Chapter 4 - PALLET SIX
Rachel returned to the pier the next morning only as an interview witness.
No uniformed supervisor responsibilities.
No seal access.
That distinction irritated her until she met Petty Officer Second Class Ethan Ford.
Ethan was twenty-six.
Night-shift cargo control.
He asked to speak with NCIS after seeing Mason removed.
Rachel knew him.
Barely.
He had been a seaman seven months earlier during the 33A shipment.
Pierce put all three in the same room only after Ethan agreed Rachel could hear his statement.
Ethan opened with:
“I saw Pallet Six.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“When?”
“After you left.”
“Where?”
“Lane B.”
“Did it go into 33A?”
Ethan looked at the table.
“No.”
Rachel stopped.
“Mason said seal it when Six arrived.”
“He did.”
“Then why didn't it go in?”
“Label mismatch.”
The pallet arrived from Naval Repair Depot Chesapeake with a routing label for Pier Four.
But the final consignee number did not match the destroyer's shipment order.
Mason called logistics control.
Nobody answered.
The vessel load window was closing.
“What did he do?”
Rachel asked.
Ethan answered:
“Put the pallet in Hold 7.”
A secured staging area beside the pier warehouse.
Then he sealed 33A with only five pallets.
Using Rachel's custodian profile.
Rachel stared.
“Why is the manifest six?”
Ethan looked ashamed.
“I changed the physical count.”
Rachel's expression hardened.
“From five to six.”
“Yes.”
“Who told you?”
“Mason.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I was new.”
Not enough.
Ethan knew.
He corrected himself.
“And I wanted the ship to go.”
There.
If the manifest showed five, the shipment would be flagged incomplete.
Incomplete meant:
Stop.
Reconcile.
Possibly miss the load slot.
Ethan entered six.
Mason signed the shift note.
Then someone created a transfer order for Pallet Six from Hold 7 to Commercial Bonded Storage East.
Why?
Temporary routing review.
Normal enough when military cargo arrived with bad consignee data.
Except nobody at Bonded Storage East could later find it.
The transfer order was electronic.
User:
PORT-RECOVER
Shared emergency logistics account.
Rachel looked at Hale.
“Whose account?”
“Operations.”
“How many people?”
“At the time?”
Hale hesitated.
“Too many.”
Pierce answered:
“Thirty-one.”
Rachel almost laughed.
“So my name was on the seal and thirty-one people could move the missing pallet.”
Pierce nodded.
“That is why we did not accuse you.”
“That's comforting.”
Then Ethan opened his phone.
He still had one photograph.
Pallet Six beside Hold 7.
Timestamp:
18:09.
After Rachel left.
Behind it—
Mason.
And farther down the pier, partially visible beside a forklift—
Lieutenant Commander Brooke Hale.
Rachel turned toward her.
“You were there.”
Hale stared at the image.
“Yes.”
“You told me yesterday this was a routing discrepancy.”
“It was.”
“You saw the pallet outside the container.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know the manifest said six?”
Hale's jaw tightened.
“Not at that moment.”
Ethan looked at her.
Rachel caught it.
“What?”
Ethan did not want to speak.
Pierce did.
“Say it.”
Ethan swallowed.
“Ma'am told Chief Reed to get the load green.”
Hale closed her eyes.
Rachel looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Hale answered:
“It meant resolve the discrepancy.”
Ethan said:
“That's not how he heard it.”
Hale turned.
“I did not tell him to falsify a manifest.”
“No, ma'am.”
“Did I?”
“No.”
There.
No clean villain.
Then Ethan added:
“You said, ‘I don't care where the pallet sleeps tonight. I care that the ship sails.’”
Hale remembered that.
Everyone could tell.
Rachel looked toward the old photograph.
Mason moved the pallet.
Ethan changed the count.
Hale made the schedule more important than the process.
Rachel had already signed before the container was complete.
Then she left.
All four choices had touched the same shipment.
May you like
But somebody else had created the transfer order after midnight.
And Pallet Six had vanished after the rest of them went home.
