Chapter 3 - The Evidence RoomWe converted the base chapel into a temporary interview center.
By sunset, thirty-eight soldiers had requested private statements.
Sterling had been confined to quarters while investigators secured his office, computer, vehicle, and financial records. He had not been formally arrested yet. I knew that distinction mattered.
Suspicion was not proof.
Fear was not evidence.
And a powerful man’s downfall could collapse if we moved faster than the facts.
Private Miller sat across from me in the chapel’s storage room.
“I’m sorry you got hurt because of me,” he said.
“You didn’t put my face into that table.”
“But I dropped the canteen.”
“You made a mistake. Sterling made a choice.”
Miller looked down at his hands.
Then he told me why the sound had angered Sterling.
Two weeks earlier, another young soldier, Daniel Cruz, had dropped a rifle during an exhaustion drill. Sterling ordered him to stand outside overnight in freezing rain.
Cruz developed severe pneumonia.
The official report claimed he had ignored orders and left the barracks voluntarily.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
“Military hospital,” Miller said. “Sterling told everyone Cruz would be charged if he talked.”
I called Shaw immediately.
Cruz’s medical record could prove both the abuse and the cover-up.
But before she reached the door, the base lights went out.
The chapel fell into darkness.
A second later, an alarm sounded from the headquarters building.
“Fire!” someone shouted outside.
I ran toward the window.
Orange light flashed behind Sterling’s office.
The digital evidence we had secured was still inside.
Shaw grabbed her radio and called the military police. No answer came.
Someone had disabled the local communications network.
This was no accident.
Sterling might have been confined, but he had not built his operation alone.
“Get every witness out of this building,” I ordered.
“What about you?” Shaw asked.
I looked toward the flames.
“I’m going after the files.”
She caught my arm.
“That building could collapse.”
“If those records burn, Sterling will call every soldier here a liar.”
Private Miller appeared beside us.
He had heard everything.
“I know another way inside,” he said.
May you like
For three months, I had tried to protect him.
Now he was offering to step into the fire with me.
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