Chapter 15 - The Backup
I stared at the warning.
Ward leaned over my shoulder.
“Disconnect it.”
I shut off the network.
Hayes called cyber security.
“Was anything deleted?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
I hated that word.
Maybe.
It is the word people use when hope has not died but certainty has.
The technicians cloned the drive.
Ward paced.
“If the Virginia records are gone, Vance will argue memory and retaliation.”
“I know.”
“Did you store them anywhere else?”
I thought.
Then I remembered my father.
Not because he was military.
He wasn’t.
He was a public school history teacher in Ohio who believed computers were temporary and paper was eternal.
I called him.
He answered on the third ring.
“Avery?”
“Dad, weird question.”
“Two years ago I emailed you some equipment inspection records.”
Silence.
“Oh.”
My heartbeat increased.
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“Dad.”
“I printed them.”
I closed my eyes.
Ward stopped pacing.
“Do you still have them?”
“Blue file box. Basement shelf. Next to your mother’s Christmas decorations.”
“Can you photograph every page?”
“Already walking downstairs.”
I laughed for the first time that day.
Original serial numbers.
Inspection failures.
My refusal memo.
And a reply from Lieutenant Colonel Vance.
SIGN THE CERTIFICATION. THIS DOES NOT NEED TO BECOME A PROBLEM.
Ward read it and exhaled slowly.
“That helps.”
Then my father sent one more photo.
A page I did not remember.
VANCE CALLED. SAID AVERY WOULD “LEARN HOW CHAINS OF COMMAND WORK.”
Ward looked at me.
“Did he threaten your family?”
“I never knew about this.”
My phone rang.
My father.
I answered immediately.
“Dad?”
His voice was lower now.
My stomach dropped.
“Has it been there long?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“Go inside. Lock the doors.”
“I am inside.”
“Do not go near the windows.”
May you like
Ward was already signaling to an investigator.
Then my father said, “Someone’s getting out.”
