When the wooden office door banged open, Travis didn't look up from his solitaire game.
"Miller, I told you two hours ago I’m not signing the fuel vouchers for the third platoon until the captain comes back from Fort Meade," Travis muttered, clicking his mouse aggressively. "Tell the supply sergeant to hide the drums behind the wash rack like we did last month."
"The captain isn't coming back from Fort Meade, Lieutenant," a woman's voice said from the doorway.
Travis’s hand froze over his mouse.
He looked up slowly. Standing in the doorway was Miller, his face dark red with irritation, flanked by his two specialists. Pushed between them—her expression completely unbothered—was Claire Vance, still holding her black Pelican case.
"Who the hell is this, Miller?" Travis barked, pushing his swivel chair back so hard it struck the sheetrock wall behind him with a loud THUD. "I told you to keep the perimeter clear. We’ve got an IG inspection team coming down from the division level next week, and the yard looks like a scrap market!"
"She was wandering around Sector 4, sir," Miller growled, pointing a thick thumb at Claire. "No rank, no name tape, no escort. I told her to clear out, and she told me to call the MPs. I brought her in here so you could sign the escort removal slip."
Travis stood up, smoothing his uniform blouse over his waist. He walked around the steel desk, stopping three feet from Claire. He looked at her empty velcro rank patch on her chest, then at the plain black canvas of her rucksack.
"You've got five seconds to explain why you're standing in my company command post without authorization, miss," Travis said, dropping his voice into his best authoritative parade-deck bark. "Otherwise, I’m putting you in the back of a squad car for interfering with military operations."
Claire set her black Pelican case down on the edge of Travis’s desk with a sharp, heavy CLACK.
"My name is Captain Claire Vance," she said smoothly. "I am the senior field inspector assigned to the Defense Logistics Agency's Special Oversight Directorate."
Travis stared at her for three seconds, then let out a sharp, dismissive bark of laughter. He looked over at Miller, who snorted loudly.
"Captain Vance?" Travis sneered, shaking his head. "Right. And I’m the Chief of Staff of the Army. Look, lady, I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but DLA doesn't send twenty-something girls in unbadged OCPs to Fort Carson without a two-week advance notice from the brigade commander. Where's your ID card? Where are your travel orders?"
"My orders are inside this case," Claire replied calmly, tapping the top of the black Pelican box. "Along with the complete audit ledger for the four million dollars' worth of night-vision optics, thermal scopes, and replacement turbine assemblies that disappeared from your company armory between June and September."
The air inside the small administrative office instantly turned cold.
Miller stopped smirking. His hands slid down from his chest to his sides, his fingers twitching slightly near his belt loop.
Travis’s face paled by two shades, but he quickly recovered, his eyes narrowing into a hard, dangerous squint.
"You're out of your mind," Travis whispered, stepping closer to her. "You come into my office, making wild accusations about missing war material? Miller, take her box. Put her in the holding room at the main gate until I can get the Provost Marshal on the radio."
Miller stepped forward, reaching his thick, grease-stained hand toward the handle of the Pelican case.
"I wouldn't touch that handle, Sergeant," Claire said softly.
Miller paused, his fingers hovering two inches from the plastic. "And why the hell not, 'Captain'?"
Claire reached up to her right shoulder.
With a slow, deliberate motion, her thumb slid under the blank, olive-drab velcro cover flap that had concealed her shoulder patch since she had stepped onto the base.
She pulled the flap back.
The sound of the velcro pulling apart— RRRRRRRRRIP—was the only noise in the room.
It felt absurdly loud in the cramped, low-ceilinged office.
Miller’s eyes dropped instinctively to her sleeve. Travis leaned forward, his mouth open to deliver another reprimand. The two specialists standing in the hallway leaned over the threshold to see what was happening.
Beneath the blank flap sat a custom, low-visibility silk-embroidered patch that none of them had ever seen on an active-duty uniform.