“Tell them I want a detachment of military police here immediately.”

“General, please,” Cole said, taking a half-step forward.

“We can discuss this in private. There are political implications.”

“The implications are already clear, Colonel,” Albright said.

“You left forty-two men to die to protect a promotion.”

He looked at me, his expression softening only slightly.

“Your father would have done the same thing tonight, Eleanor.”

“He did do it, General,” I said. “He kept the logs when they tried to burn them.”

Cole’s head snapped toward me, his eyes narrowing.

“The drives,” he muttered, his voice barely a whisper.

He knew what my father had kept in his study.

He knew the digital files on the recorder were only a fraction of the archive.

“Where are they, Eleanor?” Cole asked, his step blocked once more by Merritt.

“Where are the rest of the files?”

I did not answer him.

I picked up my father’s medal from the table and placed it back in my bag.

“The MPs are on their way up, General,” Merritt said, looking down at his receiver.