Chapter 3 - Seventy-Two Hours Became Three Years
Vanessa took me to her office under escort.
Not because security trusted me.
Because she argued that if I was an impostor, keeping me near the person I was impersonating made sense.
Military logic can be very elegant when someone with stars needs five minutes.
Her office overlooked the parade field.
Family photograph on the credenza.
Vanessa.
A man I assumed was her ex-husband.
And a young woman around twenty-five.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Silver ring on her left hand.
I noticed it.
Said nothing.
Vanessa locked the door.
“What happened after the depot fire?” she asked.
“I remember.”
“Tell me.”
I stared at her.
“Smoke. Leah yelling. Waking up somewhere else.”
Vanessa's face tightened at the name.
I saw it.
“Keep going.”
“Off-base medical clinic.”
“Yes.”
“No uniform.”
“Yes.”
“Different name on the door.”
“Yes.”
“Sarah Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“You told me there had been a security breach.”
“There had.”
“You told me I couldn't contact my mother.”
“For seventy-two hours.”
“You told me no one could know I survived.”
“Seventy-two hours.”
I laughed.
“I stayed there eleven days.”
“Because you had a concussion and a fractured wrist.”
“And because two men stood outside the hall.”
“Security.”
“Whose?”
Vanessa didn't answer immediately.
Exactly.
“Julian’s?”
“One was.”
I stood.
“You put Voss's people outside my room.”
“I didn't know what he was yet.”
“What was he?”
Vanessa stared at the family photograph.
“Someone who had built a system people like me used when formal systems were too slow.”
“Meaning?”
“Emergency relocations.”
I laughed once.
“That's a charming phrase.”
“Witnesses. Translators. Contractors caught between investigations. People who needed to be moved before a leak reached whoever wanted them quiet.”
“Legal?”
“Parts of it.”
“Which parts?”
Vanessa looked tired.
“That question is why you started digging.”
Memory.
Leah across a conference table.
A spreadsheet I never finished reading.
Names of people listed under casualty statuses that did not match hospital transport logs.
I had thought it was an accounting mistake.
Leah had said:
“Once is a mistake. Seven is a method.”
My throat tightened.
“What was Leah doing there?”
Vanessa's eyes went to the photograph again.
“You remembered her.”
“Yes.”
“What do you remember?”
“Civilian analyst. Worked with personnel systems.”
“She was attached to the casualty review team.”
“Why was she with me at the depot?”
“Because you asked her to show you something.”
I closed my eyes.
We had met after hours because Leah refused to send copies electronically.
Then fire alarms.
Running.
A fall.
After that, fragments.
“Did the fire kill anyone?”
“One civilian contractor died.”
“Was I assumed to be inside?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your field bag was recovered there. Your phone. Your temporary access card.”
“Why were they there?”
“You gave Leah the bag because your wrist was already bothering you from training.”
I remembered.
Not clearly enough to trust.
Vanessa continued:
“Responders had incomplete head counts. You were transported off-site before the casualty team reconciled names.”
“And you found me.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Leah called me.”
My eyes opened.
“Leah survived.”
“Yes.”
“Then where was she?”
Vanessa's voice changed.
“Gone by the time I arrived.”
I stared.
“She called you, then disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That you were alive and Julian's network was the only channel she trusted to move you quickly.”
My stomach tightened.
“She called Voss.”
“Yes.”
“So Leah put me inside his system.”
“Initially.”
“And you left me there.”
“For seventy-two hours.”
Again.
I stepped closer.
“Stop saying seventy-two hours like the next three years happened to somebody else.”
Vanessa looked at me.
After the third day, she learned two things.
First, the casualty office had moved from provisional missing to deceased based on a combined incident report.
Second, Julian Voss knew Leah had called her.
“He told me if I corrected your status immediately, whoever had been looking through the false-casualty files would know you survived.”
“Was that true?”
“I didn't know.”
“So you believed him.”
“For a week.”
“Then?”
She looked away.
“He showed me something.”
“What?”
No answer.
I followed her eyes.
The family photograph.
The young woman.
Silver ring.
Then I remembered the masked woman's hand near her cap.
A silver band.
Same shape.
I walked to the credenza.
Picked up the photograph.
Vanessa didn't stop me.
“Who is this?”
Her face collapsed slightly.
I already knew.
I just needed her to say it.
“My daughter.”
“Name.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“Leah Cole.”
I stared at the photograph.
Then at her.
May you like
The woman from the canteen had not just frightened Vanessa because she knew an old secret.
Vanessa believed the masked woman might be the daughter who vanished the same night I died.
