Victoria’s breathing changed.
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
She stared at the table.
“Maybe once a week.”
“Did he tell you why?”
“He said he didn’t want junior officers wasting time driving documents around.”
“And you believed that?”
Victoria’s face twisted.
“I believed my husband.”
For the first time since Maya had met her, Victoria Sterling looked powerless.
And somehow that did not make Maya feel better.
Chapter 6 — Pressure
The investigation became impossible to hide.
News vehicles appeared outside the installation.
Military blogs began publishing speculation.
Someone leaked Maya’s name.
By Friday morning, strangers knew who she was.
Some called her courageous.
Others accused her of exaggerating the confrontation to destroy a senior officer.
A photo of her swollen cheek appeared online.
She hated it.
At the dining facility, conversations stopped when she entered.
A Sergeant she barely knew approached her tray.
“You’re the Specialist who took down Sterling.”
Maya’s stomach tightened.
“I didn’t take down anyone.”
He grinned.
“You know what I mean.”
“No.”
He walked away confused.
Maya lost her appetite.
That afternoon, General Vance found her outside the motor pool.
Maya saluted.
Vance returned it.
“You look irritated.”
“Permission to speak freely, General?”
“Please.”
“I hate this.”
Vance nodded.
“Reasonable.”
“Everyone acts like I did something extraordinary.”
“You followed an order under pressure.”
“That should be ordinary.”
“Yes.”
Maya looked at her.
“Then why isn’t it?”
Vance smiled faintly.
“That is a question people have been trying to answer since armies existed.”
Maya looked toward the maintenance bays.
“Can I ask something?”
“Yes.”
“Why were you personally here?”
Vance’s expression changed.
“The inspection involved information I did not trust to travel through normal channels.”
“You thought someone here was involved.”
“Yes.”
“Colonel Sterling?”
“We suspected a command-level connection.”
Maya hesitated.
“But not him specifically.”
“No.”
Vance looked toward the road.
“Until that morning.”
Maya thought of Richard’s face when he arrived.
The brief flash of calculation.
General Vance had seen it.
“You knew when he looked at the car.”
“I became more interested.”
Maya almost smiled.
Vance continued.
“Powerful people rarely expose themselves during rehearsed moments.”
She looked at Maya.
“They expose themselves when something unexpected happens.”
The unexpected event had been Victoria striking a Specialist.
Her arrogance had cracked open something far larger.
Maya lowered her voice.
“Do you think she knew?”
“About the equipment?”
“Yes.”
“I think she knew she was abusing access.”
Vance paused.
“That is not the same as knowing why her husband wanted her to.”
The distinction mattered.
Maya realized she had begun imagining Victoria as part of some elaborate conspiracy.
But perhaps the truth was uglier in a simpler way.
Victoria had wanted privilege.
Richard had found privilege useful.
“What happens now?”
“We follow evidence.”
“And if it leads nowhere?”
“Then it leads nowhere.”
Vance started walking away.
Maya called after her.
“General?”
Vance turned.
“Why did you pick up my cap?”
The question had been bothering Maya for days.
Vance considered it.
“Because someone had knocked it into the dirt.”
“That’s all?”
Vance’s expression softened.
“No.”
She looked at Maya for a long moment.
“Your father once did something similar for me.”
Maya stopped breathing.
“What?”
Vance seemed to realize she had said more than intended.
But she did not take it back.
“Ask him.”
Then she walked away.
Maya drove home so quickly she missed her normal exit.
Minh was in the garage behind their house when she arrived.
An old pickup sat on jack stands.
He was underneath it.
“Dad.”
Metal clinked.
“Kitchen.”
“No.”
Silence.
Minh slid out.
He saw her face.
Then he sighed.
“She told you.”
Maya stared.
“You know General Vance.”
“Come inside.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“How?”
Minh wiped his hands on a rag.
The evening light entered through the open garage door.
For the first time in her life, Maya looked at her father and realized there were years inside him she knew nothing about.
“Sit.”
She remained standing.
Minh sat on an overturned bucket.
“Before you were born, I worked at a civilian repair facility near Fort Bragg.”
Maya folded her arms.
“I know.”
“You know I fixed cars.”
“Yes.”
“You do not know which cars.”
She waited.
“Government vehicles sometimes.”
Maya’s anger softened into confusion.
“Why would General Vance know you?”
Minh looked toward the old pickup.
“Because twenty-four years ago, she was a Lieutenant Colonel.”
Maya blinked.
“She came to the shop during a hurricane evacuation.”
Minh smiled faintly at the memory.
“Everyone was moving equipment inland. Trucks everywhere. Rain so hard we could not see the road.”
He rubbed his hands.
“One transport had steering problem. People said wait until morning.”
“What transport?”
“Command vehicle.”
“General Vance’s?”
“She was not General then.”
Maya almost laughed from frustration.
“Dad.”
“Yes. Her vehicle.”
“What happened?”
“I fixed it.”
“That’s it?”
Minh looked at her.
“No.”
Rain began tapping lightly against the garage roof.
“While I repaired it, another truck came in. Driver was young soldier. Exhaust system broke. He had been carrying evacuees from low housing area.”