Chapter 3 - The Signature That Shouldn't Exist
I woke in a private recovery room with a cast framework around each leg and an NCIS investigator at the foot of my bed.
Special Agent Mara Ellison was not interested in reassuring me.
She wanted facts: the exact time I entered Bay Four, the location of the inspection terminal, the serial numbers I'd photographed, and the four men who attacked me.
I gave her everything I remembered.
When I described the rejected prototype, she stopped writing.
"Who authorized its destruction?"
"Captain Owen Mercer, four years ago. He signed the disposal order himself."
Ellison looked up.
Mercer was now deputy director of the regional logistics command.
I felt the air change between us.
Dom stood by the window and said nothing.
Ellison opened a tablet containing the chain-of-custody record for Lot 7-Alpha.
The most recent certification carried my electronic signature.
I stared at it.
"That's impossible."
The timestamp put me at the inspection desk while I was attending Lily's school music recital across town.
I had photographs of the recital on my phone.
The forged record had been accepted because it matched my credentials and approved device profile.
"Then someone cloned my authorization," I said.
Ellison didn't correct me.
"We're preserving the logs."
On the tablet, she enlarged the approval history.
The final release had been countersigned by Captain Mercer.
My stomach tightened.
Four years earlier he'd praised me for refusing to accept the prototype.
Now his name sat beneath a shipment containing its impossible twin.
A nurse arrived to adjust medication, and Ellison waited until the door closed.
"There is another issue, Commander."
She slid a photograph across the bedside table.
It showed a small hand holding a blue paper star in front of a dark window.
On the back, someone had written, SHE KNOWS THE SONG.
"Where did you get this?"
"It was left inside a sealed evidence transport envelope."
That meant the abductor could get close to the investigation itself.
Dom finally spoke.
"Who delivered it?"
Ellison looked at him.
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"A courier with valid military credentials. The name was Kate Brennan."
