Chapter 3
The woman reached into the inside pocket of her vest and pulled out a sealed file.
Her hands were dirty.
Her knuckles were split.
But they did not shake.
She opened the file.
Commander Harris took one step back like the dead had just handed him a confession.
The name on the first page was not fake.
Not stolen.
Not forged.
CAPTAIN AVA RYDER.
Special Operations Detachment V-9.
Call sign: WRAITH.
Killed in action three years ago.
Classified under Operation Glass Coyote.
Harris stared at the page.
“That’s impossible.”
Ava’s eyes stayed on Torres.
“That word gets used a lot around men who bury the truth.”
Torres swallowed.
Only once.
But Ava saw it.
So did Harris.
Three years earlier, Captain Ava Ryder had led a four-person team across the border to intercept a weapons convoy moving through the Ashar Desert.
It was supposed to be clean.
In and out before sunrise.
But the enemy was waiting.
They knew the route.
They knew the call signs.
They knew the extraction time.
By the time Harris reached the site with the recovery team, the sand was black with fire.
He found broken rifles.
Burned gear.
Dog tags.
And Ava Ryder’s body.
May you like
Or what he believed was her body.
Read Part 4 to discover what really happened in the desert that night.
