Chapter 3 - The Video Goes Public.
By 5:30 the next morning, the gala video had been viewed millions of times across multiple platforms.
Avery watched none of it.
She sat in the passenger seat of Ward's black sedan wearing jeans, a gray sweater, and a coat pulled high around her neck.
The gown was hanging in a garment bag at her apartment.
She had considered throwing it away.
Then she decided Camille did not get to own that memory.
Ward drove without music.
The city disappeared behind them, replaced by dark highways and low industrial buildings.
"Tell me about Bennett," Ward said.
Avery looked out the window.
"You read the file."
"I read the version someone allowed me to read."
Avery turned toward him.
"Noah was the best flight engineer I ever worked with."
She remembered him as calm hands, bad coffee, and a habit of humming old rock songs while checking panels.
He could hear a change in engine pitch before instruments registered it.
At Falcon Ridge, he had been the first person to say the shielding temperature was wrong.
"He warned me before the automatic alert," Avery said.
"How long before?"
"Maybe forty seconds."
Ward nodded slowly.
"That matters."
"Everything about those seven minutes matters."
They reached the museum at 6:03.
The place was closed, its parking lot empty except for one faded blue pickup near a maintenance gate.
Avery saw Noah before Ward did.
He stood beside an old hangar with his hands in his jacket pockets.
He looked thinner than she remembered.
His hair had more gray at the temples.
But when Avery stepped out of the car, his expression was the same one he had worn every time he had found a problem no one else wanted to admit existed.
"Commander," he said.
Avery crossed the distance between them.
"You disappeared."
Noah's mouth tightened.
"I was encouraged to."
Ward approached.
Noah's eyes sharpened.
"You brought him?"
"He brought me," Avery said.
Noah looked from one to the other.
"Then we have less time than I hoped."
He unlocked the side door of the hangar.
Inside, old training aircraft sat beneath dust covers.
A single work light glowed near a restored transport cockpit.
Noah walked to a maintenance locker and removed a gray metal box.
It matched the photograph.
Avery's heartbeat accelerated.
"Where did you get it?"
"Records disposal."
Ward stopped.
"That archive was never authorized for disposal."
Noah gave him a humorless smile.
"Tell that to the order signed eleven months after Falcon Ridge."
He opened the box.
Inside were paper logs, a data cartridge, three maintenance forms, and an envelope marked with Avery's call sign.
Avery touched the envelope but did not open it.
"Why keep this for two years?"
"Because the first time I tried to report what I found, my security clearance review opened the next morning."
Avery stared at him.
"They investigated you?"
"They investigated everything except the thing I reported."
Ward's face grew harder.
"Who is they?"
Noah pulled out one of the maintenance forms.
"Start here."
The form documented replacement of the rear thermal shielding unit twelve days before Falcon Ridge.
Avery remembered that maintenance window.
The aircraft had been cleared early.
She had even commented on it.
Noah pointed to the approval signature.
C. SLOANE.
Avery felt the air leave her chest.
"Camille was not maintenance authority."
"No," Noah said.
"She was procurement liaison."
Ward took the paper.
"Why would procurement sign technical acceptance?"
Noah opened another folder.
Inside was a contract amendment.
The shielding unit had come from Stratton Aeronautics, a company whose emergency supply agreement had been personally championed by Camille during a shortage.
Avery knew the name.
Everyone in aviation command did.
Stratton sponsored veterans' programs, gala tables, training scholarships, and half the public events where Camille liked to be photographed.
"The replacement unit was temporary," Noah said.
"It should never have been installed for a mountain operation."
Avery's hand curled into a fist.
"Did it fail?"
"It performed outside tolerance almost immediately."
Ward looked at Noah.
"Then why was Avery blamed for delay?"
Noah did not answer.
He removed the data cartridge.
"Because this proves there was no delay."
Avery reached for it.
A loud metallic crash sounded outside the hangar.
All three froze.
Noah switched off the work light.
The hangar dropped into gray dawn shadow.
Another sound followed.
The scrape of the maintenance gate opening.
Ward moved toward the door.
Noah caught his arm.
"No."
"Someone followed us," Ward said.
"I expected that," Noah replied.
Avery stared at him.
"You expected it?"
Noah looked toward the rear of the hangar.
"That is why the real box is not here."
Before Avery could respond, headlights swept across the hangar windows.
A vehicle rolled slowly into the lot.
Avery could not see the driver.
But she could see the insignia on the door.
It belonged to the Office of Military Investigations.
Ward cursed under his breath.
Noah stepped back.
"They found us faster than last time," he said.
Avery looked at the empty gray box, then at the data cartridge in his hand.
"Where is the real evidence?"
Noah slipped the cartridge into Avery's coat pocket.
"With the one person Camille thinks is too loyal to betray her."
The hangar door began to open.
Avery heard boots outside.
May you like
Noah leaned closer.
"And if I am right," he whispered, "that person is at her house right now."
