Chapter 2 - The Sabotage Beneath the Wing
Walker closed his fist around the metal component when he realized I had seen him.
For half a second, neither of us moved.
Then he slipped his hand into the pocket of his flight suit and turned toward the hangar.
“Captain Walker,” I called.
He stopped but did not face me.
“What did you take from my aircraft?”
Several mechanics looked up.
Walker turned slowly, his expression composed again.
“Nothing.”
I climbed down from the cockpit.
The radio transmission still echoed in my mind, but Walker was closer, and whatever he had removed posed an immediate danger.
I crossed the ramp toward him.
“Empty your pocket.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You seem confused about who has authority here.”
“Then clear up my confusion.”
Hayes emerged from beneath the left wing and looked from Walker to me.
“What happened?”
“I saw him remove something from the open maintenance case.”
Walker gave a short laugh. “She saw me pick up a discarded washer.”
“Show us,” Hayes said.
Walker’s eyes hardened. “You’re taking orders from a civilian now?”
“I’m responsible for every aircraft on this ramp. Show me what you took.”
The surrounding conversations stopped.
Walker slowly removed his hand from his pocket.
A small pressure-regulator pin rested in his palm.
Hayes stepped forward.
“That isn’t a washer.”
“It was on the ground.”
“No,” Hayes said. “It was in the replacement assembly.”
A muscle moved in Walker’s jaw.
He tossed the pin toward Hayes, who caught it against his chest.
“Then one of your mechanics dropped it.”
I watched Walker’s eyes.
He was lying.
The question was why.
Collins arrived before the confrontation could escalate. He ordered the ramp security team to secure the aircraft and instructed Hayes to document every removed component.
Walker protested immediately.
“This is absurd. We have thousands of spectators waiting.”
“We also have a compromised aircraft,” Collins replied.
“You’re shutting down the showcase because of her accusation?”
“I’m delaying one demonstration pending inspection.”
Walker pointed toward me. “She shouldn’t even be here.”
Collins’s expression grew colder.
“Be very careful with your next sentence, Captain.”
Something passed between them.
Recognition, perhaps. Or the understanding that Collins had read the sealed file.
Walker lowered his hand.
I stepped closer to Collins.
“Who used the military frequency?”
“We don’t know.”
“That call sign has not been active in eleven years.”
“I know.”
“Then someone accessed a sealed communications archive.”
Collins glanced toward Walker before answering.
“Come with me.”
He led me into the operations center. Bennett followed until Collins ordered him to remain outside. Hayes stayed with the aircraft, overseeing a second inspection.
Inside Collins’s office, the air-conditioning felt painfully cold after the Nevada heat. He closed the blinds and placed the folder on his desk.
The cover carried my name, service number, and the classification mark I remembered.
“What did you read?” I asked.
“Enough to know your official record is false.”
“That narrows it down very little.”
Collins hesitated.
The man had a disciplined face, but his hands betrayed him. He kept one palm pressed against the folder as though he feared it might disappear.
“The public report says you abandoned formation during Operation Night Lantern, causing the loss of four aircraft.”
“I know what it says.”
“The sealed report says you were ordered to abandon them.”
I said nothing.
“It says you refused.”
“Yes.”
“It says you reentered hostile airspace alone, disabled two tracking stations, and created an escape corridor for nine pilots.”
“Eight pilots.”
Collins looked down at the page.
“The report says nine.”
“Adrian Cole didn’t come home.”
According to the world, Adrian’s aircraft had been destroyed in the mountains. I had watched his signal disappear from radar. I had heard the explosion through the radio and spent countless nights imagining the final seconds I had not seen.
Collins turned another page.
“This is what you weren’t told. Recovery teams found no wreckage.”
I stared at him.
“That terrain swallowed entire vehicles.”
“They found fragments from three aircraft. Nothing from Cole’s.”
“His transponder vanished.”
“Because it was manually disabled.”
The room seemed to narrow around me.
“No.”
“We intercepted a coded transmission forty-eight hours after the operation. Analysts believed it came from Major Cole.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Why was I never told?”
“Because General Silas Grant ordered the transmission buried.”
The name struck harder than I expected.
General Grant had commanded the operation. He had ordered us to abandon the damaged pilots. When I refused, he threatened me with court-martial over an open channel.
