Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WITHOUT A UNIFORMTwo hours earlier, Mason Reed had believed he understood people.
Five years in the Marine Corps had given him confidence.
Too much confidence.
He knew how officers walked.
How combat veterans watched exits.
How frightened recruits overcompensated.
At least, he thought he did.
Then Claire Mercer entered wearing jeans and carrying a folder.
She sat alone.
That bothered him.
She wasn't nervous enough to be a visitor.
She wasn't social enough to be someone's date.
When Mason asked whether she worked on base, she simply said no.
When he asked whether she'd served, she said:
“Not exactly.”
His friends laughed.
Mason kept pushing.
“Ever deployed?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Several places.”
“Doing what?”
“Recovering things.”
“Paperwork?”
“Sometimes.”
The table erupted.
Claire didn't react.
That encouraged Mason.
“Did they give you a cool call sign too?”
Her fingers stopped around the glass.
For the first time that night, something changed in her expression.
Not embarrassment.
Memory.
A mountain corridor.
Burning diesel.
A shattered radio screaming static.
A Marine trapped beneath steel.
A dying man shouting at her to keep moving.
Thomas Vale.
Iron Three.
Claire returned to the present.
Mason was still smiling.
“Come on,” he said. “What was the call sign?”
She studied him.
Then answered.
“Iron Ten.”
Across the room, six older Marines went silent.
Daniel Cole turned toward her.
Fourteen years disappeared from his face.
He remembered darkness.
His leg crushed beneath an overturned vehicle.
Enemy fire crawling closer.
A woman's voice beside him.
“You stay awake, Sergeant.”
“I can't feel my leg.”
“That's because it's trapped.”
“You leaving?”
“No.”
“Everyone says that.”
Then the answer he had carried through every nightmare since.
“I'm not everyone.”
Daniel had asked her name.
She had leaned close.
“Iron Ten.”
Now that voice belonged to the woman sitting twenty feet away.
Daniel slowly approached.
Claire recognized him immediately.
“You survived.”
Daniel stared.
“So did you.”
“Barely.”
Mason looked between them.
“What happened?”
Neither answered.
Because Claire knew something Daniel didn't.
Eleven Marines had escaped Ridge Kilo.
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But Iron Team had entered with ten operators.
Only nine came home.
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