Chapter 7 - The Interrogation at 20,000 Feet
The transport aircraft hummed with the steady, bone-deep vibration of twin turboprop engines as we crossed over the Adriatic Sea.
Inside the pressurized cargo hold of the unmarked C-130, the rescued cryptanalyst—a young, shell-shocked civilian specialist named Miller—was wrapped in a thermal blanket, clutching a cup of hot black coffee.
I sat across from him on the webbing jump seat, cleaning the carbon buildup from my sidearm with a rag.
"You... you're the one General Sterling sent?" Miller asked, his voice still trembling slightly from the ordeal in Belgrade. "Just one operative? They told me an entire QRF unit would be backing you up."
"A QRF makes too much noise, Mr. Miller," I replied without looking up from my pistol slide. "Noise attracts attention. Attention attracts bullets. When you want something done quietly and efficiently, you send a ghost."
Miller swallowed hard, watching the steady, methodical way my hands moved. "How long have you been doing this, Commander?"
"Long enough to know that people in safe, comfortable environments have no idea how fragile their world actually is," I said quietly.
My mind flashed briefly back to the Virginia lawn—to Marcus’s arrogant grin, my sister’s screaming face, and my father’s desperate pleading. They lived in a gilded bubble of suburban luxury, completely insulated from the harsh, violent realities of the world, treating kindness as a weakness and wealth as an absolute armor.
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They had spent a decade treating me like their personal ATM and a domestic embarrassment, never once stopping to wonder why I carried the scars on my shoulder or the scorched dog tags around my neck.
Well, the illusion was shattered permanently now. They were facing foreclosure, public humiliation, and financial ruin, entirely of their own making. And out here, thousands of feet above the dark, churning ocean, I felt a profound, liberating sense of peace.
