“Let’s see how tough you really are,” the sergeant sneered as the clippers cut through my hair—but the moment Captain Hale discovered a metal tag linked to a dead soldier’s belongings, someone sent me a photograph that revealed a terrifying secret: Emma Castillo’s death was only the beginning.

Before they could reach the doors, a shadow peeled itself away from an alcove twenty feet to their left.

Hale swung his weapon instantly. “Halt! MP! Let me see your hands!”

The figure stumbled into the flashlight beam, arms raised high, trembling violently. It wasn't Cole Mercer.

It was Specialist Aaron Pike.

The soldier who had held Riley’s arm while Mercer ran the clippers through her hair.

Pike looked terrified. He was stripped of his tactical gear, wearing only his utility uniform, covered in grease and soot. His eyes darted frantically between Hale’s gun barrel and Riley’s cold, evaluating gaze.

“Don’t shoot!” Pike cried, his voice cracking against the damp stone. “Captain Hale, sir, don’t shoot! I didn't do it! I swear to God I didn't know what they were going to do to Castillo!”

Hale advanced, keeping his weapon steady at low ready. “On your knees, Specialist. Interlock your fingers behind your head. Now.”

Pike dropped instantly to his knees on the filthy concrete floor, his boots sliding in a patch of oily water. “Sir, Mercer told us she was just a troublemaker. He said she was an undercover narc trying to bust guys for selling prescription painkillers. We thought it was just unit discipline! We didn't know about the money!”

Riley stepped forward. Her voice was calm, conversational, stripped of anger. She knew how fear worked in an interrogation; rage only built defensive walls. Calmness offered a desperate man a path toward self-preservation.

“Aaron,” she said, squatting down so her eyes were level with his.

He looked at her, his chest heaving. His eyes caught the uneven, jagged patch on her scalp where his sergeant had cut her hair half an hour earlier. Shame flickered across his features.

“You held my arm, Aaron,” Riley said softly. “You held it just tight enough to keep me from moving, but loose enough that an investigator wouldn't see finger marks the next morning. You’ve done that before, haven't you?”

“Mercer made us,” Pike choked out. “If you don't back him up, you get put on the shit details. You fail your room inspections. You get flagged for promotion. He runs the whole barracks, Sergeant Quinn! Everyone knows it!”

“Who told you to come down here?” Riley pressed.

“Mercer. Right after Captain Hale walked into the bay and found that tag. Mercer panicked. He grabbed his keys and ran down the fire exit. He radioed me on my personal cell phone. He said if I didn't come down to Depot Four and help him load the incinerator crate, he’d tell Major Lawson that I was the one who leaked the manifest to Emma Castillo.”

Riley tilted her head. “Are you the one who leaked it, Aaron?”

“No!” Pike sobbed. “I don't even know what’s on the manifest! But Mercer said Lawson would execute a field court-martial on anyone who crossed them. He said people who talk end up in the ditch on Highway 44 like Emma.”

Sofia Castillo stepped out from behind Hale, her flashlight beam pinning Pike’s face like an insect on a board. “Say her name again,” Sofia whispered.

Pike looked at Sofia, and his jaw dropped. His breath caught in his throat. He looked as though he were staring at a ghost rising from an open grave.

“Castillo...?” he stammered, his body shaking so hard his knees banged against the floor. “No... no, you’re dead... she died...”

“I’m her sister,” Sofia said, her voice dropping into a register of pure venom. “And you’re going to tell Captain Hale exactly what Mercer is doing behind those doors, or I swear to God, when this is over, I will personally ensure you are tried as an accessory to capital murder.”

“I’ll talk! I’ll tell you everything!” Pike gasped. “Mercer is in the central vault. He’s got an incendiary thermite block. He’s rigging it to the main server rack and the physical manifest lockers. Lawson told him over the radio that CID has already mobilized off-post agents from San Antonio. They have forty-five minutes before external investigators bypass base security.”

Riley stood up and looked at Hale. “Lawson’s timeline is compressed. That makes him dangerous. He’s not trying to cover it up with paperwork anymore. He’s burning the scene.”

“Where does this tunnel lead besides the motor pool?” Hale asked Pike.

“There’s a freight elevator at the back of Depot Four,” Pike stammered, pointing toward the heavy double doors. “It comes up inside a civilian semi-truck bay at the commercial logistics park adjacent to the base perimeter. That’s how they move the hardware off-post without passing through the military police gates.”

Riley pulled a pair of tactical flex-cuffs from her cargo pocket and tossed them to Hale. “Secure him to the conduit pipe. We don't have forty-five minutes.”

Hale cinched Pike’s wrists behind an industrial steam pipe, removing his service belt and radio. “Specialist Pike, you are officially in military custody. If you yell, you add obstruction of justice to your charges. Stay quiet and hope we come back for you.”

Pike slumped against the pipe, nodding frantically through his tears.