Chapter 5 - THE FILE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Claire read the document three times.
Every pass made it worse.
The language sounded official.
The formatting matched the intelligence templates used nine years earlier.
The classification markings were correct.
Her service number was correct.
Even the initials beside the distribution list resembled hers.
Only one thing was wrong.
The event described had never happened.
“I never saw this.”
Rear Admiral Keating stood opposite her.
“It was recovered from archived mission records this morning.”
“Recovered by whom?”
“That’s classified.”
Claire’s gaze hardened.
“I hold the clearance.”
“Not anymore.”
Briggs spoke.
“Sir, with respect—”
“No.”
Keating turned on him.
“You are also under investigation after your credentials accessed restricted exercise routing.”
“My credentials were cloned.”
“That determination has not been made.”
Brandon couldn’t stay quiet.
“Sir, the same thing happened to me.”
Keating looked toward him.
“And you are?”
“Senior Chief Cole.”
“The man Captain Mercer restored to operational planning while still under NCIS review?”
Brandon’s jaw locked.
Claire said, “That was my decision.”
“I know.”
Keating gathered the papers.
“That decision is now part of the inquiry.”
Claire straightened.
“What happens to Sentinel?”
“Transferred.”
“To whom?”
“Captain Warren Hale.”
Something moved behind Claire’s eyes.
Brandon noticed.
Keating didn’t.
“Hale?”
“Yes.”
“When does he arrive?”
“He’s already here.”
The door opened.
A tall officer entered.
Silver hair.
Weathered face.
Navy captain’s insignia.
Warren Hale walked toward Claire wearing the warm expression of an old friend.
That frightened her more than Keating’s anger.
“Claire.”
She didn’t move.
Hale had been her commanding officer in Afghanistan.
He had approved the Kunar mission.
After the ambush, he had sat beside her hospital bed and told her she had done everything possible.
At Michael Grant’s memorial, Hale had delivered the eulogy.
And nine years later, here he was, arriving exactly when a forged document blamed Claire for the deaths.
“Warren.”
His face softened.
“I’m sorry this is happening.”
Brandon watched Claire.
She had become unreadable again.
Hale extended his hand.
She did not take it.
“You knew about the memo?”
“I was briefed this morning.”
“Did you ever see it nine years ago?”
Hale hesitated.
Only slightly.
“No.”
That was the first mistake.
Claire noticed.
The document contained a distribution line identifying Hale’s old command office.
If genuine, he should have received it.
Claire said, “Then somebody failed to distribute a report blaming one of your officers for seven deaths.”
Hale’s expression tightened.
“Records in theater were messy.”
“Not that messy.”
Keating intervened.
“This conversation is over.”
Claire removed her identification badge.
Placed it on the table.
Then her access token.
Then the secure phone.
Hale looked genuinely pained.
“Claire, cooperate with the inquiry. We’ll get this straightened out.”
She stared at him.
“Will we?”
Brandon heard accusation in those two words.
Hale did too.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
Claire walked out.
Brandon followed until security blocked him.
Keating said, “Senior Chief, you remain assigned here.”
Brandon looked through the glass at Claire disappearing down the hall.
“Yes, sir.”
But his attention stayed with her.
At 2000, Claire was sitting alone in a small hotel room overlooking Harbor Island.
Her apartment had been declared part of an active investigation after the break-in.
Her access to classified systems was gone.
Her command was gone.
Her reputation might be next.
Her phone rang.
Personal device.
Unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then answered.
“Mercer.”
Silence.
Then a distorted male voice.
“You should have taken the warning.”
Claire sat upright.
“Rourke?”
A soft laugh.
“You always were quick.”
Her hand moved toward the recording application.
The voice continued.
“Don’t bother. This call won’t last long enough.”
“What do you want?”
“To save your life.”
“Interesting method.”
“You think I’m the one trying to destroy you.”
“You broke into my apartment.”
“No.”
“You were in Kunar.”
“Yes.”
“You gave me the coordinates.”
Silence.
Claire’s pulse accelerated.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
The answer punched through nine years.
“You knew it was an ambush?”
“I knew the location was compromised.”
“And you sent us anyway.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I gave you coordinates I was ordered to give you.”
Claire stood.
“By whom?”
“You already know.”
Her mind went to Hale.
Then Keating.
Then dozens of names.
“Say it.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“If I say it on an unsecured line, neither of us makes sunrise.”
Claire forced herself to breathe.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you think.”
“You stole the Sentinel archive.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Rourke paused.
“The same people who framed your Senior Chief.”
“How do you know about Cole?”
“Because they’re repeating the playbook.”
“What playbook?”
“Kunar.”
Claire’s grip tightened.
“Explain.”
“You think the ambush was about killing one target.”
“It was.”
“No. The target was bait.”
“What was the objective?”
“To bury a program.”
Before Claire could respond, a knock came at her hotel door.
Three sharp taps.
She froze.
Rourke’s voice changed.
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Did you order anything?”
“No.”
“Then don’t open that door.”
The handle moved.
Locked.
Claire stepped backward.
Rourke said, “Bathroom. Now.”
She didn’t take orders from ghosts.
But she moved.
The hotel door shuddered.
Someone had struck it from outside.
Claire grabbed her concealed pistol.
The lock cracked.
She entered the bathroom and positioned herself beside the wall.
Second impact.
