Chapter 9 - OPERATION IRONFALLMemory returned violently.
A classified planning room.
Forty-eight hours before Ridge Kilo.
Everett Reed.
Evelyn Shaw.
Samuel Voss.
Claire Mercer.
A proposed deception operation.
IRONFALL.
Use a convoy on an empty route to provoke the compromised intelligence network.
Track whoever responded.
Expose the leak.
Claire had signed the authorization.
Daniel saw the truth in her face.
“What did you do?”
Claire couldn't hide anymore.
“I approved Ironfall.”
Mason stared.
“You used Marines as bait?”
“I approved a controlled surveillance decoy.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“My convoy?”
“Yes.”
His face broke.
“You knew?”
“Not what Voss had done.”
“But you authorized it.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.
“My father died because of your operation.”
Claire didn't defend herself.
“Yes.”
Rebecca slapped her.
Hard.
Claire accepted it.
Daniel tore the corrected first page from the report.
“You saved us because you put us there?”
“No.”
He glared.
“Don't lie to me.”
Claire forced herself to answer.
“I went back because you were ours.”
Daniel left.
Mason followed.
Rebecca followed them.
Adrian remained only long enough to hand Claire a drive.
“My mother made this for you.”
Then he walked away too.
Claire stood alone.
A legendary commander.
A national scandal unfolding around her.
A conspiracy exposed.
May you like
And none of it mattered.
Because she had just become the villain in the story of the people she had saved.
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