A boarding team approached.
Shaw locked himself inside the main cabin.
He had a handgun.
Sarah listened to negotiations.
Twenty-seven minutes.
No shots.
Finally the door opened.
Everett Shaw stepped out.
Hands raised.
White hair wet with rain.
He looked nothing like an international criminal.
That was Sarah’s least favorite thing about criminals.
They rarely looked convenient.
Shaw denied everything.
For three days.
Then divers recovered two encrypted drives from the water along his escape route.
One survived.
It contained transaction ledgers.
Shipment schedules.
Foreign contacts.
Payments.
And photographs.
One picture showed Thomas Ryker accepting an envelope inside Cleary Recovery.
Another showed Nolan beside military freight.
Another showed Chief Deputy Warren removing a black case.
Then Sarah saw something unexpected.
A photograph of herself.
Leaving the Pentagon.
Taken six weeks earlier.
She stared.
Reed leaned closer.
“Why was he watching you?”
An analyst opened metadata.
The photograph had been sent to Shaw by a foreign contact.
Caption:
HAYES LEADING REVIEW. DETERMINE EXPOSURE.
Sarah felt something cold settle in her chest.
Oak Haven had not been entirely accidental after all.
Shaw knew Sarah led the review.
Did Ryker know?
Probably not.
But somebody had been tracking her movements.
Her drive into Georgia might have been expected.
Then another file appeared.
A copy of her travel itinerary.
Not public.
Not contractor-accessible.
Pentagon internal.
Reed stopped.
“We have an inside leak.”
Sarah stared at the document.
The case widened again.
The person who gave Shaw the itinerary had access close to Sarah.
That disturbed her more than the arrest.
Ryker had been obvious.
A man in mirrored sunglasses with a badge and an ego.
Internal betrayal wore friendly faces.
The leak investigation lasted five weeks.
Every person with access was reviewed.
Sarah hated it.
Assistants.
Colonels.
Civilian analysts.
Security staff.
People she trusted.
One name eventually emerged.
Colonel Nathan Pierce.
Sarah’s own deputy logistics coordinator.
Forty-two.
Decorated.
Married.
Two daughters.
Worked beside Sarah for eighteen months.
Pierce had sold limited itinerary information through an intermediary, believing he was helping a domestic logistics company avoid “unnecessary regulatory disruption.”
That was his story.
The money suggested something uglier.
$210,000 through offshore accounts.
Sarah asked to attend his interview.
Investigators discouraged it.
Conflict.
Emotion.
She insisted on observing through glass.
Pierce entered.
Saw the evidence.
Collapsed almost immediately.
“I never gave them classified documents.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
People often defended the border they had not crossed instead of confronting the one they had.
“I never knew foreign intelligence was involved.”
The investigator asked:
“What did you think $210,000 purchased?”
Pierce had no answer.