Chapter 12 - SAMUEL MERCER
Samuel Mercer was not a fugitive.
Not exactly.
He had left Port Hudson seven months earlier and taken a job with a private shipyard in Maine.
NCIS located him within a day.
He agreed to speak.
Then requested counsel after hearing the words Pallet Six.
Samuel was forty-four.
Former Navy electronics technician.
Later civilian logistics systems engineer.
He helped build the local seal-printer integration.
He also helped maintain PORT-RECOVER.
Pierce asked:
“Why did your credential queue D-91042?”
Samuel stared at the log.
“It didn't.”
“That's your name.”
“My account was disabled when I left.”
It wasn't.
Not fully.
HR disabled his normal network identity.
PORT-RECOVER stored an old contractor token alias mapped to S. MERCER for emergency recovery scripts.
Another dead credential.
“Who knew?”
“Caleb.”
Caleb admitted he did.
Maria might.
Two Navy IT personnel.
Possibly anyone who had copied the old recovery documentation.
Then Samuel asked:
“Did you find 28F?”
Rachel leaned forward.
“You knew 28F.”
His lawyer touched his arm.
Samuel continued anyway.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“Buffer.”
Mason frowned.
“Buffer for what?”
“Cargo nobody wanted sitting visibly in discrepancy.”
There.
During high-tempo loadouts, late or mismatched cargo was temporarily staged beside a container whose paperwork was already clean.
Not loaded inside necessarily.
Just physically grouped.
Why?
Inspectors walking the line saw orderly lanes instead of scattered rejected pallets.
Hale stared.
“Who authorized that?”
Samuel looked at her.
“Everyone who kept asking why the pier looked dirty before inspections.”
No direct order.
Same machine.
Then Pallet Six.
Samuel received a system alert because its consignee number conflicted.
He sent a correction request.
Nobody answered before midnight.
So the pallet moved to 28F buffer staging.
Who ordered the commercial transfer after that?
Samuel looked at the table.
“I did.”
Rachel stopped.
“You moved it.”
“To Bayport.”
“Why?”
“Repair Annex said they could verify the serials.”
“Then where did it go?”
Samuel's face changed.
“It left with the feeder load.”
“Bayport never got it.”
“I know.”
“When did you learn?”
“Three days later.”
“Why didn't you report it?”
“I did.”
“To who?”
Samuel looked toward Hale.
Not her.
“Commander Richard Voss.”
Former Port Hudson logistics director.
Hale's predecessor.
Retired five months ago.
Samuel said Voss told him:
“Let Bayport reconcile before we create a theft report.”
Bayport searched.
No pallet.
Then Voss asked Samuel to trace it quietly.
Two weeks.
Then four.
By then, Samuel discovered something worse.
The feeder barge manifest had been edited after departure.
Pallet Six disappeared from the electronic cargo list.
User:
PORT-RECOVER.
Samuel believed the system itself had corrupted.
He started preserving logs.
Then somebody accessed his account.
Security blamed him.
His contractor employer offered either resignation or a formal misconduct review.
Samuel resigned.
“Why not go to NCIS?”
Pierce asked.
Samuel looked ashamed.
“I thought I had caused it.”
There.
Rachel knew that feeling.
Then Samuel said:
“I didn't steal anything.”
No evidence said he had.
“Did you create duplicate Carter seals?”
“No.”
“Did you know her name was being used?”
Samuel hesitated.
“Yes.”
Rachel stared.
“When?”
“Before I left.”
“How?”
“Someone emailed me a photograph.”
“Who?”
Samuel looked at her.
“You.”
Rachel went still.
“No.”
He opened an archived message.
Sender:
Subject:
SEAL ERROR 28F
Attached:
The photograph Rachel had taken seven months earlier.
Rachel stared.
“I never emailed you that.”
Her original photo had only been texted to Mason.
Then deleted from her phone months later.
The email was sent twenty-three minutes after her text to Mason.
From her Navy mailbox.
Rachel looked at him.
Mason's face changed.
“I didn't send it.”
May you like
Someone had accessed Rachel's account that night.
And the old mystery had just become more personal than a copied seal template.
