At zero one forty-two, thirty minutes before the explosion, an unmarked commercial tractor entered the rail siding through Gate 4. The automatic scale recorded a tare weight of thirty-two thousand pounds. At zero two fourteen, the same vehicle crossed the outbound sensor. Its gross weight had jumped to seventy-eight thousand pounds—an increase of forty-six thousand pounds of high-grade volatile fuel pulled directly from the commercial rail tanker parked on Track 2.
Attached to the weigh ticket was the automated entry log.
The entry line did not show my stolen common access card. It showed an override credential issued by the Cumberland County Commercial Transport Authority, signed off by a civilian broker company called Cape Fear Logistics. And beside the digital authorization line sat the thumbnail image captured by the overhead infrared surveillance camera at the gate arm.
I pressed the function key to enlarge the capture.
The image was grainy, illuminated only by the harsh monochrome glare of the gate’s sodium floodlight, but the face behind the commercial tractor's windshield was unmistakable. It was not Corporal Miller. It was not Sergeant Cole.
The man sitting in the cab of the fuel thief’s transport was Captain Ronald Mercer—Major Vance’s executive assistant from the post provost marshal’s office. He was wearing civilian canvas overalls, but around his neck hung his green military identification lanyard, clear as daylight under the camera lens.
Beside him in the passenger seat sat a woman with a commercial clipboard. The name printed on the dispatch ledger beneath her forearm read: Vance Distribution Holdings, Wilmington.
They hadn't just stolen tactical fuel. Major Vance was running an entire private logistics racket using seized commercial siding inventory, disguising the outbound trucks with forged division routing codes, and using junior enlisted drivers like Miller as disposable cover when the shipments ran hot. When Miller had refused to hook up an uncertified tanker that night, they had forced him off the shoulder into the ditch to burn the evidence, leaving his scorched vehicle to take the blame for the whole conspiracy.
The heavy sound of gravel crunching outside the office door froze my blood.
I lunged forward, grabbed the terminal's manual print switch, and hammered the button. The old dot-matrix printer on the side shelf began to scream, its pin-head tearing across the tractor-feed paper with agonizing slowness, spitting out the high-contrast image and the axle weigh logs.
Outside, a truck door slammed shut with a heavy, hollow thud.
"Grant!" a voice bellowed through the shattered front window. It was thick, harsh, and trembling with desperate fury. "Come out onto the gravel with your hands behind your head! You are in unauthorized possession of a crime scene under active provost jurisdiction!"
It was Major Vance himself.
I tore the printed tractor-feed sheet from the roller, folded it three times, and shoved it deep into the inner pocket of my tunic alongside Miller’s tape. I drew the service pistol from my waist, pulled the hammer back to full cock, and stepped out of the closet into the ruined dispatch room.
Vance stood framed in the broken doorway, his service cap gone, his duty belt unbuckled, holding an issued M9 at low ready. Behind him in the dust sat an unmarked black government pickup, its driver-side door standing open. Standing near the rear bumper was Captain Mercer, holding a heavy tire iron, his knuckles white against the rusted steel.
"You're out of room, Hannah," Vance said, his chest heaving under his sweat-stained khaki shirt. "Brooks doesn't have the authority to send a salvage captain off-post with a command vehicle. You took that staff car without an authorized dispatch slip. That makes it vehicle theft under the UCMJ. Hand over whatever paper you just printed, or you won't leave this siding alive."
"You killed Miller," I said, stepping into the clear light of the window where both men could see my weapon pointed dead at Vance's sternum. "He wasn't driving the tanker when it burned. You and Mercer loaded that commercial diesel yourselves. You forced his truck into the culvert when he threatened to call the state police."