Chapter 6

The news hit the base like a wave.

By the time the noon chow line opened, every service member on the installation had heard about the vanished complaint. Not the official version — there was no official version, because the complaint did not exist. The unofficial version was better. It had details. It had names. It had the tracking number that had been voided at 14:35 and the clerk who had been seen shaking his head when the envelope vanished from the outbound basket.

It had Sergeant Major Tate, who was seen walking out of Commander Marrow's office that morning with a folded page in his shirt pocket, and who had not spoken a word to anyone since.

Commander Rourke was confined to quarters. That was the official story. He was resting, said the command duty officer. He was recovering from a personal incident, said the base public affairs officer. He was not available for comment, said everyone, which was the closest thing the base had to a confession.

Captain Meredith Callahan was not confined to anything. She was seen at the mess hall at 07:00, eating breakfast alone at a table by the window with the same folded hands and the same flat calm that she had worn on the parade ground. The red mark at the corner of her mouth was still visible, a thin line that had faded to a faint scab but had not disappeared. It was the only outward sign that anything had happened.

A junior lieutenant approached her table. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with a face that had not yet learned to hide its emotions. He stood at what he probably thought was parade rest, his hands behind his back, his shoulders squared.