Chapter 5 - The Price of SilenceThe flash drive contained lists of payments made by soldiers.
Some were labeled for equipment. Others were called “readiness contributions” or “family support fees.”
All of them went to companies connected to Sterling.
There were also photographs.
Soldiers stood in mud pits holding concrete blocks over their heads. Recruits with visible injuries were forced to crawl under barbed wire. One image showed Daniel Cruz unconscious beside a training field.
Sterling had documented everything.
He had considered cruelty proof of leadership.
But the worst file was an audio recording.
Rourke’s voice spoke first.
“What happens if Cruz dies?”
Sterling answered without hesitation.
“We say he disobeyed orders. Dead recruits don’t file complaints.”
Nobody in the investigation room spoke after the recording ended.
Shaw closed the laptop.
“That’s conspiracy, falsification, extortion, and aggravated assault at minimum.”
“It also proves Sterling knew exactly what he was doing,” I said.
Sterling’s attorney demanded an immediate meeting.
I found him in the confinement office wearing civilian clothes. Without his uniform, he looked smaller.
He stared at my bruised forehead.
“You enjoyed this,” he said.
“No.”
“You wanted me to attack you.”
“I wanted you to stop attacking everyone else.”
He leaned back.
“You think those soldiers care about you? They’ll forget your name in a month.”
“They don’t need to remember mine.”
Sterling’s smile returned.
“You’re missing something, Colonel.”
He slid a photograph across the table.
It showed me entering Camp Vora three months earlier.
Someone had photographed my arrival.
“You were never undercover,” he said. “We knew exactly who you were.”
A chill passed through me.
If that were true, then every incident I had witnessed might have been staged. Every document might have been planted.
“Who told you?” I asked.
Sterling leaned closer.
“Someone above both of us.”
Then the lights flickered.
An explosion shook the building.
The window shattered inward.
I dropped beneath the table as alarms began screaming.
When I looked up again, Sterling was bleeding—but smiling.
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The scandal did not end with one major.
It reached far beyond Camp Vora.
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