“If you go to the Senate, you destroy more than just Cole,” Merritt warned.

“I am doing what should have been done eighteen months ago,” I said.

I ended the call and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

Beside it sat the heavy, canvas-bound logbook, its edges scuffed and stained with old engine grease.

This was the original record of the drone strikes in the Wardak province.

It contained the real coordinates, the actual civilian casualty counts, and Cole’s signed authorizations.

The official military database showed a completely different, sanitized set of numbers.

I drove south toward the lights of the National Mall, the wipers sweeping across the windshield with a rhythmic click.

The rain began to fall harder, smearing the red taillights of the traffic ahead into long, bleeding streaks.

The digital clock on my dashboard read 8:15 PM.

I had forty-five minutes to meet Marcus Vance, Senator Vaughan’s chief of staff.

The meeting was set for a private office in the basement of the Russell Senate Office Building.

I parked three blocks away in a public garage, paying the attendant with a crumpled twenty-dollar bill.