Chapter 5 - Classified Redacted
Major Stone snatched Emma’s VA identification card from the desk.
"I’ll run her through the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System right now," Stone declared aggressively, desperate to regain control of the room. "She’s a hospital transfer from the regional outpatient clinic. Let’s see how tough she is when her federal civil service security clearance is revoked."
Stone sat at the administrative terminal in the corner of the room, punching Emma’s Social Security number and full legal name—*Emma Vance*—into the military database.
"Let’s see what we have here," Stone muttered under his breath, his fingers clacking furiously on the keys. "Civilian Medical Specialist... Grade GS-09... assigned to—wait."
The computer screen flashed blue. Then amber.
Then, a massive red banner dropped across the center of the display, locking the keyboard and pulsing with an ominous, mechanical rhythm.
**[SECURITY ALERT: RESTRICTED ACCESS LEVEL 5]**
**[ACCESS ATTEMPT RECORDED: IP-774-WEST-MARCH-ACADEMY]**
**[FLAGGED IDENTIFIER: TS/SCI - SPECIAL COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION]**
**[OPERATION CITADEL / NAVSPECWAR GROUP ONE]**
**[FURTHER UNAUTHORIZED INQUIRY CONSTITUTES AN IMMEDIATE FELONY VIOLATION OF 18 U.S. CODE § 798]**
Stone stopped typing. The color drained from his face until his skin looked like parchment.
"What is that?" General Cole barked, stepping behind the major. "Override it! Use my general officer security credential code: Alpha-Niner-Seven-Seven-Bravo. Enter it!"
Stone obediently typed the general's four-star override sequence.
The system paused for three agonizing seconds.
A new prompt appeared on the screen, accompanied by an aggressive, repeating audio chime:
**[OVERRIDE REJECTED BY PENTAGON CENTRAL SECURITY COMMAND]**
**[FLAGGED FILE IS PERMANENTLY SEALED UNDER EXECUTIVE ORDER 13526]**
**[ATTENTION GENERAL ARTHUR COLE: AN AUTOMATIC NOTIFICATION HAS BEEN SENT TO THE OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND INSPECTOR GENERAL.]**
**[DO NOT PROCEED. REMAIN AT YOUR STATION.]**
"What the hell is going on here?" General Cole whispered, his voice cracking with the first genuine pang of dread he had felt in twenty years.
Colonel Vance slowly stood up from his chair. He walked around the table and stared at the pulsing red text on the terminal screen. Then, he turned around and looked at Emma Vance with eyes that were wide with an almost religious realization.
"NAVSPECWAR Group One," Vance murmured, his voice shaking. "San Diego. Coronado."
He looked at Emma’s jawline scar. He looked at the perfect, fluid lethality of her movement on the security recording. He remembered the legendary whispers that had circulated through the joint command five years ago during the brutal close-quarters fighting in northern Syria and Yemen—whispers of an elite female operative attached to the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, a field surgical specialist who had passed the grueling BUD/S training curriculum under a top-secret black program, operating with DEVGRU’s red squadron as an emergency trauma combatant.
The operators called her *Wraith*.
Because by the time the enemy knew she was in the room, they were already dead, and by the time the squad took casualties, she had already sewn them back together.
"Stone," Colonel Vance commanded, his voice dead flat. "Step away from the keyboard."
"Colonel?" Stone gasped, trembling.
"I said step away from the keyboard, you fool!" Vance shouted.
Before Stone could step back, the red emergency phone mounted on the wall behind the provost's desk began to ring.
It did not ring with the normal electronic trill of an office telephone. It produced the harsh, screeching warble of the National Defense Direct Line—a line that had not rung in the West March Academy administration building since September 11, 2001.
General Cole’s eyes locked onto the handset. He felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
Colonel Vance walked over to the wall, picked up the receiver, and pressed it to his ear.
"This is Colonel Vance, Provost of West March."
A pause.
Vance’s spine snapped straight as a ramrod. "Yes, Admiral. Understood, sir. She is sitting right here. Unharmed, sir. No, the local MPs have not touched her. Yes, Admiral. He is standing right in front of me."
Vance pulled the receiver away from his ear and held it out toward General Arthur Cole.
May you like
"It’s for you, General," Vance said in a whisper that sounded like a funeral bell. "It’s Vice Admiral Marcus Sterling. Commander of Naval Special Warfare. He does not sound pleased."
***
