Chapter 8 - PRIVATE MILLER FOUND HIS COURAGEBefore leaving Camp Vora, I visited Leo Miller.
He was sitting alone outside the barracks.
The silver eagle I had shown Sterling rested in his palm.
“You shouldn't have that.”
“You gave it to me.”
“I was concussed.”
He almost smiled.
Then his expression changed.
“Ma'am, there's something I didn't tell investigators.”
I sat beside him.
“What?”
“The night before you got hit, I saw Major Sterling behind Building Seventeen.”
“With whom?”
“General Thorne.”
“Anyone else?”
Miller nodded.
“A woman.”
“Describe her.”
“Civilian. Maybe fifty. Blonde. Dark coat.”
He hesitated.
“She had a Pentagon badge.”
My pulse quickened.
“Did you hear anything?”
“One sentence.”
“What?”
Miller looked frightened again.
“She told Sterling, ‘Vance cannot leave Camp Vora with the ledger.’”
The ledger.
I had never heard of it.
“Leo, why didn't you tell anyone?”
“Because she saw me.”
Everything changed.
“When?”
“When I walked away.”
I immediately called security.
Miller would be placed in protective custody.
As agents approached, he grabbed my sleeve.
“Colonel.”
“Yes?”
“If they're inside the Pentagon…”
“I know.”
“Then who's protecting us?”
I had no reassuring answer.
So I gave him the truth.
“We protect each other.”
Miller nodded.
May you like
That terrified nineteen-year-old soldier finally looked less like a victim.
And more like someone who had decided fear would no longer choose his future.
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