They Arrested Her for Impersonating a SEAL — The Base Commander Went Pale Seeing Her Classified File
Chapter 15
Theme:
Font Size:
24px
"There's always another way, but it usually ends with more people dead. Get in the car."They drove in silence for 20 minutes, heading toward a safehouse in Point Loma where Willow would spend the night before being extracted back to Virginia for debriefing. The San Diego skyline glittered to their right, beautiful and oblivious to the small tragedy that had unfolded in its shadow."For what it's worth," Vaughn said, "you played it perfectly in there. The dead brother story was good. Would have worked if they hadn't called in the commander.""Burke saw through it. Master Chiefs always do. They've seen too much to be fooled easily.""What will you do now?"Willow looked out the window at the passing city. "Whatever you tell me to do. That's how this works.""Fair enough. But between you and me, off the record: are you okay?" It was a surprisingly personal question from someone like Vaughn.Willow considered it carefully. "I've been undercover for six months. I've built relationships, established patterns, become someone other than myself. And in two hours, all of that was stripped away by people who thought they were doing the right thing. So no, I'm not okay. But I will be. That's the job.""That's the job," Vaughn agreed.The SUV turned onto a quiet residential street, pulled into a driveway that led to a house that looked like every other house on the block: anonymous, forgettable, perfect."One night here," Vaughn said. "Transport leaves at 0600. Pack light. Everything from your cover identity gets left behind.""Even the shirt?"Vaughn almost smiled. "Especially the shirt. That thing's caused enough trouble."Willow got out of the car, stretched, took a deep breath of the cool night air. She'd been Willow Harper, bartender, for six months. Tomorrow she'd be someone else. Or maybe she'd go back to being whoever she actually was under all the layers of cover identities and operational personas. She honestly wasn't sure anymore."Ghost Seven," Vaughn called from the car window. "One more thing. The Commander, Hartwell—he felt terrible about this. Said to tell you he was sorry.""He already told me.""He meant it.""I know." Willow turned toward the house. "They all meant it. That's what makes it worse. If they'd been malicious, I could hate them. But they weren't. They were just doing their jobs, and sometimes good people doing good jobs still manage to destroy things."She walked into the safehouse without looking back. The door closed behind her with a soft click that sounded like an ending.At 6:15 a.m., Willow Harper—or the person who'd been playing her—boarded a military transport plane at North Island Naval Air Station. The loadmaster didn't ask questions; the pilot had been briefed to forget the passenger existed the moment they landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington.