Chương 4
“We’ll preserve it.”
“I want a copy.”
“You’ll get one.”
Rachel looked at Ethan, who stood near the wall with Sergeant First Class Malik Harper, his platoon sergeant. Harper had arrived ten minutes earlier and had not said a word to Rachel. He had spent most of that time speaking quietly to Ethan, who stared at the floor.
“His handwritten worksheet too,” Rachel said.
Harper’s eyes lifted.
Ruiz nodded. “Yes.”
David was no longer in the corridor.
He had been escorted to a separate office after surrendering his badge and installation phone. He had not been handcuffed. Rachel was glad.
The image of him in restraints would have felt satisfying for approximately five seconds and contaminated everything after.
Ortega walked her upstairs.
The conference room was too cold and smelled faintly of dry-erase marker. Someone had left three bottles of water on the table and a bowl of individually wrapped mints. A framed photograph of the installation’s headquarters building hung crookedly on one wall.
Rachel sat.
Ortega adjusted the photograph without seeming to notice he was doing it.
“You do that in every room?” she asked.
He looked at his hand.
“Apparently.”
She opened the water.
Her fingers were shaking now.
She hated that they had waited until no one threatening remained.
Ortega sat across from her.
“General Bennett will call in a minute.”
“I don’t want him directing the investigation.”
“He already said the same thing.”
Rachel looked up.
Ortega folded his hands on the table.
“He called division legal before I came downstairs. He asked for an outside investigative team.”
“That fast?”
“He was angry.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
Ortega watched her.
Then he said, “He was frightened.”
Rachel looked at the bottle in her hands.
Nathan frightened was not an image she carried easily.
As a child, he had been afraid of thunderstorms but embarrassed by it. He would sit at the kitchen table during storms and read cereal boxes with absurd concentration while rain hammered the windows.
At fourteen he had been afraid his father would die on deployment and had refused to say goodbye at the airport because saying goodbye, in his logic, made death more likely.
At thirty-eight, after his first combat command, he had called Rachel at two in the morning and asked whether she still had the recipe for his grandmother’s meatloaf.
He had not mentioned Afghanistan.
She had not mentioned it either.
Their family had many methods for discussing fear.
Most involved pretending to discuss something else.
The conference phone lit.
Ortega stood.
Rachel did not.
He pressed the button.
“Command Sergeant Major Ortega.”
Nathan’s voice came through the speaker.
“Is she with you?”
Rachel closed her eyes.
“Hello to you too.”
There was silence.
Then, “Mom.”
The single word contained anger, relief, authority, and something embarrassingly young.
Ortega moved toward the door.
Rachel shook her head.
He stayed.
Nathan said, “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did Mercer touch you?”
“No.”
“I heard he kicked the door.”
“He did.”
Another silence.
“What were you doing at the east service corridor?”
There it was.
Rachel leaned back.
“Remarkable.”
“What?”
“You made it twenty-two seconds.”
“Mom.”
“No, I’m impressed.”
Ortega looked at the table.
Nathan’s voice dropped. “I am asking because the incident report says you entered a restricted corridor.”
“The incident report is wrong.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
Rachel did.
Not all of it.
Not yet.
She told him about arriving at visitor processing for the Gold Star family advisory luncheon, which Nathan had invited her to three months earlier and apparently forgotten was that day. She told him about the faulty fire alarm panel that chirped twice and prompted Staff Sergeant Lyle Jenkins to clear the small lobby while maintenance checked a smoke sensor. She told him Jenkins had opened the east service door because the normal visitor exit had temporarily locked during the alarm reset.
She told him David intercepted her on the other side.
She told him David demanded her badge, accused her of bypassing access control, and refused to speak to Jenkins after Jenkins had already been called away to another building.
She told him she became irritated.
Nathan interrupted.
“How irritated?”
Rachel frowned.
“Why does everybody ask women that question like irritation is a felony?”
“Because I know you.”
Ortega suddenly found the crooked photograph extremely interesting again.
Rachel said, “I told him his security process was ‘performative nonsense.’”
Nathan groaned.
“That is not a threat.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“I also told him he was confusing authority with accuracy.”
“Jesus.”
“Your father would have said worse.”
“My father once told a colonel his briefing had the nutritional value of drywall.”
“And he was right.”
“That isn’t helping your case.”
Rachel stopped.
There was warmth in the exchange, irritating and familiar.
For three seconds she nearly forgot the cell.
Then she remembered Ethan’s face as he admitted clicking acknowledgment.
“Nathan.”
Her son heard the change.
“What?”
“Did you know there had been complaints about Mercer?”
The speaker produced nothing but faint electronic hiss.
Ortega stopped touching the frame.
Rachel looked at him.
He looked back.
That was answer enough to make her stomach tighten.
Nathan said, “We need to be precise about that.”
“Which means yes.”
“It means there were personnel issues.”
“What kind?”
“I’m not discussing an active personnel matter on an unsecured conference line.”
“It’s a secure room.”
“Not for what you’re asking.”
Rachel’s hand tightened around the bottle.
“How many complaints?”
“Mom.”
“How many?”
Ortega said quietly, “Ma’am.”
Rachel looked at him.
He shook his head once.
Not now.
The gesture irritated her, mostly because he was right.
Nathan said, “An outside investigator is already being requested. I am recusing myself from decisions related to Mercer’s status.”
“After ordering my release.”
“Yes.”
“Do you understand how that looks?”
His answer came immediately.
“Yes.”
She believed him.
That made it worse.
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
“Did you order my release because I’m your mother?”
“No.”
May you like
“You didn’t hesitate.”
“I didn’t need to. The duty officer had the visitor authorization, the evacuation log, Jenkins’s statement, and no articulated basis to continue holding you.”
