Chapter 6 - THE CONVOY WAS NEVER THE TARGETMason couldn't understand.
“Why would Voss want Marines dead?”
Adrian looked at Claire.
“He didn't.”
Daniel's jaw tightened.
“Then what was Ridge Kilo?”
“Bait.”
Claire already knew.
“Iron Team.”
Adrian nodded.
Three weeks before Ridge Kilo, Claire's unit had recovered an encrypted hard drive from a destroyed safe house.
They had been ordered to surrender it immediately.
Nobody told them what it contained.
Adrian now did.
Bank transfers.
Contractor payments.
Foreign intermediaries.
Senior intelligence officials.
A corruption network worth hundreds of millions.
Voss's name sat near the center.
Evelyn discovered the connection.
She contacted Everett.
Together, they began investigating.
Voss discovered them.
He needed the evidence buried.
And Iron Team eliminated.
So a Marine convoy was routed into danger.
Command would eventually call the position unrecoverable.
Iron Team would inevitably volunteer.
Then both the witnesses and the recovery unit would die in the same valley.
Daniel looked sick.
“My men were disposable?”
“To Voss,” Adrian answered. “Yes.”
Claire stared at Thomas Vale's casualty photograph.
Fourteen years of guilt transformed into rage.
Then Evelyn appeared on the projector.
A recording.
“If Claire Mercer sees this, Everett failed.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Evelyn continued.
“I did not betray Iron Team.”
Tears filled Claire's eyes.
“I tried to warn you.”
Then—
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
A cane struck concrete.
Claire knew that rhythm.
Samuel Voss entered.
Seventy-two.
Silver-haired.
Calm.
He smiled at Claire.
“You always were difficult to kill.”
Red targeting lasers appeared across Daniel's chest.
Mason's.
Claire's.
Voss turned toward Adrian.
“You should never have brought Iron Ten back.”
May you like
Adrian smiled.
“That was exactly why I brought her.”
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