Chapter 11 - The Knock on the Heavy Oak Door
My blood ran cold.
My father had passed away five years ago, leaving behind a reputation as an untouchable three-star general, a paragon of military virtue whose name was chiseled into the granite wall of the academy library. Eleanor had spent half her life maintaining his myth, using his legacy to open doors for Daniel that should have remained firmly shut.
If my father’s former chief of staff was receiving black-market guidance systems diverted by Daniel, then Daniel wasn't the mastermind.
Daniel was just the courier.
I walked over to the desk, pulled the brass lamp closer, and spread the flight manifests across the green blotter. The destination was not a foreign conflict zone. The coordinates mapped directly to an abandoned industrial facility located inside the restricted training corridor of the federal testing range—less than fifteen miles from where we were standing.
"Does General Hayes know about this?" I asked, my eyes scanning the tail numbers.
"The General was called to an emergency video conference with the Pentagon ten minutes ago, Colonel," Captain Miller said. "Base communications just went into an automated secure lockdown. All outgoing personal cellular traffic has been jammed."
Suddenly, the lights in the suite flickered once. Twice.
Then the steady hum of the building's central air conditioning died. The overhead chandeliers shut off completely, plunging the suite into near-total darkness, illuminated only by the faint green emergency exit signs and the sweep of headlights from the tarmac outside.
From the hallway, the sound of heavy tactical boots approached. Not the measured, polite pace of an aide or a runner.
These were fast, aggressive, coordinated combat steps.
I reached down to my hip, unholstering my service pistol, racking the slide with a clean, metallic *clack*. Captain Miller drew her weapon, her back instantly pressing against the wall beside the frame.
*BANG. BANG. BANG.*
Three heavy, violent blows struck the solid oak door.
"Colonel Carter," a gravelly, unfamiliar voice called out from the darkness of the corridor. "Open the door. We have orders signed by the Chief of Staff. You need to turn over those manifests right now."
I looked at the manifests on the desk, then at the sealed signature block at the bottom of the page.
The signature on the flight authorization wasn't Daniel's. It wasn't my father's former aide.
May you like
It bore the distinct, jagged signature of the Deputy Undersecretary of Defense who had just handed me my silver eagles an hour ago.
The lock on the oak door clicked from the outside.
