Chapter 9 - The Man Who Sent the Text
Maya moved Doss into protective custody before sunrise. She let me speak with him through the open doorway of an interview room, with a recorder running and two investigators watching.
"Why warn me?" I asked.
Doss stared at his cuffed hands. "My brother was Corporal Ben Park. He died at Kharif Pass."
The name punched the air from my lungs. Ben had handed me a stale granola bar five minutes before the convoy rolled out. "You worked for Cinderline?"
"I took a subcontract after the funeral. I wanted to find out why the radios failed." Doss shook his head. "Instead I found invoices I couldn't explain. The company billed the Army for encryption units with a firmware revision that never existed."
"Who told you to kidnap June?"
"Miles Voss, the operations director. I was supposed to photograph her school, scare Tessa into handing over Eli's token. I changed my mind. The other guy didn't."
Maya leaned forward. "What does the token open?"
"An offline service terminal. They installed one for field testing. Four red warning lights. It stores a mirror of every routing command. They couldn't scrub it remotely."
"Where?" I demanded.
Doss looked sick. "In a decommissioned relay station north of Red Mesa. My brother wrote its location on the back of his field notebook. The notebook disappeared from his effects."
Maya held up her phone. "We can get a search warrant."
"Voss will get there first," Doss said. "He knows I talked."
Tessa stepped into the doorway holding Eli's token. "Then we go now."
"Absolutely not," Maya said.
"You don't get to tell me to stay home while my husband's name is dragged through the dirt," she snapped. "I stayed home for eleven months. Look what it bought us."
I understood her anger. I also saw June waiting down the hall with Atlas's head on her shoe.
"You stay with June," I told Tessa. "I'll bring the truth back."
As Maya organized the search team, Rourke called from the base. His voice was strained.
"Nora, Sloane has placed me under investigation for mishandling classified material. They confiscated my badge."
"Where are you?"
May you like
"Just outside headquarters. And somebody left a package on my windshield."
The line went quiet. Then he said, "It's Eli's field notebook. The last page is missing."
