Chapter 6
The people who had been afraid to speak began looking at each other and realizing they were not alone.
Vale turned back to Reed.
“Anything else you want to call a misunderstanding?”
Reed’s face flushed.
“Sir, with respect, this is being exaggerated because of a dog.”
Titan growled again.
Vale stepped closer.
“That dog found me under concrete, smoke, and blood when your report said recovery was impossible.”
Reed stopped breathing.
Claire’s heart slammed once.
There it was.
The thing no one had said out loud in three years.
Vale looked across the room.
“Operation Sand Harbor,” he said.
Several senior sailors exchanged glances.
The name was classified enough that most junior troops had never heard it.
But they knew from the way the room shifted that it mattered.
Vale continued.
“Three years ago, my team was pinned inside a collapsed compound after an extraction went bad. Communications were down. Visibility was zero. Command believed everyone inside was dead.”
Claire stared at the floor.
She could still smell it.
Burned wiring.
Concrete dust.
Rain mixing with ash.
Titan pulling so hard on the lead that her shoulder nearly dislocated.
Reed’s voice cut in.
“Sir, that mission is not relevant.”
Vale’s eyes snapped to him.
“It became relevant when you put your hands on the handler who ignored your order to turn back.”
The room turned toward Reed.
Claire looked up slowly.
Reed had been there.
Not on the rescue team.
At the command post.
The officer who said the building was unstable.
The officer who ordered all K9 units to withdraw.
The officer who wrote that no live scent was detected.
But Titan had detected one.
May you like
Vale’s.
Read Part 7 to find out what Claire did when Reed ordered her to leave the commander under the rubble.
