The courtroom—Military Tribunal Room 7, though no one ever called it that out loud—had a smell that clung to the back of your throat. Bleach, mostly, layered over stale coffee and something older, something harder to define, like dust that had absorbed years of whispered secrets. The air-conditioning hummed too loudly, as if trying to drown out whatever history had soaked into the walls.
She sat in the witness chair, back straight but not rigid, hands resting loosely in her lap. If anyone had been paying close enough attention—and most weren’t, at least not yet—they might have noticed the small, repetitive motion of her thumb brushing against the inside of her wrist, as though she were tracing a memory only she could feel.
Her name, for the record that day, was Mara Vance.
It wasn’t the name she had been born with, and it wasn’t the name that had once echoed through encrypted radios in places most of the people in that room would never dare to go. But it was the only name she had used in the past four years, the only identity she had allowed herself to keep.
For four years, she had been invisible.
She had lived in a small coastal town in Oregon, working early shifts at a bait and tackle shop where fishermen came in before sunrise, their voices low and practical, their concerns limited to tides and weather patterns. No one asked about her past. People in places like that rarely did. They accepted what they saw and left the rest alone.
It had been enough. Not perfect, not peaceful in the way people liked to romanticize, but quiet. Manageable. The kind of life you build when you’re trying not to remember who you used to be.
And then the summons had arrived.
