Report within seventy-two hours.
She packed quietly.
She didn't tell her brother.
She didn't tell her friends.
She didn't even tell Reeves.
But before leaving, she went to the old chapel on base.
There was someone waiting for her.
A woman in civilian clothes.
About sixty.
Short gray hair.
Black coat.
Lena didn't recognize her.
"Sergeant Brooks?"
"Yes."
"My name is Helen Ward."
"Who are you?"
"Someone who owes your father a favor."
Lena froze.
"My father?"
Helen nodded.
"Thomas Brooks."
Lena's expression changed.
Her father had died eight years earlier.
He had been a mechanic.
At least, that was what Lena had always believed.
"How do you know him?"
Helen looked around.
"Your father wasn't just a mechanic."
Lena felt the world shift.
"What are you talking about?"
"He worked as a federal contractor."
"Doing what?"
"Investigations."
Lena shook her head.
"No."
"He helped uncover procurement fraud."
"You're mistaken."
Helen reached into her bag.
She removed an old photograph.
Lena stared at it.
Her father stood beside three men.
One was Helen.
Another was someone Lena recognized immediately.
Colonel Adrian Vale.
The photograph had been taken fifteen years earlier.
Lena looked up.
"Why is my father standing with him?"
"Because they were investigating the same operation."
"What operation?"
Helen looked at her.
"The theft of military communications equipment."
Lena's heart began pounding.
"The Meridian Shield program?"
Helen nodded.
"Your father discovered something."
"What?"
"He discovered the equipment wasn't being stolen."
Lena stared at her.
"It was being sold."
"To whom?"
Helen's expression darkened.
"That is what he died trying to prove."
Lena couldn't speak.
Her father had died in a highway accident.
That was the official story.
A wet road.
A mechanical failure.
A collision.
She had been twenty-one.
She remembered the funeral.
She remembered her mother crying.
She remembered the empty garage.
She remembered being told her father had simply been unlucky.
Now a stranger was telling her that wasn't true.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because the same people are moving again."
"Who?"
Helen didn't answer.
Instead, she gave Lena a small key.
"What is this?"
"Your father's."
"What does it open?"
"A locker."
"Where?"
"Old federal records building downtown."
Lena stared at the key.
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"Because you weren't ready."
"I'm ready now."
Helen shook her head.
"No one is ready for this."
She walked away.
Lena called after her.
"Wait."
Helen stopped.
"Did my father trust Colonel Vale?"
Helen turned.
"For a while."
"And then?"
"He stopped."
"Why?"
Helen's eyes became sad.
"Because he discovered who was really behind it."
"Who?"
Helen whispered,
"Someone much closer to you than you think."
Then she left.
The old federal records building had been closed for years.
Lena entered through a side door.
The key opened a storage locker in the basement.
Inside was a cardboard box.
Her father's handwriting was on the lid.
FOR LENA.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
Inside were notebooks.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Copies of military contracts.
And one letter.
She opened it.
The letter was dated three weeks before her father's death.