Chapter 4 - The Ghost in the Armory
Night at the naval amphibious base brought a heavy, suffocating Pacific mist that rolled off the breakers and swallowed the concrete runways in gray silence.
It was 2200 hours. The main base was operating under minimum illumination, standard protocol to prevent light pollution during night-vision flight drills. I walked alone down the perimeter road toward Building 412, the subterranean armory where all tactical gear for DEVGRU’s regional training contingents was maintained.
My ribs were taped tightly beneath a dark Kevlar-reinforced field jacket. The split lip had formed a dark, ugly scab, but my mind was completely clear, dialed into that hyper-focused state of situational awareness that had kept me alive in Baghdad, Kabul, and Tripoli.
I knew I was being watched.
The base was supposedly on lockdown, but a facility spanning hundreds of acres of marshland, razor wire, and underground bunkers is never truly secure when the men guarding it are loyal to the suspect rather than the law. I felt the prickle of crosshairs between my shoulder blades—not a literal rifle scope, but the unseen presence of observers lurking in the shadow of the hangars.
I swiped my newly minted master keycard at the heavy steel entrance of Building 412. The magnetic lock clunked open with a heavy hydraulic hiss, and I stepped into the climate-controlled chill of the armory.
Row after row of steel cages stretched into the dim fluorescent lighting. Hundreds of assault rifles, grenade launchers, precision sniper systems, and dive rigs hung from customized racks like sleeping mechanical bats. The smell of weapon oil—CLP—hung thick in the air, nostalgic and poisonous all at once.
“You shouldn’t be here alone, ma’am.”
The voice came from the shadows near the back maintenance bench.
I didn't reach for the concealed Glock 19 tucked beneath my left arm; drawing a weapon prematurely in a room full of loaded steel is a novice’s mistake. Instead, I stopped, letting my eyes adjust to the low light.
A man stepped out from behind a rack of Mk 17 SCAR rifles. He was older, thick-set, with a graying mustache and the weathered, sun-damaged skin of an old sea dog. He wore the blue camouflage dungarees of a Master Chief Petty Officer, and his chest bore the gold trident alongside a master diver badge.
Master Chief Donald Evans. Thirty-two years of service. The base armorer, and the man who had trained Walker Reed when Reed was just a reckless nineteen-year-old recruit from Texas.
“Master Chief Evans,” I said. “I was wondering when you’d show up. You didn't attend the captain’s emergency briefing.”
“Briefings are for people who like to hear themselves talk,” Evans said, his voice deep and rough, like gravel rolling down a chute. He wiped a dry cloth over an empty rifle receiver. “I work for a living. And right now, I’m trying to figure out why a pencil-pusher from DC is digging around my logs after hours.”
“I’m not a pencil-pusher, Evans, and you know it. NCIS ran your file. You were with SEAL Team Two in Panama before I was born. You know what treason smells like.”
Evans stopped wiping the receiver. His pale gray eyes flickered toward me, then drifted down to my split lip.
“Reed shouldn’t have hit you,” Evans muttered. “It was sloppy. Dishonorable. He’s lost his head lately. Ever since the private money started flowing in from those private military contractors in Virginia. But that doesn’t mean you understand what’s happening here, Director.”
“Then educate me,” I said, stepping closer to his workbench. “Explain why Daniel Miller’s signature is forged on thirty-two separate equipment transfer sheets. Explain why the night Miller died, the electronic surveillance logs for this armory were completely purged.”
Evans laid the rifle down with a soft, deliberate metallic clink. He leaned over the table, his knuckles scarred from decades of wrenching on machine guns and diving in sub-zero waters.
“Miller was a good kid,” Evans said quietly, his voice shaking with a dangerous undercurrent of grief. “He came to me first. Two weeks ago. He told me the serial numbers on the overseas transit containers didn't match the manifests. He thought it was a clerical error. I told him to keep his mouth shut until I could talk to the front office. I thought Captain Hayes would handle it internally.”
“Hayes was in on it, Evans.”
“I know that now!” Evans snapped, his eyes flashing with sudden, venomous fury. “I found out the hard way when Hayes ordered me to take mandatory leave last weekend. When I got back, Miller was in the morgue, and Reed was walking around like he owned the entire West Coast. They killed that boy in the dive tank because he wouldn't sign off on a shipment of night-vision targeting lasers destined for a private cargo vessel registered in Panama.”
“Where is that shipment now?”
Evans looked toward the heavy blast door at the rear of the armory—the high-security vault where classified electronic equipment was stored prior to field deployment.
“It’s supposed to move tonight,” Evans whispered. “0200 hours. Reed isn't in the brig, Director Vance.”
My pulse spiked. “What did you say?”
“Hayes pulled rank fifteen minutes after your meeting ended,” Evans revealed, stepping out from behind the bench. “The base staff judge advocate issued a temporary stay on the confinement order, claiming jurisdictional overlap with the local federal magistrate. Hayes had Reed transferred to the Tier-One compound under ‘protective custody.’ But Reed’s boys control that compound. They’ve already armed up. They’re going to load the remaining gear onto a fast-attack combat craft, rendezvous with a commercial freighter five miles off Point Loma, and vanish.”
“And Hayes?”
“Hayes has a private jet waiting at Brown Field in San Diego. If you try to call Bennett, it won't matter. The base communications relay on the north tower went down ten minutes ago. ‘Technical maintenance,’ they’re calling it. You’re cut off, Director. You, me, and whatever recruits are asleep in the barracks.”
I looked at Evans. His hands were steady now, resting near a tactical shotgun mounted under the counter.
“Master Chief,” I said, unzipping my field jacket to reveal the tactical holster at my hip. “Can you still shoot?”
May you like
The old SEAL smiled for the first time—a grim, cold baring of teeth. “Ma’am, I was dropping bad guys when Walker Reed was still wetting the bed. Let’s go hunting.”
***
