Outside, Harlan had reached the base of the brick incinerator stack. He set the red fuel canister down against the footing, unslung the heavy tow chain, and kicked the steel double doors of the primary burn chamber. The hollow metal rang once, loud and flat in the heavy fog.
"Cover the ditch," Harlan called back to the truck. "Major says the trailer was empty when they forced the hasp. Vance took the back registers. If she’s in the swale, she hasn't cleared the culvert yet."
One of the corporals racked the slide of his shotgun, the dry mechanical clack carrying clear across the slag pile. "What about the kid?"
"The kid doesn't exist," Harlan said. His voice was cold, bored, entirely stripped of hesitation. "The major dropped his folder into the clinic burn box at midnight. You find anything moving in the high grass between here and the wire, you put it down and call it a wild dog from the swamp. Nobody asks for dental work on a stray."
Harlan reached down, grabbed the handle of the fuel canister, and started around the corner of the brick foundation toward the low mound where Vault 04 sat beneath the earth.
I drew my service pistol from under my wet coat, thumbed the safety down with a sharp, distinct click, and rested the steel barrel directly against the iron lip of the hatch.
I didn't fire. I waited until Harlan’s muddy field boots stepped within five feet of the iron plate, his eyes searching the dark grass for the padlock he expected to see hanging from the staple.
When he saw the empty hasp and the unlatched leaf, he stopped dead.
"Corporal," Harlan began, his hand dropping toward the holster on his web belt.
"Don't reach for the leather, Harlan," I said, my voice cutting through the iron seam like a straight razor.
Harlan froze. The fuel canister swung slightly in his grip, sloshing against the red tin. He didn't drop it, but his boots locked into the crushed limestone.
"Colonel Vance," he said, staring at the dark crack beneath the iron lid. He didn't sound startled; he sounded like a man doing arithmetic in his head, measuring the thickness of the metal between us against the shotgun behind his back. "Major Sterling told us you were disoriented. He said you suffered a concussion during the perimeter breach at Trailer Four."
"Major Sterling is three miles away waiting for you to burn forty thousand dollars of federal avionics," I said. "Put the can down."
Harlan didn't put it down. Instead, he shifted his weight slowly onto his heels, tilting his chin toward the truck idling twenty yards behind him. "You’re alone in that hole, ma'am. Cole isn't with you. The boy isn't with you. And the division commander doesn't inspect the wire until eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
"The division commander isn't coming to this wire," I said. "The Provost Marshal has the contract serial from the crates in this vault. Fort Meade is running the dispatch ledger right now."
That reached him. A small, involuntary twitch pulled at the muscle under Harlan’s left cheekbone. He knew the system; he had served twelve years in logistics before Sterling pulled him into this perimeter detail. He knew that once a federal contract number crossed an interstate dispatch teletype, an installation commander couldn't bury it with a local quarantine order.
"You didn't have the numbers," Harlan said, his voice dropping into a harsh, uncertain whisper. "Sterling ground the stencils off the case lids himself on Tuesday."
"He missed the tongue-and-groove joints on crate three," I said. "And he used my nephew’s handwriting to log the transfer voucher."
Harlan’s hand slowly left his holster. He didn't drop his arms, but his fingers uncurled from the leather flap. Behind him, through the fog, the headlights of the six-ton truck flickered once as the driver tapped the horn—a warning chirp meant to signal movement along the perimeter access road.