My Boss Forced Me To Approve Defective Armor For Frontline Soldiers—When His Enforcer Grabbed Me In The Base Washhouse, I Put Him On The Floor And Uncovered His Darkest Secret
The revelation about Gerald Albright, the imposter Finch, changed everything. The immunity clause might protect Vanguard Logistics, but it wouldn’t protect a man living under a stolen identity. But I still needed more. I needed a direct link between Albright and Ward’s murder.
I got back on the ham radio, contacting O’Brien through a pre-arranged frequency. He’d been making supply runs, keeping an eye on things.
“I need Private Ward’s personal effects, Ray,” I told him, my voice urgent. “Before Finch’s men can get to them.”
“His footlocker?” O’Brien’s voice came through, a little clearer now. “They’re supposed to be in secure storage, awaiting transfer back to the States.”
“Finch knows I’m looking into Ward. He’ll want everything erased. Hurry,” I urged.
Two hours later, O’Brien pulled up to the motor pool workshop in a beat-up supply truck, its engine sputtering. He swung open the back.
“Got it,” he grunted, dragging a standard-issue green footlocker out onto the concrete floor. It was heavy, dented, and bore Ward’s service number stenciled on the side.
“Finch had already sent men to ‘clear out’ the storage,” O’Brien explained, wiping sweat from his brow. “Said they needed to make room for new inventory. Convenient, huh?”
“How did you get it?” I asked, my eyes fixed on the locker.
“Told ’em I needed to inspect the lock for a damaged hinge,” he said with a wry grin. “Then I just… accidentally loaded it onto my truck instead of the scrap pile.”
The padlock was still intact. I pulled a set of bolt cutters from my tool kit and snapped it open. The lid creaked as I lifted it.
Inside, Ward’s life was neatly packed: a few changes of fatigues, a worn copy of *Slaughterhouse-Five*, a stack of letters, a small, framed photo of a young woman. My heart ached for the boy. He was just a kid, serving his country, killed for being too honest.
I started sifting through the items, careful and methodical. Nothing immediately jumped out. Just the ordinary possessions of a young man far from home.
“He was smart, remember?” O’Brien prompted. “He wouldn’t have kept something important out in the open.”
I pulled out a thick, well-worn field manual on vehicle maintenance. It looked innocuous enough, thumbed through countless times. But as I flipped through the pages, a subtle difference caught my eye. The spine felt thicker in one section.
I ran my finger along the inside binding. There was a thin, almost invisible slit, expertly cut into the heavy paper. I carefully pried it open.
Inside the hollowed-out manual, nestled deep, was a small, oil-stained notebook. Not an official log, but a personal one, filled with Ward’s cramped, precise handwriting. It contained dates, times, and detailed notes about the steel shipments, the false metallurgical reports, and the inconsistencies he’d found. This was his proof.
And then, tucked beneath the notebook, wrapped in a plastic baggie, was a small, blood-soaked linen rag. It was stiff, dark with dried blood. Not just a stain, but a significant amount, clearly from a fresh wound.
“What’s that?” O’Brien asked, his voice suddenly tense.
“This must be from his struggle,” I whispered, pulling it out with tweezers, careful not to disturb the evidence. “From his killer.”
The report said Ward was shot from behind. But in the chaos of a struggle, a desperate grab, he could have gotten something. A piece of fabric, stained with his attacker’s blood. The perfect, irrefutable link.
I held the rag up to the light, a sickening dread mingling with a surge of grim hope. This wasn’t just blood. This was a piece of the puzzle, a fragment of the murderer himself. And with Albright’s true identity now exposed, the stakes had never been higher.
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