Chapter 3: What Was Left Under the Mattress
The packet was gone.
I stood at my bunk and looked at the empty space beneath the mattress for a long time.
The mattress itself had been pushed back at an angle.
Whoever searched it hadn't bothered to straighten it.
They weren't worried about being careful.
They were confident no one would stop them.
Doyle stood in the doorway.
"How long was I in the water?" I asked.
"Forty-three minutes from the time you went over to the time Reyes got you back aboard."
"Forty-three minutes." I set the mattress flat.
"That's enough time to search, remove, and relocate.
Not enough time to copy and return."
"Agreed."
I turned around.
"Which means whoever took it wanted me to know it was gone."
Doyle didn't disagree.
I sat on the edge of the bunk.
My uniform was still damp.
The ship's medical officer had cleared me with two dry towels and a blood pressure reading.
I hadn't argued.
I needed to move, not rest.
"Tell me about the call," I said.
Doyle stepped inside and pulled the door to.
Not fully closed.
Just enough.
"Kane went to the command deck at fourteen-twenty-two.
That's nine minutes after you went over.
The call lasted four minutes.
I had a petty officer on the signals board.
He couldn't get content, but he logged the outgoing frequency."
"Fleet command?"
"No." Doyle paused.
"Pentagon routing.
Civilian extension."
The room felt smaller.
"That's not a call you make to report a man overboard," I said.
"No," Doyle said.
"It isn't."
I looked at the empty space under the mattress again.
The packet had contained fourteen months of documented evidence.
Procurement falsifications.
Medical supply diversions.
A pattern of deliberate resource denial that had put hospitalized sailors in beds that should have stayed empty.
Three names appeared across multiple documents.
Kane was one of them.
The second name was a logistics contractor based out of San Diego.
The third name I had never been able to fully confirm.
NCIS had flagged it with a single notation: *Verify before action.*
Now someone with a Pentagon civilian extension knew I was on this ship.
"Doyle," I said.
"Does Kane know the packet is the only copy?"
Doyle was quiet for a moment.
"He thinks it is."
I looked up at him.
Something shifted in his expression.
Not much.
Just enough.
"There's a second packet," I said.
He didn't confirm it.
He didn't deny it.
He picked up his cover from where he'd set it on the small shelf near the door.
"Medical clears you for duty in the morning," he said.
"Get some sleep, Cole."
He opened the door and walked out.
I sat in the narrow bunk room with the sound of the ship moving beneath me and thought about the third name on those documents.
The one NCIS hadn't been able to confirm.
My phone was locked in the safe beneath the signals room.
Standard protocol for undercover assignment.
I couldn't reach my handler until 0600.
Seven hours away.
I lay back on the bunk and stared at the ceiling.
May you like
Somewhere above me, Kane was still on this ship.
And he had just made a call to someone who already knew who I was.
