Chapter 3 - The Broken Alibi
The secure terminal continued to pulse a steady, amber warning light as the incoming transmission from Benghazi sat frozen on the screen.
Vance leaned against the edge of the console, his arms crossed over his chest. "If Tyler gets picked up by North African intelligence, everything your stepfather has spent forty years building—the medals, the honorary boards, the legacy of the Bradley name—collapses in forty-eight hours. The moment foreign investigators trace those bank accounts back to a U.S. three-star general's family trust, the Department of Justice steps in."
"Richard won't let it get that far," I said, my fingers flying across the keyboard to isolate the IP address of the encrypted relay. "He has contingency protocols for Tyler. He always has. Every time Tyler messed up at West Point, Richard had a colonel on standby to rewrite the disciplinary board reports."
"This isn't a cadet honor violation, Elena," Vance said quietly. "This is international espionage and the illegal diversion of military hardware. You can't make this go away with a quiet word in the commandant's office."
"I know," I said, stopping my typing and turning to face him. "Which means Richard is going to try to do what he always does when a problem gets too big to hide: he's going to find a scapegoat."
Vance’s eyes narrowed. "You."
"Think about it," I said, standing up to match his gaze. "From the perspective of the base command staff, I'm just a disgruntled stepdaughter working a low-level logistics desk. If the financial records start leaking, who looks more plausible as a rogue data thief? A decorated three-star general with a lifetime of service, or an administrative clerk with access to the base shipping manifests?"
Before Vance could answer, the secure intercom on the wall buzzed sharply. The duty officer’s voice came through the speaker, strained and tense.
“Colonel Vance? Sir, you have a visitor at the outer security checkpoint. It’s Major Yates. He’s claiming an urgent command priority from General Bradley’s office.”
Vance and I exchanged a single look.
"Tell him the colonel is unavailable," Vance said into the comms panel.
“Sir, he’s not alone. He’s accompanied by two members of the base military police criminal investigation division. They have an administrative inquiry order signed by the Inspector General's office.”
The room seemed to shrink.
I looked down at the open red folder on the desk, then back at the blinking amber light on the monitor. They weren't waiting for the international fallout to hit. Richard wasn't sitting back waiting to see what happened—he was already striking first. By looping in the local CID on an administrative inquiry, he was attempting to legally seize the very files we had just opened, framing the investigation as a routine audit of my department to preemptively discredit any data I held against him.
"He's moving faster than I calculated," I muttered, grabbing the flash drive from the primary console and slipping it into the inner pocket of my jacket.
Vance didn't panic. Instead, a grim, humorless smile touched his lips. He reached over and pressed a toggle switch on the console, locking the SCIF's internal security shutters.
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"Let him come down here," Vance said softly. "Richard thinks he's fighting a logistics clerk in a basement. It's time we remind him who actually runs the intelligence grid on this post."
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