“Not half.
Twenty-seven soldiers in the southern barracks.
Eight in vehicle maintenance.
Six in the command quarters.
Two patrol teams rotating the western perimeter.”
His laughter stopped.
“Your night watch is thin because you believe the storm is stronger than discipline,” I continued.
“Your armory has a severed fuel line.
The primary ammunition cache is wired to an incendiary device.
And one of your artillery vehicles is parked over a spreading pool of fuel.”
The officers beside him exchanged looks.
Petrov turned on them.
“She is lying.”
A muffled alarm suddenly sounded from outside.
Not electronic.
A soldier shouting.
Then another voice joined him.
The fuel had been discovered.
Petrov stepped toward the door.
I shifted the rifle to his head.
“Stay.”
He froze.
The radio operator stared at me as though he had finally understood that the injured woman in front of him had entered the base not to escape death, but to reorganize it.
I returned to the folder.
The remaining pages were worse than the first.
Photographs documented private meetings between Hale and an intermediary.
Bank records showed deposits made after three failed patrols.
Equipment manifests matched supplies that had disappeared from coalition inventories and reappeared at Volkov.
Hale had not made a single desperate decision on the ridge.
He had been selling information for months.
Our reconnaissance mission had been designed as a trap.
Petrov knew our route.
The blast had not been random artillery.
It had been placed to force the team into retreat and eliminate the one soldier most likely to recognize inconsistencies in the firebase reports.
Me.
General Lawson asked me to hold the page closer to the radio handset and read every transaction date.
As I did, Hale tried twice to interrupt.
The second time, Lawson removed him from the command channel.
Petrov watched the speaker as Hale’s voice vanished.
“Your own people will bury this,” he said.
“Armies protect officers.
Governments protect agreements.
No one protects a wounded sergeant who creates embarrassment.”
He was trying to reach the part of me that had listened to my team leave.
For a moment, he succeeded.
I remembered Kowalski’s frightened voice.
I remembered Hale reducing my life to a calculation.
I remembered the boots fading into the storm while I lay unable to move.
Then another voice came over the radio.
“Frost, this is Kowalski.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
He sounded breathless.
“I heard the transmission.
Hale told us he confirmed you had no pulse.
He took my radio before I could challenge him.
