Chapter 8 - The Morning After
The sun came up over Dover Air Force Base in a bruised wash of purple and slate-gray, casting long, geometric shadows across the flight line where the massive C-17 Globemasters sat like sleeping prehistoric birds.
I hadn't slept.
After three hours of debriefing with Major Donovan and the OSI legal team, reviewing bank routing numbers, encrypted messaging backups, and intercepted satellite handshakes, I had spent the remaining hours sitting in my quarters watching the digital clock tick toward zero.
At 10:00 AM, the wedding was supposed to start at St. Mary’s in Hockessin.
My phone sat on the metal desk next to my unzipped flight bag. It hadn't rung once since midnight. No texts from Mom. No desperate voice messages from Britney. Just a short, formal email from the base administrative office confirming that my temporary replacement credential had been issued and my flight status was officially restored.
There was no joy in it.
At 0830, Major Donovan knocked once on my open door and stepped inside. He wasn't wearing his service coat; he was in shirtsleeves, holding a cardboard tray with two paper cups of terrible base coffee.
He set one down on the desk without a word.
“How are you holding up, Morgan?” he asked, leaning against the edge of the gray metal filing cabinet.
“I’m cleared for flight, Major,” I said, staring into the dark, oily surface of the coffee. “That’s what matters, right? The manifest is secure, the data leak is plugged, and Greg is cooling his heels in a federal holding facility in Wilmington.”
Donovan sipped his coffee and winced. “OSI pulled his laptop late last night. The encryption was heavy, but the automated backup logs gave up the ghost around 0300. He wasn’t just selling routine transport schedules to foreign brokers.”
I looked up. “What else?”
“He was selling personnel rotas,” Donovan said quietly. “Specific deployment lists for upcoming middle-east and European mobility wings. Names, home addresses, family deployment schedules of active-duty pilots and loadmasters.”
A cold shiver crawled down my spine. “He was targeting my squadron.”
“He was targeting you specifically, Morgan,” Donovan corrected, his eyes hard. “You were the primary vector. Your flight path, your schedule, your downtime—he mapped your entire life down to the millimeter so he could predict when and where to trigger your sister’s tantrums. The wedding wasn’t just a cover; it was a cage he built around you.”
The coffee tasted like ash.
“And Britney?” I asked, the question sticking in my throat like a fishhook.
Donovan looked away for a second. “The wedding’s cancelled, obviously. Your mother is currently trying to figure out how to recover thirty thousand dollars in non-refundable deposits from a caterer in Charleston while fielding calls from local reporters who have already caught wind of Greg’s arrest.”
He pushed off the filing cabinet and stood straight.
“You have twenty-four hours of administrative leave remaining before your next scheduled briefing, Lieutenant. You want me to authorize a transport back up to Hockessin?”
I looked at the phone on the desk. Still dark. Still silent.
Britney’s last words to me on that terrace—*Don’t come to the wedding. Don’t ever talk to me again*—were ringing as clearly as an alarm bell.
May you like
“No, Major,” I said, standing up and reaching for my flight jacket. “There’s nothing left for me in Hockessin.”
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