Chapter 5 - THE FILE THAT SHOULD NOT EXISTThat night, Camp Vora became a crime scene.
Barracks were sealed.
Computers were confiscated.
Investigators photographed offices that had previously seemed ordinary.
The cafeteria remained closed.
I sat inside the temporary command center with an ice pack pressed against my forehead.
My concussion was mild.
My anger wasn't.
The investigation produced something disturbing.
Sterling's abuse was real.
The extortion was real.
Soldiers had been pressured into surrendering portions of their pay.
But the money didn't end with Sterling.
It moved through shell organizations.
Training contractors.
Equipment vendors.
Veterans' charities.
Then disappeared.
Thorne had protected the system.
But someone else had designed it.
An analyst placed a recovered document before me.
Most of it had been deleted.
One surviving directory name remained.
PROJECT HARBOR.
“What is Harbor?”
“We don't know.”
I studied the transaction history.
Millions had moved through Camp Vora over seven years.
Then I noticed a familiar authorization code.
My blood went cold.
I knew that code.
It belonged to a Pentagon office.
Not some obscure department.
My former office.
I stared at the screen.
Someone inside Washington had been approving Thorne's transactions.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
STOP DIGGING.
A second followed.
YOU WERE ALLOWED TO WIN TODAY.
Then a photograph loaded.
It showed me sitting inside the command center.
Taken seconds earlier.
I slowly looked toward the windows.
Darkness.
Nothing else.
Someone was still watching.
And whoever they were had access to a supposedly secure military investigation.
I finally understood Thorne's warning.
Camp Vora wasn't the disease.
May you like
It was one infected organ.
And I had just announced to the entire body that I knew it was sick.
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