“He found what it had become.”
“What had it become?”
Shaw’s face hardened.
“About five years ago, someone reversed the criteria.”
Silence filled the office.
Olivia understood first.
“They began using the list to identify people who might resist.”
“Yes.”
Ryan’s expression changed.
“Before promotions?”
“Before assignments. Sensitive commands. Programs where senior leaders preferred predictability.”
Miller stared at Shaw.
“You’re describing a blacklist.”
“Yes.”
“Inside this facility?”
“I’m saying personnel records were being manipulated from here.”
Ryan pushed off the wall.
“And you knew about it?”
“I suspected.”
“Reyes vanished four months ago.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
Shaw stood.
“Do you think I brought Grant here because I needed company?”
Ryan took a step toward her.
Olivia stopped him with one arm.
“Enough.”
He looked at her.
“Seven people.”
“I know.”
“My friend disappeared.”
“And shouting at Shaw won’t bring him back.”
Ryan breathed hard.
Then stepped away.
Olivia turned to Shaw.
“Why me?”
“Because someone was querying your name.”
“Who?”
“I could not identify the account.”
“When did it begin?”
“Eight months ago.”
Before Reyes vanished.
Shaw pulled a printed access report from a drawer.
“Your file had been dormant for years. Then somebody accessed it. Again. Then again.”
“How many times?”
“Eleven.”
Olivia scanned the dates.
“What happened on these days?”
“We don’t know.”
She reached the last entry.
Three days ago.
The day she arrived.
“Whoever is behind this knew I was coming.”
“Yes.”
“So the operation was compromised before I entered the base.”
“Yes.”
Ryan looked at Shaw.
“Who did you tell?”
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“My commander. Security director. Sergeant Miller.”
Everyone turned toward Miller.
His face tightened.
“Oh, come on.”
Ryan took a step toward him.
“You had access.”
“I also just brought her to the room.”
“Maybe because you wanted control over what she saw.”
Miller’s hands curled.
Olivia watched him.
Not his fists.
His eyes.
He looked angry.
Not afraid.
Shaw interrupted.
“Miller has worked with me for eight years.”
“That doesn’t clear him,” Ryan said.
“No,” Olivia replied. “It doesn’t.”
May you like
Miller looked at her.
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
Something crossed his face.
Pain.
He turned away.
Olivia hated that she noticed.
Shaw slid the report farther across the desk.
“There is another problem.”
Olivia looked down.
A data extraction had occurred at 0214 that morning.
“What was taken?”
Shaw answered.
“The original Forty-Two index.”
Ryan frowned.
“The forty-two names?”
Shaw shook her head.
“No.”
She looked directly at Olivia.
“The algorithm that created them.”
Chapter 6: THE LOCKER
They called it an algorithm.
That word made it sound sterile.
Mathematical.
Objective.
It was none of those things.
The original Forty-Two model had been assembled from thousands of behavioral observations: decision exercises, interviews, command simulations, peer reviews, stress tests, disciplinary files, and after-action assessments.
Every candidate was assigned a score.
Compliance.
Adaptability.
Independent judgment.
Stress response.
Moral resistance.
Olivia stopped reading.
“Moral resistance?”
Shaw nodded.
“The willingness to reject an order the subject believes is unethical or strategically unsound.”
Ryan stared at the screen.
“They measured conscience.”
“They attempted to.”
“And then somebody weaponized it.”
Shaw opened the altered model.
Where the original program had identified independent thinkers for specialized assignments, the changed version classified them as organizational risks.
Red scores appeared beside hundreds of soldiers.
Not forty-two.
Hundreds.
Olivia scrolled.
“This is much bigger than your seven.”
“Far bigger.”
“How big?”
“We don’t know.”
Ryan leaned toward the screen.
Names appeared.
Some belonged to senior officers.
Others to junior enlisted personnel.
Many carried notes.
PROMOTION DELAY.
REASSIGNMENT ADVISED.
COMMAND RISK.
Olivia’s stomach tightened.
“Who has authority to act on these recommendations?”
“Officially? No one.”
“Unofficially?”
Shaw remained silent.
Ryan answered.
“Anybody who trusts the score.”
Olivia closed the file.