Elena felt her pulse hammer once, hard.
He was not threatening reprimand.
He was offering erasure.
On the desk, beside her copied notes, she noticed one more thing: a paper transit folder stamped with a date from seventeen years earlier—connected not to the missing weapons case, but to the death of her father, Commander David Cross, whose fatal “training accident” she had been told all her life was closed, unfortunate, and beyond question.
Mercer followed her gaze and smiled without warmth.
That was when Elena understood the real scale of what she had found.
This was not just theft.
It was continuity.
A hidden network protected by rank, procurement, and old deaths.
And before she could speak again, Mercer extended his hand and gave the order that would decide everything.
