“Admiral, I don’t understand,” Nathan said. “My records were cleared by my commanding officer in San Diego.”

“Your commanding officer did not have access to the digital forensic reports we received last week,” I said.

I opened the blue folder in front of me.

“On October fourteenth, your unit logged three hundred hours of auxiliary generator maintenance,” I said. “But the fuel logs show no consumption during that period. How do you explain that?”

“It was an administrative error, Ma’am,” Nathan said. “My logistics chief must have made a typo.”

“A typo that resulted in forty thousand dollars of fuel being unaccounted for?” Captain Vance asked.

Nathan turned to Vance, his forehead glistening with a thin sheet of sweat. “Captain, the operational tempo was extremely high. We were running round-the-clock drills.”

“The drills were cancelled due to weather on October twelfth,” I said, looking up from the paper. “I have the meteorological reports right here.”

Nathan gripped the edge of the mahogany table.

“Admiral Hart,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “Can we speak privately? For Caroline’s sake?”