Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO DIED ON THE RIDGEDaniel opened the envelope.
Six pages waited inside.
He recognized the classification formatting immediately.
RIDGE KILO.
His hands began trembling.
“That report was destroyed.”
“You were told it was destroyed,” Claire replied.
Daniel reached the casualty section.
Then stopped.
GUNNERY SERGEANT THOMAS VALE.
KILLED DURING EXTRACTION.
Daniel looked up.
“One of your people died?”
Claire nodded.
“Getting your radio operator across the ridge.”
Daniel stared at the name.
“I never knew.”
“You weren't supposed to.”
Mason's arrogance finally collapsed.
“I didn't know any of this.”
Claire looked directly at him.
“That wasn't your mistake.”
Mason frowned.
“What was?”
“You decided that because you didn't know my story, you were entitled to invent one.”
He had no response.
Daniel closed the report.
“Why bring this here after fourteen years?”
Claire's answer changed the room again.
“Because somebody reopened Ridge Kilo.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Claire placed another document beside the report.
“The convoy route was changed.”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“We knew that.”
“No. You were told your unit made the mistake.”
Daniel went motionless.
Claire continued.
“You didn't.”
“What?”
“Someone changed the route and rewrote the after-action report afterward.”
Daniel stood.
“My Marines were blamed?”
“Yes.”
“For fourteen years?”
“Yes.”
Anger transformed him.
“Who authorized the change?”
Claire pulled out a photograph.
Two officers stood outside an operations center.
One was Major Halpern.
The other was Colonel Everett Reed.
Mason's father.
Mason stared.
“No.”
Daniel said nothing.
Mason looked at him.
“You knew Dad was there?”
Daniel finally answered.
“Yes.”
Mason's world shifted.
Their father had told him he was stateside.
He had lied.
Claire watched the brothers carefully.
Then delivered the detail that prevented the obvious conclusion.
“Your father didn't sell the convoy route.”
Mason looked at her.
“Then why show us this?”
“Because somebody wants us to believe he did.”
Outside the bar, the gray-jacketed stranger received another message.
THEY TOOK THE BAIT.
May you like
He typed his response.
SO DID VOSS.
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