Chapter 2 - The Temporary Assignment
Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Vance arrived at Forward Operating Base Mercer under temporary orders.
Officially, she was there to review supply losses, vehicle readiness, and unexplained delays affecting convoys moving through eastern Afghanistan.
The assignment sounded administrative.
That was intentional.
Three shipments of protective equipment had disappeared within four months.
Replacement vehicle parts were being recorded as installed, yet mechanics found old components still inside the vehicles.
Fuel reports did not match generator usage.
And soldiers who raised concerns were transferred, punished, or suddenly described as unreliable.
Captain Drake supervised the operations section tied to every discrepancy.
Previous inspections found nothing.
Each time a review team arrived, records became perfect.
Witnesses changed their stories.
Damaged equipment was moved.
Drake received advance notice through someone inside regional headquarters.
Sarah’s team decided the next inspection would not look like an inspection.
She entered the base wearing a field uniform without visible senior-rank identification and carried paperwork describing her as an attached logistics specialist.
Only the base commander and two investigators knew her real assignment.
Richard Vance was not there as her father.
Despite sharing a surname, they were not closely related.
He was the theater-support colonel responsible for authorizing the investigation.
The identical last name had caused confusion before. Sarah sometimes joked that half the Army assumed they were family.
Drake made the same assumption later.
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But the surname mattered for another reason.
It had appeared in a complaint he believed he had destroyed.
