Chapter 10 - THE LEDGER NAMED THE DEADThe ledger wasn't paper.
It was an encrypted database recovered from a Camp Vora maintenance server.
Hayes and a forensic analyst had found the backup.
Hundreds of names filled the screen.
Soldiers.
Contractors.
Officers.
Politicians.
Some marked ACTIVE.
Others marked COMPROMISED.
Several marked REMOVED.
The three missing Camp Vora whistleblowers were there.
REMOVED.
Then we found mine.
VANCE, ELENA.
STATUS: CONTROLLED ASSET.
My stomach tightened.
I had been monitored for years.
Every promotion.
Every investigation.
Every operation.
Harbor had been using legitimate oversight investigations to identify threats.
My career had become part of their machine without my knowing it.
Then Hayes pointed toward another name.
STERLING, THOMAS.
STATUS: EXPENDABLE.
Thorne too.
EXPENDABLE.
Harbor consumed its own people.
At the bottom of the file was a scheduled action.
VANCE TERMINATION — 09/12.
Three days away.
Hayes looked at me.
“What happens September twelfth?”
I knew immediately.
Congressional testimony.
I was scheduled to brief a closed Senate defense committee.
Harbor didn't need me dead today.
They needed me dead before I testified.
I closed the laptop.
“Then we don't cancel.”
Hayes stared.
“Ma'am?”
“We move the hearing forward.”
“To when?”
May you like
I looked at the clock.
“Tomorrow.”
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