic eyes.
"Family emergency?" Garrett asked.
Brennan watched him carefully. "A break-in."
"Terrible. Sometimes thieves take sentimental things. Medals. Coins."
There it was, delivered with a smile.
Brennan filed a formal report. By afternoon it vanished from the system. Her access to classified shipping manifests was suspended for an alleged credential irregularity. At 1600, an anonymous complaint accused her of harassing subordinates.
The machine protecting Garrett was larger than four men.
Ortiz brought her a paper log rescued from a shred bin. It showed midnight deliveries from Depot Seventeen to Pier Nine, where no Navy ship had docked in eight months.
"Who authorized these?" Brennan asked.
Ortiz pointed to a code: V-01.
Captain Voss.
That night, Brennan drove to Pier Nine without entering the gate. From a wooded ridge she photographed Garrett, Marcus, Cole, and Travis loading gray cases onto a civilian trawler. A fifth man remained in shadow beneath the bridge.
As Brennan adjusted the lens, the man turned toward her position as though he could see through rain and darkness.
May you like
Her phone vibrated.
UNKNOWN NUMBER: Nice camera, Commander.
