Chapter 8 - The Trap
Erin did not go to Maryland that night.
She went home and sat on her couch and did something she had not done in three years: she thought carefully, like an officer, like a woman who had spent her whole career learning to plan.
If she went to the facility alone, she would be caught and disappeared. If she went with Miriam, they would both be caught. If she went with a lawyer and a camera and a warrant, she could not get in fast enough to save him if the facility decided to move him.
She needed someone inside the federal government who would answer for what happened. Someone who could not be quietly moved.
She called Thomas Avery and she called Regan and she asked one question.
"Is there a congressman in Maryland who is not on the contractor's payroll?"
Regan laughed, tired. "There's one. His name is Daniel Reyes. He's on the Armed Services Committee. He's been trying to get an investigation opened into the contractor for eighteen months. Nobody will give him a witness."
"I have a witness," Erin said. "I have a mortuary technician and a letter and a photograph and a flag with a case label in it. I have everything except the body."
"Then let's get the body," Regan said.
The plan took two weeks to build. It involved Avery drafting a federal complaint, Regan pulling the facility's security schedule, and Miriam using every contact she had ever made in the honor guard to get the ceremony records from Dover moved to a secure server before someone deleted them.
It also involved Erin walking away from her Air Force career.
She submitted her resignation on the eleventh day. Her commander called her into her office and told her she was making a mistake and Erin said, quietly, "Ma'am, I'm not. But I need you to understand that what I'm about to do is not going to make the Air Force look good and I don't want you to be surprised." Ferris looked at her for a long moment and said, "Then don't tell me. Tell Reyes."
Erin told Reyes.
He listened for two hours.
At the end he said, "Captain, I need you to understand what I can and cannot do. I can get you in that facility with a federal subpoena and a U.S. Marshal. I cannot guarantee what we find when we get there. And if your brother is not there, or if he is there and cannot speak, or if he is there and has been told to say he is there voluntarily, this could all fall apart."
"I know."
"And if it falls apart, you are not just resigning from the Air Force. You are unemployable in your field and possibly civilly liable for what the contractor will call unlawful entry."
May you like
"I know."
"Then let's go."
