Chapter 2 - The Assessment Room
The Joint Strategic Assessment Group occupied a nondescript federal building three blocks from the capital, possessing none of the marble grandeur of the military academy. There were no monuments in the lobby, no historic flags, and no tourists asking for directions.
I reported to a windowless briefing room on the fourth floor at 0800 sharp.
The room was filled with six other junior officers, all of them older than me, all holding high-tier security clearances. At the head of a long steel table sat Colonel Thomas Vance, a man with iron-gray hair and eyes that looked like they had processed too many classified failures to care about protocol.
"Cadet Evans," Vance said without looking up from a thick manila folder. "Or I should say, Lieutenant Evans. General Pierce pulled your file personally. She tells me you're good at finding the flaw in a broken plan."
"I am, sir," I said, taking the only empty seat near the foot of the table.
"Good. Because this office doesn't deal with clean victories," Vance said, finally looking up and tossing a set of encrypted flash drives across the table. "We handle the bureaucratic messes, the strategic blind spots, and the procurement failures that the Pentagon wants buried before congressional hearings. Your first assignment is a joint logistics audit on the Pacific supply chain."
The other officers groaned softly. Supply chain audits were the graveyard of promising careers—tedious, labyrinthine, and politically explosive.
"Specifically," Vance continued, locking eyes with me, "we've noticed a recurring discrepancy in equipment allocations for mid-tier civilian contractors operating in overseas development zones. Millions of dollars in hardware vanish between the port of entry and the regional outposts. We need to know if it's systemic corruption or administrative incompetence."
As the briefing went on, my mind raced. The parameters of the audit were massive, spanning dozens of shell corporations and civilian subcontractors. But as I flipped through the digital ledger pages projected onto the screen, a specific corporate name caught my eye in the vendor manifest: Aegis Global Media & Logistics.
My breath caught.
Aegis was the parent company that managed high-end luxury influencer retreats and brand sponsorships—including the exact Caribbean resort where my mother and Tiffany were currently staying. More importantly, public filings showed they had recently secured a multi-million-dollar defense subcontract for civilian infrastructure support.
I raised my hand.
"Lieutenant Evans?" Vance prompted, raising an eyebrow.
"Sir, does Aegis Global have a direct advisory contract with the Department of Defense, or are they operating entirely as a third-party logistics conduit?"
Vance leaned back in his chair, a faint, humorless smile touching his lips. "They're a front-end lifestyle brand that somehow acquired a defense logistics portfolio twelve months ago. Nobody knows how they passed the vetting process. Why? Do you know them?"
"My family," I said carefully, the words tasting like ash, "vacations at their properties. And my sister has a commercial partnership with them."
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The room went completely silent. Colonel Vance stared at me for a long, calculating moment, the pieces clicking together in his mind before he spoke.
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