Wood split.
Third.
The door opened.
Footsteps.
Two people.
Maybe three.
No voices.
Professional.
Claire whispered into the phone, “How did you know?”
Rourke replied, “Because they did the same thing to me eight years ago.”
A shadow crossed beneath the bathroom door.
Claire fired once through the lower panel.
A man shouted.
Gunfire tore through the bathroom door.
Claire dropped behind the tub.
Tiles exploded.
She returned two controlled shots.
Someone yelled, “Move!”
Footsteps retreated.
Claire waited.
No sound.
Then sirens began outside.
Rourke said, “You have maybe ninety seconds before they decide whether to come back.”
“How are there already police?”
“I called them.”
“Why help me?”
“Because Kunar didn’t end.”
The line disconnected.
At 2014, hotel security entered.
At 2021, San Diego police arrived.
At 2038, NCIS took over.
At 2105, Brandon learned what happened from Jake.
By 2110, he was driving.
He found Claire outside the hotel beneath flashing emergency lights, speaking to Reeves.
She had a shallow cut along her cheek from flying tile.
Otherwise she seemed unharmed.
Brandon walked toward her.
Reeves blocked him.
“This is an active scene.”
“I know.”
Claire looked up.
“Let him through.”
Reeves hesitated.
“Captain—”
“I’m technically not Captain Anything to your investigation tonight.”
“You’re still a captain.”
“Then let him through.”
Brandon approached.
His gaze went to the cut.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“That answer usually means no.”
“I’m alive.”
He nodded.
“That’s better.”
Reeves looked annoyed.
Claire turned serious.
“Rourke called me.”
Brandon stared.
“What?”
She told them everything.
When she repeated Rourke’s statement about being ordered to provide the compromised coordinates, Brandon’s face hardened.
“Who gave the order?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Reeves asked, “Why should we trust anything Rourke says?”
“We shouldn’t.”
“Good.”
“But somebody attacked me during his call.”
“That could have been staged.”
Brandon looked at him.
“You think she arranged for people to shoot through a hotel bathroom?”
“I think professional deception gets complicated.”
Claire agreed.
“He’s right.”
Brandon stared at her.
“You’re defending that?”
“I’m acknowledging possibilities.”
“That document already blamed you for seven deaths. Now somebody tries to kill you. At what point do we stop calling this coincidence?”
Claire looked toward the broken hotel window.
“Now.”
She removed something from her pocket.
A small brass object.
Mike Grant’s challenge coin.
Brandon blinked.
“When did you—”
“You showed it to me yesterday.”
“That one is mine.”
“This isn’t yours.”
She opened her hand.
A second coin lay there.
Identical design.
On the reverse:
COME HOME WITH EVERYONE YOU CAN.
Reeves frowned.
“Where did you get it?”
Claire looked at the hotel floor.
“Bathroom.”
Brandon’s expression changed.
“It was already there?”
“Taped beneath the sink.”
“Before the attack?”
“Yes.”
Reeves pulled on gloves.
“How did you find it?”
“I knocked it loose taking cover.”
Brandon stared at the coin.
“Only Mike’s guys got those.”
“How many?”
“Maybe thirty over several years.”
Claire turned it over.
Scratched along the rim was a number.
17.
Brandon went pale.
“What?”
He took his own coin from his pocket.
Along its edge:
22.
“Mike numbered them.”
Claire’s voice lowered.
“You recognize seventeen?”
Brandon did.
“I know who he gave it to.”
“Who?”
“Warren Hale.”
Silence.
Claire looked at the coin again.
Hale had told her he knew nothing about the forged memo.
Now a coin tied directly to him had appeared inside the hotel room before men came to kill her.
It was either proof.
Or another frame.
Reeves said what all of them were thinking.
“Someone wants us looking at Captain Hale.”
Claire nodded.
Brandon watched her.
“Do you?”
She closed her fingers around the coin.
“I look where evidence points.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Claire’s eyes rose.
“Nine years ago Warren Hale told me Kunar wasn’t my fault.”
“And now?”
“Now I want to know why someone is trying very hard to make me believe it was his.”
At 2317, Reeves received a laboratory message about the forged Kunar memo.
The paper was nine years old.
The toner was nine years old.
The signature ink was nine years old.
The document had not been manufactured recently.
Claire read the report twice.
“So the memo existed back then.”
Reeves nodded.
“Looks that way.”
“But I never signed it.”
“Could somebody have copied your signature?”
“Yes.”
Brandon asked, “Why create it and hide it for nine years?”
Nobody answered.
Then Claire understood.
“It wasn’t hidden.”
She looked at Reeves.
“It was insurance.”
“Against what?”
“Against me ever reopening Kunar.”
Brandon felt the room grow colder.
Claire continued.
“Somebody manufactured evidence nine years ago so that if I ever got close to the truth, they could destroy my credibility.”
Reeves asked, “Why didn’t they use it earlier?”
“Because I never got close.”
Until Sentinel.
Until Coronado.
Until now.
Claire’s personal phone vibrated again.
This time a text.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
A man bound to a chair inside what looked like a warehouse.
Commander Nathan Briggs.
Blood on his forehead.
A digital clock behind him.
02:00:00.
Counting down.
May you like
Below the image were seven words:
STOP DIGGING OR YOUR COMMANDER DIES AT DAWN.
