"Vance," I called out, keeping my eyes fixed on Cole's hands. "Bring your squad tablet to the platform."
Lieutenant Vance signaled to Corporal Diaz, who moved to the side hatch to maintain the inner guard, then stepped onto the riser. He handed me the unit’s secured field terminal, its screen glowing with the blue tactical network login.
"Run the hardware serial on this transmitter," I told Vance, holding out the broken plastic housing so he could read the stamped barcode. "Query the civilian liaison pool at the south logistics gate. Check every vehicle permit granted access to the rail depot between twenty-one hundred and zero-two hundred last night."
Cole’s chest hitched. His eyes darted toward the blast gate sealing the corridor. "That terminal only holds battalion dispatch logs, Grant. You can't query rail transport without division clearance."
"The tactical network synchronized with the rail terminal at midnight," Vance said quietly, his thumbs already moving over the glass screen. He didn't look up at Cole. His tone carried the flat, cold realization of a junior officer watching an idol collapse. "The division transport authority linked the freight logs because of our convoy rollout. The records are mirrored right here on the local cache."
The bay remained dead silent. The twenty operators of Bravo Team stayed rooted in their plastic chairs, their palms pressed flat against the tables as Miller had commanded. Not one man spoke. They were listening to the rhythm of Vance’s screen inputs, waiting for the verification that would either clear their squad leader or prove he had marked them for a slaughter in a limestone ditch.
"Got it," Vance said after twelve seconds. He turned the screen toward Miller. "Transceiver serial matches an auxiliary relay unit assigned to a civilian flatbed contractor out of San Antonio. Registered under an operating lease to Navarro Hauling. Driver logged through the rail gate at twenty-two forty-five last night."
Miller leaned over the display, his glasses reflecting the blue ledger rows. "Who authorized the after-hours gate pass?"
"Authorization code on the gate voucher is Bravo-Seven," Vance replied, his voice tightening. "That's Sergeant Cole's field signatory key."
"He didn't just transmit the coordinates from his truck," I said, looking directly at Cole. "He met the courier inside the wire. Ray, you let that civilian rig into the restricted loading dock behind the maintenance bays. You downloaded the interdiction route from your personal tablet, copied the file onto a physical thumb drive, and handed it through the driver's window while the base communications team was occupied with the storm reset."
"You have no proof of a physical exchange," Cole snarled, though his fingers trembled against the back of his neck. "A gate pass is standard procedure. We receive replacement engine parts for the scout trucks three nights a week. I signed for a pallet of brake drums. That’s my job as the senior platoon sergeant."
"Brake drums don't come with a manifest weight of twelve ounces," I answered.
I reached back into the black leather folder still resting on the podium and drew out the third sheet—a yellow carbon copy of the gate guard’s manual ledger from the commercial staging lane.
"The gate guard was suspicious of an unscheduled tractor-trailer arriving during a lightning delay," I continued, setting the yellow carbon directly before Miller. "He didn't log the truck in the digital gate register because the terminal was down for the storm reset. He wrote the manual receipt by hand. He noted that the driver didn't offload any cargo at the bay. He stayed six minutes, turned around in the loading yard, and departed through South Gate with a single brown courier pouch on the passenger seat."
Cole swallowed hard. His jaw worked silently for three seconds before he found his voice. "A manual ticket isn't a chain of custody, Grant. The guard could have made a mistake. He could have written down the wrong lane number."