After I returned with eight survivors, he called me reckless and unstable.
Two weeks later, my record was sealed.
One month after that, I resigned.
“Grant said the transmission was enemy deception,” Collins continued. “But there’s a handwritten note in the file from an intelligence analyst who disagreed. She believed Cole survived.”
I reached for the page.
Collins stopped me.
“There’s more. The analyst disappeared before she could submit her full report.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who was she?”
“Dr. Rebecca Sloan.”
I remembered her. Rebecca had debriefed me after the mission. She had asked unusually precise questions about Grant’s orders and the timing of our route changes.
The final time I saw her, she whispered, “Someone knew where your formation would be.”
Three days later, I was told she had transferred overseas.
“She didn’t transfer,” Collins said. “She vanished.”
I turned toward the covered window.
Outside, the showcase continued in diminished form. An announcer filled time while spectators watched crews reposition aircraft.
“Why open the record now?”
“I didn’t choose to. The envelope was attached to your registration file through an automated security trigger.”
“Set by whom?”
“The authorization code belongs to Dr. Sloan.”
I looked back at him.
“That’s impossible.”
“The code activated when your identification entered the Red Valley system.”
“And the radio?”
“We’re tracing it.”
I thought about Walker holding the missing regulator pin.
“Start with Captain Walker.”
Collins’s expression revealed he had reached the same conclusion.
“Walker’s father served under Grant.”
That explained his hostility, but not the sabotage.
“Does he know what’s in this file?”
“I don’t know.”
Before I could respond, the door opened.
Bennett stood there, breathing hard.
“Sir, you need to come outside.”
Collins rose. “What happened?”
“Hayes found another problem.”
We returned to the ramp.
Hayes had removed a section of the Talon’s access panel. A thin blue wire hung from the flight-control assembly.
I recognized it immediately.
“That doesn’t belong there,” I said.
“No,” Hayes replied. “It doesn’t.”
He held up a compact transmitter no larger than a coin.
Someone had installed a remote interference device inside the aircraft.
“What would it do?” Bennett asked.
Hayes studied the wiring. “At first glance? Disrupt control feedback.”
“At what point?” I asked.
“Probably when the landing gear retracts.”
The first maneuver after takeoff required a steep climbing turn over the western ridge. If the controls lagged at that moment, the Talon could roll toward the ground before the pilot understood what was happening.
Walker approached from the hangar with two security officers behind him.
“This is getting ridiculous,” he said.
Collins held up the transmitter.
“Have you seen this before?”
Walker’s expression did not change.
“No.”
“Your fingerprints will be compared with anything recovered from the device.”
“You think I sabotaged her aircraft because I joked about her bag?”
“I think you removed a critical component after a fault was discovered.”
“I found it on the ground.”
“Then you won’t object to being questioned.”
Walker looked at me.
His anger seemed genuine, but so did the fear behind it.
“You have no idea what you’re reopening,” he said.
“Then tell me.”
He glanced at Collins and the security officers.
“I want legal counsel.”
The officers escorted him away.
Bennett exhaled. “That sounded like a confession.”
“No,” I said. “It sounded like a warning.”
Hayes carefully disconnected the transmitter.
On its underside was a faded serial number.
I leaned closer.
I had seen that numbering system during Night Lantern. The devices belonged to a classified avionics program overseen by General Grant’s command.
Someone had used eleven-year-old military hardware to sabotage my aircraft.
My phone vibrated.
The incoming number was blocked.
I answered without speaking.
At first, there was only static.
Then a man breathed into the line.
“Mara?”
My knees nearly weakened.
Eleven years could change a voice, but not enough to erase it.
“Adrian?”
Collins watched my face.
The voice returned, faint and strained.
“You were never supposed to come looking.”
“Where are you?”
“Walker isn’t your enemy.”
My eyes moved toward the security vehicle carrying Walker across the ramp.
“Who is?”
A burst of interference broke the connection.
Then Adrian said six words that shattered everything I believed about our final mission.
“Grant ordered Walker to bring you here.”
The call ended.
I stood beneath the wing of my aircraft, staring at the dead phone in my hand.
If Adrian was alive, the guilt that had defined eleven years of my life had been built on a lie.
May you like
But the relief lasted only a moment.
Because someone had just tried to kill me in the aircraft that was supposed to lead me back to him.
