Chapter 6 - THE COMMANDER'S SECRET
Emma did not want to believe Wade’s warning pointed toward Colonel Whitmore. Whitmore had responded immediately, protected witnesses, and authorized the mountain recovery. Yet the photograph proved she knew the civilian woman tied to Drake.
Park identified the woman as Evelyn Shaw, owner of Meridian Strategic Transport, one of the largest contractors supporting the base. Meridian vehicles had access to every gate and warehouse. Shaw had attended the dinner as a donor to a military family foundation chaired by Whitmore’s sister.
Whitmore did not deny the connection. “I met her twice. I recommended Meridian for a contract three years ago based on performance reports.”
“Reports written by Drake?” Emma asked.
Whitmore’s silence answered.
Grant examined financial records and found donations from Meridian to the family foundation. None went directly to Whitmore, but the money created leverage and the appearance of influence.
Whitmore removed herself from operational control pending review. Command passed temporarily to Brigadier General Thomas Vale, who arrived from regional headquarters.
Vale was polished, reassuring, and immediately hostile to Emma’s continued role.
“You are a complainant, not an investigator,” he told her. “Return to quarters.”
Park objected. Vale overruled her.
That night Emma’s room was searched. Nothing obvious was stolen, but her field notebook—the one containing the time of the Coke incident—had been replaced with an identical notebook. The pages looked the same until she held them beneath a lamp. The pressure marks from her handwriting were gone.
Someone wanted to erase the first authentic record.
Ruiz hid Emma in a maintenance office while Blake checked security logs. The hallway camera near her room had been disabled using an administrator code belonging to General Vale.
Park confronted Vale. He called it a technical error.
Then Wade woke long enough to speak. Emma, Park, and Grant gathered around his bed.
“White Current,” Wade whispered. “Not Drake’s operation. Vale built it after the earthquake mission. Drake runs Red Canyon. Shaw moves cargo. Pike cleans problems.”
“Why frame me?” Emma asked.
“Because you found the pattern. And because your father found it first.”
Emma went cold.
Her father, Commander James Carter, had died in a helicopter crash twelve years earlier during a relief mission. The official report blamed mechanical failure.
Wade said James had discovered relief supplies being redirected through abandoned depots. He intended to testify. Vale, then a colonel, supervised the mission.
Before Wade could explain more, alarms sounded. Smoke poured from the hospital corridor. A fire had started in a supply room.
Ruiz carried Wade toward the exit while Emma helped move patients. In the confusion, a masked figure entered through a side door and injected something into Wade’s IV.
Emma saw the movement and slammed the attacker into the wall. The mask came off.
It was Lieutenant Pike.
He escaped into the smoke, but Wade survived because Emma tore out the IV.
Outside, as medics treated him, Wade gripped her wrist.
“Your father’s flight recorder,” he whispered. “Drake has it.”
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Across the base, lights flickered on in Drake’s quarters.
By the time military police arrived, the room was empty.
