Chapter 5 - SOMEONE WAS STEALING MY IDENTITY
The accusation shouldn't have frightened me.
I'd survived ambushes, interrogations, and operations where one mistake could cost an entire team its life.
But this was different.
Someone was using the identity I'd spent eleven years trying to bury.
And they were doing it inside the country I'd sworn to protect.
“Who issued the alert?” I asked.
Ortiz checked her phone.
“It's circulating through a defense security office associated with General Strake's command.”
“Of course it is.”
Tyler stepped forward.
“Are you saying the general fabricated evidence against my sister?”
Ortiz held his gaze.
“I'm saying we have a report that requires independent verification. An alert is not proof of guilt.”
I appreciated her precision.
People like Strake thrived when fear replaced facts.
“Where was this alleged access?” I asked.
“A records facility near San Diego.”
“Three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“I was in Baltimore.”
Ortiz looked up.
“Can you verify that?”
“I gave a training presentation at a federal professional development conference. There were more than eighty people in the room.”
Tyler exhaled.
“So she has witnesses.”
“More than witnesses,” I said. “Attendance records, hotel charges, and security footage.”
Ortiz made a note.
“Then we'll preserve those records immediately.”
Leila watched us from her chair.
“Why is he doing all this?”
I turned toward her.
“Because people who build their lives on lies become dangerous when the truth starts moving.”
She looked at the recorder on the table.
“Then maybe we should tell everyone.”
I wanted to agree.
Instead, I chose honesty.
“Some of what happened is still classified. If we release it carelessly, the people responsible could argue that the evidence was compromised. They could use that to hurt the very people we're trying to help.”
Leila frowned.
“So we have to stay quiet again?”
“No.”
I moved closer.
“We have to speak where our words can become evidence, not just another rumor someone can erase.”
She considered that.
Then nodded.
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unfamiliar number.
Stop chasing the stolen credentials. Find Mason. Ask him what June carried out of the valley.
No signature.
I showed Ortiz.
She photographed the message and arranged for the number to be checked.
“Whoever sent this knows a lot about your old team.”
“Yes.”
“Friend or enemy?”
I thought about Major Kane's warning.
“I don't know yet.”
Ortiz arranged temporary protection for Leila and began coordinating with independent investigators. She also contacted the appropriate federal offices to preserve evidence associated with the Black Ridge operation.
For the first time, the conspiracy was leaving a paper trail outside Strake's immediate control.
That mattered.
A powerful man could intimidate witnesses.
He could manipulate reports.
He could threaten careers.
But if we placed enough independently verified evidence into enough legitimate hands, he would eventually run out of places to hide.
Before we left, Leila caught my sleeve.
“Are you going to disappear again?”
The question stopped me.
I knelt so our eyes were level.
“I can't promise that everything will be safe. But I can promise I won't disappear without telling you why.”
She nodded slowly.
“That would be better than last time.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
She was no longer the frightened child I'd carried across a rocky hillside.
She was a young woman who had survived uncertainty, separation, and years of unanswered questions.
She deserved more than rescue.
She deserved the right to decide what happened next.
“Leila, you don't have to testify if you aren't ready.”
Her jaw tightened.
“My father died trying to tell the truth. I'm tired of other people deciding what I'm allowed to remember.”
I nodded.
“Then we'll make sure you're heard.”
Outside, Tyler waited beside the car.
He had been unusually quiet.
As we approached, he said:
“My commanding officer called.”
“What did he want?”
“A written statement about what happened on base. And I'm supposed to return for questioning.”
“Then tell the truth.”
He looked embarrassed.
“About all of it?”
I understood immediately.
The badge.
The insults.
The public humiliation.
“Yes, Tyler. All of it.”
He stared at the pavement.
“I could get formally reprimanded.”
“You could.”
He looked at me.
“You're not going to tell me it's okay?”
“No.”
For the first time, he didn't argue.
“I guess I deserve that.”
I softened slightly.
“Tyler, accountability isn't the same as destruction. You made a choice. Now you get to make another.”
He nodded.
Then surprised me.
“I told my commanding officer I threw your badge. I also told him General Strake approached you.”
“Why?”
“Because you were right. Rank doesn't make someone honest.”
We stood in silence.
It wasn't forgiveness.
But it was a beginning.
Ortiz secured approval for a supervised interview with Mason Bell. Tyler returned to base to fulfill his reporting obligations, while I traveled with an investigator toward San Marcos.
Before he left, Tyler placed something in my hand.
My visitor badge.
He'd retrieved it from the dirt before we left Camp Pendleton.
The plastic was scratched.
The lanyard was dusty.
“I should've given you this earlier,” he said.
I looked at it.
“You should have.”
His face reddened.
“I'm sorry, Ellie.”
I studied him.
I believed he meant it.
But apologies were the beginning of repair, not the end.
“Then be someone who doesn't do it again.”
He nodded.
An hour later, we reached Mason Bell's veterans' support center.
It stood in a quiet commercial strip between a laundromat and a small grocery store.
A faded American flag hung beside the entrance.
The sign above the door read:
SECOND HARBOR — VETERANS AND FAMILIES RESOURCE CENTER.
I remembered Mason as a broad-shouldered man with enormous hands who spoke gently to frightened people.
He could stabilize a wounded stranger in the middle of chaos and somehow make that stranger believe everything would be all right.
But he'd never been able to convince himself.
His guilt over June's death had followed him home.
The parking lot was empty.
The front door stood slightly open.
I stopped.
Ortiz's investigator moved beside me.
“Stay here.”
He called for local officers to check the building.
As we waited, I noticed broken glass beside the entrance.
Then I saw something hanging from the door handle.
A small black fabric patch.
Faded.
Burned along one edge.
It displayed a silver compass crossed by a narrow white lightning bolt.
Our old team emblem.
I hadn't seen one in eleven years.
Someone had deliberately placed it there.
May you like
And beneath it, scratched into the wood, were three words.
FURY TEN RETURNS.
