Chapter 4 - The Range Was Not the Real Test
Claire had known the demonstration was coming before Graves announced it.
The ammunition request had passed through her supply system two days earlier. Five rounds had been separated from the qualification stock and assigned to an unlisted event. Graves’s aide requested a rifle with deliberately misaligned optics, then changed the order when Claire personally inspected it.
That was the first sign.
The second came from the target placement.
The paper had been fixed at fifty yards, but the back wall had been freshly repainted except for one narrow section directly behind Claire’s firing lane. Someone wanted impacts to disappear into older damage.
Claire chose that section deliberately.
After the range cleared, she returned with Keller and examined the wall.
Four of the fresh marks belonged to her.
The fifth did not.
It sat inside the same cluster, almost hidden by the grouping.
Keller leaned closer.
“That impact predates this morning.”
Claire nodded.
The fragment removed from the concrete was not standard training ammunition. It came from a specialized round restricted to the reconnaissance program in Claire’s classified record.
Someone had fired that weapon on Fort Harlan’s range before the demonstration.
Someone with access to a category of ammunition that should not have existed on base.
Claire had been tracking that discrepancy for three weeks.
Cases of standard rifle ammunition arrived with seals that matched the shipping documents, but internal weight checks showed small differences. A handful of rounds had been exchanged with specialized cartridges, then moved through Graves’s training section under routine authorizations.
Graves had not created the scheme.
His contempt had made him useful to whoever did.
By arranging Claire’s public failure, he placed her on the exact lane where the old impact waited. If she fired at the paper, no one would inspect the back wall. If she appeared incompetent, future questions from a supply clerk would be easier to dismiss.
“Who suggested this demonstration?” Claire asked him.
Graves hesitated.
“Major Nolan.”
The battalion operations officer.
The same man who had signed the ammunition transfers.
Claire looked toward Keller.
“The range wasn’t built to embarrass me.”
May you like
“It was built to discredit you.”
“And to see whether I recognized the ammunition.”
