“Three of these happened after the general was admitted.”
Victor turned on him immediately.
“You approved the treatment plan.
Every order bears your signature.”
Price flinched.
That was the moment he understood what Victor had done.
Victor had not merely used him.
He had prepared him to take the fall.
Price looked at the medication record, then at the general.
“The military alert was present when he arrived.
I saw a restricted banner on the chart.
Victor told me it was an obsolete administrative warning and that federal security wanted it removed from the clinical display.”
“You removed it?” I asked.
“He had information technology suppress it.”
Victor pointed at him.
“Be very careful, Mason.”
Price’s shame turned into anger.
“You also told me to continue the antibiotic after his first rhythm change.”
“Because you said it was safe.”
“I said it was probably safe before I knew the alert had been deliberately hidden.”
Voss raised one hand.
“No one deletes anything else.
No one touches a computer.
The mirrored archive has already preserved all edits, messages, and access logs.”
Victor’s confidence cracked for the first time.
“Messages?”
“Including the encrypted ones you sent from the administrator console eleven minutes before Nurse Bennett was suspended.”
He said nothing.
Calloway’s hand moved weakly across the sheet.
I leaned closer.
“Blue file,” he whispered.
“Where is it?”
His gaze shifted toward the evidence pouch containing the silver drive.
“Video.”
Colonel Voss took the drive to a secured federal laptop.
Before connecting it, she photographed the device, recorded its serial number, and called an evidence technician into the room.
Victor watched every movement.
“You cannot open that without a warrant.”
Voss met his eyes.
“The general is the owner.
He has given consent.”
“He is not competent.”
Calloway’s mouth curved into the faintest smile.
“Competent enough to remember your account number.”
The laptop requested two forms of authentication.
One was Calloway’s fingerprint.
The second was a voice phrase.
Voss held the microphone near him.
Calloway drew a painful breath.
“Still here.”
The drive unlocked.
A single video file appeared beside a folder of scanned reports.
The recording had been made six weeks earlier.
Calloway sat in a study lined with military books and framed photographs.
He looked stronger than he did in the hospital bed, but his expression was grim.
