They Arrested Her for Impersonating a SEAL — The Base Commander Went Pale Seeing Her Classified File
Chapter 12
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"Good. And Commander—this conversation never happened. The file you accessed doesn't exist. Ghost Seven was never in your custody. The story is that this was all a misunderstanding about a dead brother's shirt: you apologized, she went home. Any deviation from that narrative will be considered a national security breach. Are we clear?""Yes, ma'am."The line went dead.Hartwell set down his phone and looked at Burke and Palmer. "Well, this is the part of command they don't teach you at the war college."Palmer was already typing. "Sir, there's more in the file. If I expand the search parameters—""Don't," Hartwell cut her off. "We already know more than we should. The less detail we have, the better position we're in when people start asking uncomfortable questions.""But sir, if she was running an operation here, shouldn't we know what it was? For security purposes?""If CIA wanted us to know, they would have told us. The fact that they didn't means it's none of our business. And now that we've accidentally made it our business, the best thing we can do is back away slowly and let them handle it."Burke moved to the observation room window, looked at Willow. "Should we tell her we know?""She already knows we know. Look at her."They looked. Willow's posture had changed subtly: she was still sitting quietly, still appeared calm, but there was something different in the way she held herself. The mask of civilian vulnerability had slipped, revealing something harder underneath. She wasn't afraid anymore; she was calculating."She's probably running through contingencies right now," Palmer observed. "Figuring out how much we've compromised, what assets are exposed, how to salvage the operation.""There's no salvaging it," Hartwell said. "It's over. We saw to that." He moved toward the door. "Come on. Time to go apologize to someone who probably wants to shoot all of us."They entered the interrogation room together: Hartwell, Burke, and Palmer. Willow looked up as they entered, and something in her eyes confirmed every suspicion: this wasn't a scared bartender; this was a professional assessing a tactical situation.Hartwell sat down across from her. "Ms. Harper—or should I use a different name?""Harper's fine.""I'm Commander Solomon Hartwell. I run this base, and I owe you an apology."Willow's expression didn't change. "For?""For compromising an active operation, for burning your cover, for putting you at risk. Take your pick."A slight smile touched her lips. "You accessed the file.""I did, and I immediately regretted it.""You shouldn't. You did your job. Your Master Chief had good instincts." She glanced at Burke. "You saw through the brother story.""It was a good story," Burke admitted. "But you were too calm, too controlled. Nobody's that together after two hours of interrogation unless they've been trained to be.""So what happens now?" Willow asked."Now we wait for your handler to arrive. We sign paperwork pretending this never happened, and we all go home and try to forget we ever met each other.""And Lieutenant Reed?"