“No user identification.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Exactly.”
They moved into the hallway.
Miller walked quickly.
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace without a network.”
The old combatives building had been abandoned after renovations three years earlier. Most of it was now used for storage.
Miller unlocked a side entrance.
Dust floated in the air.
They passed stacked mats and damaged training mannequins.
At the end of the corridor stood a steel door.
Faded paint showed the number.
Olivia stopped.
Miller glanced at her.
May you like
“That isn’t funny.”
“No.”
“You knew this was here.”
“I knew the room existed.”
“What was it used for?”
He inserted a key.
“Before my time? Records.”
“And later?”
Miller opened the door.
Metal shelves filled the room.
File boxes.
An old television.
A tape deck.
Dozens of labeled digital storage drives.
Olivia entered.
One shelf was marked with handwritten dates.
Seven years ago.
Her pulse changed.
She found the correct month.
Then the day.
A black case.
OLIVIA GRANT.
She turned toward Miller.
He looked as surprised as she felt.
“You told me you knew about this room.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t know that was here?”
“No.”
Olivia opened the case.
A data card rested inside.
Miller inserted it into an isolated laptop.
The screen lit.
Video.
A training room appeared.
Seven years earlier.
Olivia was on the recording.
Younger.
Sweat-soaked.
Exhausted.
Sitting at a table.
Across from her sat Major Elias Vance, the officer who had commanded her team during the worst deployment of her career.
Olivia stopped breathing.
Miller looked over.
“What?”
She pointed.
“That man.”
“You know him?”
Olivia forced out the words.
“He’s dead.”
On the video, Vance leaned toward the younger Olivia.
“What happens when the order is wrong?”
The younger Olivia stared at him.
“I change it.”
“Even if changing it ends your career?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the mission doesn’t care about my career.”
Vance smiled.
He wrote something down.
Then glanced toward someone beyond the camera.
“Grant qualifies. Put her in Forty-Two.”
The video stopped.
Olivia stood motionless.
Miller swallowed.
“When did he die?”
“Six years ago.”
“How?”
“Helicopter crash.”
“You saw the body?”
“No.”
Miller looked back at the dark screen.
Olivia already knew what he was thinking.
She hated him for thinking it.
Because she was thinking exactly the same thing.
Chapter 5: THE PROGRAM
Colonel Shaw did not deny that Room 42 existed.
That unsettled Olivia more than a denial would have.
They stood inside Shaw’s office with Miller near the door and Ryan leaning against the opposite wall.
Shaw stared down at the old recording case.
“Where did you find that?”
“You know exactly where.”
“I instructed Miller to keep that room locked.”
Miller stiffened.
“You told me it held obsolete records.”
“It does.”
“You forgot to mention classified candidate experiments.”
Shaw’s eyes sharpened.
“Watch your wording, Sergeant.”
Olivia stepped in before Miller could respond.
“Elias Vance.”
Shaw looked at her.
“He died.”
“That’s what I was told.”
“That is what happened.”
“Then explain the recording.”
“You were evaluated.”
“For what?”
Shaw hesitated.
Olivia felt anger beginning to rise.
“Do not tell me you don’t know enough to answer safely.”
Shaw sat down.
“The Forty-Two program started fourteen years ago.”
Ryan straightened.
At last.
Shaw continued.
“It was created after several operational failures where junior personnel recognized serious mistakes but followed orders anyway.”
Olivia said, “Because they were trained to obey.”
“Because the culture punished dissent.”
“So somebody created a program to identify people willing to challenge authority.”
“Yes.”
Ryan gave a bitter laugh.
“And then somebody started removing those same people.”
Shaw ignored him.
“In the beginning, Forty-Two was not punitive. Candidates were evaluated for independent judgment. Anyone showing unusual willingness to challenge a flawed directive was flagged.”
“For advancement?” Olivia asked.
“For specialized assignments.”
Olivia glanced toward the paused image of her younger self.
“That’s why Vance evaluated me.”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t I remember this?”
“You underwent hundreds of hours of evaluation that year.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No memory was removed from you, Grant.”
The wording was strangely exact.
Olivia noticed.
So did Shaw.
“I mean the session was deliberately structured to resemble a normal debrief. You had no reason to remember that particular room.”
Ryan stepped away from the wall.
“So Reyes found the program.”