Chapter 8 - The Counter-Strike
I didn't blink. I didn't let the anger show on my face. Thirty years of sitting at my father's dinner table while my achievements were minimized had taught me one vital lesson: when people assume you are emotional, you must become ice.
“It’s fascinating, Captain Miller,” I said, my voice dropping into a quiet, conversational tone that made the senior officer’s smile falter by a fraction. “You seem intimately familiar with the exact narrative the whistleblower package is trying to push. Almost as if you knew what was in the file before it was even processed.”
Miller’s jaw tightened. “Watch your tone, Commander. You are speaking to a senior officer.”
“And you are sitting in a compartment discussing an active NCIS investigation that hasn't even reached Rear Admiral Vance’s desk yet,” I replied, stepping closer to the table. I placed both hands flat on the cold metal surface, leaning over it so Miller had to look up to meet my eyes. “Agent Thomas, did you pull the security camera footage from the midship administrative corridor between 1900 and 2130 last night?”
The NCIS investigator blinked, his professional composure shifting slightly. “The base security detail handles the gate logs—”
“Not the gate logs, Agent. The internal closed-circuit television covering the server room and the engineering logistics office,” I cut in. “Because if my digital signature was used to transmit that file at 2112 hours, the server room logs will show exactly which terminal accessed my certificate. And more importantly, they’ll show whose physical hands were typing on the keyboard while I was driving back from Ramona.”
Miller stood up abruptly, his chair scraping against the deck plates with a harsh screech. “This is a diversion, Agent Thomas. She’s attempting to obstruct an official inquiry into her family.”
“I’m not obstructing anything, Captain,” I said, turning my gaze fully onto Miller, letting the cold reality of thirty years of family secrets settle between us like unexploded ordnance. “In fact, I’m expanding it. Because when Agent Thomas pulls those server logs, he’s going to find that the terminal used to transmit that false report was located in the primary supply office—the exact office where Chief Warrant Officer Miller signs off on unassigned scrap manifests for my brother.”
Silence dropped over the room so heavy that the hum of the ship’s ventilation system sounded like a distant jet engine.
Agent Thomas looked slowly from Miller to me, his eyes narrowing as the administrative convenience of an easy whistleblower case began to unravel under the weight of actual investigative tradecraft.
“Get out,” Miller whispered, his face turning a dark, mottled red. “Get out of this room right now, Commander, or I will have you placed under immediate administrative arrest for insubordination.”
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“You can try, Captain,” I said, straightening up and slipping my digital drive back into my pocket. “But if you do, you’ll have to explain to Admiral Vance why you tried to bury an internal fraud investigation before the morning briefing even started.”
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