Chapter 3 - Black Tide
Brennan left the ridge seconds before two vehicles climbed the access road. Instead of returning home, she drove to a twenty-four-hour diner, changed jackets in the restroom, and slipped the memory card into an envelope addressed to Inspector General Naomi Price.
Price had served with Brennan years ago. She was honest, which made contacting her dangerous. Brennan mailed the card from a roadside box and sent no electronic message.
At breakfast, Captain Voss announced a surprise audit of Brennan's division. Investigators found classified manifests in her desk that she had never seen. Her signature appeared on each page.
"This is clumsy," Brennan told Voss.
"It's serious."
"Those are not the same thing."
He placed her on administrative restriction but stopped short of removing her. Someone still needed her in position.
Price appeared that evening disguised as a civilian contractor. They met inside an abandoned weather station beyond the southern fence.
"The photographs are useful," Price said, "but not enough. Garrett will say it was an authorized counterintelligence operation. Voss will confirm it."
"Then we need the buyer and the money."
Price spread banking records across a rusted table. Shell companies had transferred millions through Malta, Panama, and Delaware. The stolen assemblies were not ordinary components. Each contained adaptive targeting processors subject to strict export controls.
"A hostile broker is buying them," Price said. "Code name Harbormaster. We don't know the identity."
"Does Voss?"
"Maybe. Or Voss is afraid of the person who does."
They formed a plan with only three trusted people: Price, Brennan, and Ortiz. Brennan would appear isolated. Ortiz would copy raw shipment data. Price would build an external case. They called the operation Black Tide.
For two weeks, Brennan let Garrett believe his pressure was working. She avoided eye contact. She stopped challenging false counts in meetings. She made a show of drinking alone at the officers' club, pouring bourbon into a plant whenever no one watched.
Garrett grew bolder.
"You don't belong here," he told her near the motor pool.
"Perhaps you're right."
He smiled, hearing surrender.
That night Ortiz copied an encrypted ledger from Marcus's terminal. The ledger named nine stolen shipments and a final transfer scheduled for Friday. Its value exceeded forty million dollars.
Then Ortiz failed to report for duty.
Brennan found her car beside the marsh, driver door open, keys still in the ignition. On the passenger seat lay a single brass button torn from Ortiz's uniform.
May you like
Under it was a note.
DEPOT SEVENTEEN. COME ALONE.
