I looked at Sarah. She was staring after Vance, a deep crease of worry finally appearing on her forehead. She reached into her pocket, pulled out something small, and subtly dropped it on the wooden bench next to her pistol magazine.
"Stay out of this, Elias," she whispered without looking at me. "For your own good, walk away."
She turned and walked off the range, heading toward the barracks to pack her gear for Sector 4.
I stepped up to the wooden bench. Sitting next to the magazine was the thick black access keycard she had used to enter the server room last night. She had purposely left it for me.
My heart began to race. Why would she give me the keycard if she was trying to hide the truth from me? Unless she wasn't trying to hide it. Unless she wanted me to see it for myself.
An hour later, I was standing in Vance's lavish, heavily air-conditioned office. He spent twenty minutes berating me for letting my anger get the better of me during the combat drill. He talked about professionalism, about the reputation of Blackwood, about how much he had done for me.
"I saved you from a court-martial, Elias," Vance said smoothly, leaning back in his leather chair, pouring himself a glass of water. "I gave you a home when the military threw you away because of your... hesitation. I expect absolute loyalty in return."
"You have it, sir," I lied smoothly.
"Good," Vance smiled. "Because I have a very important private client arriving tonight, and I need the facility completely locked down. I want you to run a continuous perimeter patrol around the main campus. Do not go near Sector 4. I have a specialized team running a sensitive drill over there. Understood?"
"Understood, sir."
I left his office with my blood running cold. A specialized team in Sector 4? Where he had just sent Sarah? It wasn't a training transfer. It was an isolation tactic. Vance was going to have her quietly eliminated.
The practical and emotional consequences of my situation crashed down on me. If I walked away, I kept my comfortable life, my job, and my fragile sanity. If I used the keycard and went into the server room, I was committing corporate treason, risking federal prison, and potentially walking into a fatal trap.
I waited until midnight. The facility was completely dark, operating on emergency lighting. I abandoned my perimeter patrol. I made an irreversible decision.
I moved silently through the shadows of the administration building, avoiding the rotating security cameras by sticking to the blind spots I had memorized over the last three years. I reached the heavy steel door of the restricted server room. I took a deep breath, pulled the black keycard from my pocket, and swiped it against the biometric scanner.
The light flashed green. The heavy door clicked open.
I slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind me. The room was freezing cold, filled with the loud, rhythmic humming of massive server racks. Blue and green lights blinked rapidly in the darkness. I moved to the main terminal in the center of the room.
I sat down, typing furiously. The terminal was already logged in under Sarah's heavily encrypted administrative credentials. She had left a backdoor open for me.
I searched the database for one word: Sandstorm.
A single file appeared. It wasn't a mission report. It wasn't a list of casualties. It was a deeply buried, highly classified audio recording.
My hands were shaking as I clicked play.
The audio crackled to life. It was a recording of a radio transmission from five years ago. I instantly recognized the static-filled chaos of the valley. I heard the sound of heavy gunfire, the screaming of my men. I heard my own panicked voice calling for immediate air support, begging for a medical evacuation.
And then, I heard another voice cutting through the secure command channel.
"Command, this is Ghost Actual," a woman’s calm, urgent voice said. It was Sarah. "I have visual on the trapped squad in Sector Seven. They are being completely overrun. I have two Blackhawks spooled and ready for immediate extraction. Requesting permission to launch."
My heart stopped. Sarah hadn't abandoned us. She had tried to save us.
A second voice came over the radio. A calm, authoritative male voice operating from the tactical operations center.
"Ghost Actual, this is Base Command. Denied. Stand down your birds. I repeat, stand down."
"Base Command, they are being slaughtered down there!" Sarah's voice broke, losing its calm facade, thick with desperation. "The intel was completely compromised! If we don't launch now, they will burn!"
"The intel wasn't compromised, Colonel," the male voice replied coldly. "The operation is proceeding exactly as planned. The squad is acceptable collateral. We cannot leave witnesses to the weapons transfer. Stand down, or I will have you arrested for treason. That is a direct order from Director Vance."
The recording ended in a hiss of static.
I sat in the freezing darkness of the server room, completely paralyzed. My false interpretation shattered into a million pieces. Sarah hadn't caused the ambush. She wasn't trying to erase the evidence. She had spent five years hunting the man who did.
Director Vance didn't make a mistake with the intelligence. He intentionally sent my team into a meat grinder because they had accidentally stumbled into a valley where Vance was illegally selling heavily modified military weapons to the local militia. He murdered my men to cover his tracks. He had manufactured my guilt. He had manipulated my grief to keep me close, to ensure I never asked questions.
A sudden, sharp sound broke my paralysis.
The heavy steel door of the server room hissed loudly. The magnetic locks disengaged with a heavy, metallic clank. The main overhead lights instantly shut off, plunging the room into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
The terminal screen in front of me suddenly flashed red. A single sentence appeared on the monitor.