Chapter 31
Rachel Mercer sat on the wooden bench beside me, holding a cardboard cup of lukewarm water. She took a slow sip, then grimaced.
“The plumbing in this building must be as old as the constitution,” Rachel said, her voice dry. “It tastes like copper pipes and old paper.”
“It is ninety years old,” I said, my fingers adjusting the bridge of my glasses as I looked down at my phone. “The pipes were replaced in the seventies, but they used cheap solder.”
She let out a small, tired laugh, the tension in her shoulders dropping half an inch. It was a brief, ordinary moment of quiet before the storm.
“Well, at least the air-conditioning works,” Rachel said, rubbing her temples with both thumbs. “Let us go in there and finish this.”
The security officer beckoned us forward. The double doors of Room 224 were solid oak, three inches thick, built to keep the secrets of the Armed Services Committee inside. At ten o’clock precisely, the officer scanned my security clearance card, his eyes moving from the digital display to my face before he pulled the brass handle.
Inside, the room was quiet, smelling of floor wax and leather.
We took our seats at the small mahogany table on the left side of the room. Across the center aisle, Harrison Vance sat beside his mother. He was already tapping his heavy gold signet ring against the edge of his table, a steady, rhythmic click that sounded like a slow metronome in the air-conditioned chill.
Beside him, Patricia Vance sat perfectly erect. She wore a dark blue wool suit that looked expensive, and her fingers occasionally drifted to the silk scarf at her throat, smoothing the fabric with a practiced, aristocratic grace.
Senator Hayes sat at the center of the raised dais, his reading glasses pushed up onto his gray hair as he flipped through a thick binder. He was seventy-one, with the weathered skin of a man who spent his weekends on a Nebraska farm, but his eyes were sharp and clear behind his spectacles.
“This closed-door oversight hearing will come to order,” Senator Hayes said, his voice dropping into the microphone with a dry, gravelly weight. “We are here to review allegations of unauthorized network access and procurement discrepancies within Vance Defense Solutions.”
The court reporter’s fingers began to dance over her machine, a soft, dry clicking that filled the quiet room.
“The committee calls Claire Harper,” Hayes said, looking down at me.
I stood up, smoothed my gray wool skirt, and walked to the small wooden podium in the center of the well. My hands were cold, but they did not shake as I reached into my leather briefcase and pulled out a small, clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside the plastic sat the gray-and-gold Level 8 access card that had once belonged to Patricia.
May you like
“Before we begin the slide presentation, Senator,” I said, my voice carrying clearly through the room, “I would like to enter this physical credential into the record.”
Harrison stopped tapping his ring. The silence from his table was sudden and absolute.
