My mother’s face drained of color. Ryan looked bewildered.
Hayes reached the barricade. He glared at the two security contractors who had dragged me there. “Remove this gate,” he ordered, his voice laced with absolute authority.
The guards scrambled, dragging the heavy metal barricade aside.
Hayes stepped through. He stopped exactly two feet in front of me. He brought his heels together with a sharp crack, raised his right hand in a razor-perfect salute, and held it.
“Captain Carter,” Hayes said, loud enough for the microphone on the stage to catch the echo. “I apologize for the delay. We cannot proceed until you take your seat. We have been waiting for you.”
The silence that followed was absolute. My mother gasped, a raw, ugly sound. Ryan stared at me, his eyes wide, the golden Trident suddenly looking very small on his chest.
I didn’t smile. I returned the salute. “Lead the way, Commander.”
As I walked back down the center aisle, past the staring admirals and my trembling family, a catering cart rattled past the outer edge of the seating area. The server, a man in a white apron whose face was obscured by a low cap, stumbled. He bumped hard into my shoulder.
“Apologies, ma’am,” he mumbled, hurrying away.
I felt a sudden weight in my dress pocket. I slipped my hand inside. My fingers brushed cold metal. A chain. Two metal rectangles.
I pulled them out just enough to see them. Dog tags. Tarnished. Stained with dried, rust-colored blood.
The blood I had watched soak into the desert sand six years ago.
Before I could process the impossibility in my palm, my cell phone vibrated violently against my hip. An encrypted video call. Unknown caller.
I stepped out of the procession line, raising the phone. The screen flickered to life.
It wasn’t a picture. It was a live feed.
A dark, concrete room. A chair in the center. A man was tied to it, his head slumped forward. His hair was streaked with gray, his face bruised, but the line of his jaw, the breadth of his shoulders—I knew them better than my own reflection.
