"You have six minutes before Vance realizes Cole didn't finish the hit," Brooks said, leaning back. His face was entirely devoid of the anger he had shown onstage; now it was merely cold, practical, and dangerous. "Tell me how a salvage captain working an inventory cage got custody of an active criminal investigation's primary field recording."
"It wasn't an active criminal investigation until today, sir," I said, standing at parade rest three paces from his desk. "Major Vance closed the inquiry seventy-two hours after the incident. He classified the railhead fire as driver error leading to mechanical ignition, signed off on the line-of-duty report, and sealed Miller’s personal effects for shipment to his mother in Ohio."
"And how did the recorder end up in your civilian trunk?"
"Corporal Miller’s locker wasn't cleared by the provost marshal, Colonel. It was cleared by the third-platoon barracks petty cash officer, who didn't know the property serial numbers. He brought the driver's surplus gear down to my salvage depot because the quartermaster refused to log burned kit." I kept my voice flat, stripping away every ounce of grievance so only the chain of custody remained. "I didn't steal it from an evidence locker. It was dumped in my scrap bin wrapped in an oily poncho."
Brooks narrowed his eyes, his blunt fingers drumming once against the armrest. "And what is on that tape that makes you willing to risk a general court-martial for staging an ambush in front of a brigade stand-down?"
"The time-stamp verification, sir," I said. "Sergeant Cole told the safety board that his escort vehicle lost visual contact with the fuel tankers at zero two hundred due to heavy rain. He claimed the civilian transport veered into the culvert at zero two twenty, and that he was three miles up the highway securing a detour when the fire started."
"And Miller's transmission?"
"Miller keyed his cab mic at zero two thirty-two," I said, pointing directly at the blackened casing between us. "He wasn't driving. The engine was off. You can hear the rail-siding compressor running forty yards away. He was refusing an order from Sergeant Cole to hook up an unmarked third trailer that had no Department of Transportation hazardous materials placard. Cole told him on that tape that if he didn't pull the pins and haul the load across the county line, he’d leave him at the siding without an ID badge."
Brooks remained motionless for several seconds. "Why would Vance risk forty thousand gallons of division fuel for a private transport?"
"Because the fuel wasn't division property, Colonel," I answered, stepping forward until my hands rested on the back of the heavy leather chair across from him. "The fuel belonged to a civilian distribution plant in Greensboro. It was siphoned out of commercial railcars parked on the military spur over four weekends. Major Vance used the depot’s staging manifests to disguise the deliveries as official tactical reserves, then used Cole’s supply runs to move the stolen loads out through the commercial gates before the state transport inspectors opened their checkpoints at dawn."
I pulled a small, worn memorandum book from my cargo pocket and opened it to a page dense with hand-copied ledger codes.
"The pink custody slip proves Cole took my common access card at fourteen hundred," I continued. "The log on the depot gateway terminal shows my credentials were used to bypass the civilian scale at zero one fifteen. But the terminal doesn't just record the badge number, sir. It takes an automated infrared image of the operator's retina to verify the biometric match against the gate record."
Brooks leaned forward, his forearms resting against the desk edge. "The depot scanner doesn't archive those image files. They purge every forty-eight hours to clear cache memory."
"The front-gate scanner purges, Colonel," I said, holding his stare. "The security annex server under the rail tower doesn't. It runs on an independent civilian contractor system installed three years ago by the Department of Transportation. Vance didn't know that system existed because it’s routed through the state rail authority, not post facilities. Those images are backed up on the local server down at the siding office right now."
Before Brooks could answer, the electronic chime on his desk intercom buzzed once, followed by the heavy, authoritative pounding of fists against the outer waiting room door.
"Colonel Brooks," a muffled voice called through the oak panels. It was sharp, aggressive, and entirely too familiar. "Open the latch. I have an emergency jurisdictional hold issued by the post commander's legal liaison. Sergeant Cole is being detained without an authorized charge sheet."
Brooks didn't flinch. He looked at the locked heavy door, then reached into his desk drawer and pulled out an unsealed manila envelope bearing the red-striped border of a classified transfer docket. He slid the micro-cassette and the maintenance slip inside, wound the red string around the cardboard buttons twice, and held it out toward me.