Chapter 2 - THE ROOM THAT WAS LOCKED TO MASON
Nobody moved.
Mason stared at the glass.
I stared at Mason.
One of the captains finally whispered:
“Who is that?”
The figure behind the glass stood.
The speaker clicked again.
“Colonel Reed. Step away from Mr. Hayes.”
Mason did.
Not because I asked.
That bothered me almost as much as the punch.
The observation-room door opened through a side corridor about thirty seconds later.
The man who entered was somewhere in his mid-forties.
Air Force colonel.
Blue service uniform.
No entourage.
His name tape read:
VALE
Mason looked at him.
“Aaron.”
Colonel Aaron Vale stopped beside the wall.
“Don't.”
The first-name familiarity disappeared immediately.
Mason straightened.
“What are you doing here?”
Vale looked toward the muddy water.
“Observing.”
“This room was sealed.”
“It was.”
I rubbed my cheek.
“Was?”
Vale looked at me.
“Mr. Hayes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need medical attention?”
“No.”
“That's not the same as being fine.”
“I said no.”
He accepted it.
Mason did not.
“You entered a secured evaluation space without coordinating with the evaluation director.”
Vale turned toward him.
“I coordinated.”
“With who?”
“Air Education and Training Command standardization.”
Mason went quiet.
Vale continued.
“This was a no-notice integrity observation.”
One of the young officers shifted in his chair.
Mason glanced toward them.
Vale noticed.
“Nobody in this room is required to answer questions until they're advised who is conducting the review and why.”
That sentence made three officers look more nervous.
Mason's jaw tightened.
“What review?”
Vale looked toward the observation glass.
“The one you were not supposed to know was happening.”
Then he looked at the floor.
“My prints came from the rear observation entrance. Grounds crew had just watered the strip outside.”
So that answered one question.
The prints were not evidence of a break-in.
Vale had authorization.
Then why had Mason tried so desperately to erase them?
I asked.
“Colonel Reed?”
Mason looked at me.
I pointed toward the floor.
“If the man belonged there, why'd you flood his tracks?”
Mason said nothing.
Vale answered instead.
“Because my presence changes what today's evaluation means.”
Mason snapped toward him.
“Don't explain my decisions for me.”
Vale nodded.
“Then you explain.”
Mason looked at the young officers.
Then at me.
“This class has been through three weeks of evaluation. A surprise observer walks into the hidden room without warning, everybody starts performing for the glass instead of the standard.”
“That isn't why you hit me.”
“No.”
Good.
At least he did not try that.
Vale said:
“This evaluation is suspended.”
A captain at the table reacted.
“Sir?”
Mason turned.
“Remain seated.”
Vale ignored him.
“All current scoring is frozen. Nobody deletes, exports, renames, or moves evaluation media.”
That changed the room again.
This was not about footprints.
Mason knew it too.
“What do you think you're going to find?”
Vale looked directly at him.
“I don't know yet.”
Mason laughed once.
Then Vale added:
“But I know what we found in the August package.”
The young captain nearest me went still.
Mason's expression hardened.
I had no idea what the August package was.
Then Captain Jenna Ortiz slowly closed her laptop.
Vale looked at her.
“Captain?”
She stared at Mason.
Then said:
“The replay.”
Mason's head turned.
Vale did not ask what she meant.
Which told me he already knew.
I looked from one officer to the other.
“What replay?”
Nobody answered.
Then Vale turned toward me.
“Mr. Hayes, were you working here on August twelfth?”
“Yes.”
“Night shift?”
“Yes.”
“Did you sign the observation-room lockdown checklist?”
My stomach tightened.
I remembered the page.
Blue clipboard.
10:05 p.m.
One box marked:
OBSERVATION SUITE SECURED / UNOCCUPIED
My initials beside it.
“Yes.”
Vale looked toward the glass.
May you like
“Then I need to talk to you too.”
Because apparently the mystery had already reached backward into a night when I had signed my name beneath something I had never actually verified.
