Staff Sergeant Colt Ramsay gestured to the chair, his arrogance rolling off him in waves. “Have a seat, sweetheart.”
He settled into his own chair, the very picture of dominant, unassailable authority. He was king in this room, and I was the jester he’d dragged in for his amusement. Corporal Tucker guided me into the seat, his touch professional and impersonal, a stark contrast to Ramsay’s theatrical preening.
“Remove the restraints,” Ramsay ordered, leaning back and lacing his fingers behind his perfect hair. He was savoring this. “I want our guest to be comfortable for our little chat.”
The metallic click of the handcuffs opening was deafening in the small, dead room. The cuffs fell away.
I didn’t rub my wrists, not yet. That would be a sign of weakness, of discomfort. Instead, I placed my hands flat on the cold metal table, palms down. I flexed my fingers, one by one. Index. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Thumb. Feeling the blood rush back, a pins-and-needles fire. I was checking nerve function, running a micro-diagnostic. It was a precise, medical self-assessment, a habit burned into me from a thousand hours of stress inoculation.
Through the one-way observation mirror to my left, I knew Pierce and Cain were watching. I felt their scrutiny like a physical weight, a different kind of pressure from Ramsay’s ego. They weren’t just watching a show; they were analyzing a problem.
Ramsay opened the manila folder, the one he’d waved in the courtyard like a trophy. He spread several documents across the table with a theatrical flourish, a magician revealing his trick.
“So,” he began, his voice dripping with condescending patience, the kind you’d use on a child who just drew on the walls with a permanent marker. “Let’s start with the basics. Your name. Your real name, this time.”
I met his gaze. My heart was beating at a steady 60 beats per minute. I had already cataloged the room: one door, two guards (Tucker and another by the wall, silent as stone), one-way mirror. Ramsay was my primary focus. His pupils were dilated, not with anger, but with excitement. He was getting a rush from this. This power play was everything to him.
“Evelyn Cross,” I said. My voice was quiet, steady. No fear. No tremor. Just a statement of fact.
“Age?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Occupation?”
I let the slightest pause hang in the air. “Currently unemployed.”
Ramsay’s perfect eyebrows rose in mock surprise. “Unemployed. How convenient. And what did you do before your recent career change to federal criminal?”
For the first time, I let a flicker of something—not amusement, but academic interest—touch my expression. “I worked in logistics.”
“Logistics?” He made a show of writing it down on a yellow legal pad, his pen strokes exaggerated and deep. “And I suppose your ‘logistics’ experience included detailed knowledge of classified military installations, did it?”
He fanned the documents toward me. They were aerial photos of the base, technical diagrams, security protocols. They looked impressive. They were meant to be.
“Let’s talk about these,” he said, his tone shifting, the mockery fading into a prosecutor’s sharp edge. He was done playing; now he was going for the kill. “Detailed schematics of our defensive positions. Guard rotations accurate down to the minute. Classified protocols that would take months of constant, professional surveillance to compile.”
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, the smell of his cologne washing over me—something expensive and sharp. “Unless, of course, someone gave them to you.”
This was the moment. The pivot.
I looked at the documents, not with the fear of a civilian caught red-handed, but with the professional interest of an analyst reviewing a flawed report. My eyes scanned the images, not randomly, but in trained patterns. Top-left to bottom-right, identifying key infrastructure, threat vectors, ingress/egress points. It was automatic. I couldn’t not see the flaws.
From behind the glass, I heard Master Chief Cain shift his weight, the sound barely perceptible. He’d recognized the scanning technique. He knew.
“I’ve never seen these documents before,” I said finally, my voice flat, neutral.
Ramsay laughed, a sharp, ugly sound that was all contempt. “Right. Of course. They just materialized in your backpack. Maybe your fairy godmother left them under your pillow after you wished upon a star to be a SEAL.”
I held his gaze. “I said I’d never seen these documents. I didn’t say I was unfamiliar with the information.”
The distinction, so subtle, so precise, landed in the room with the weight of a dropped grenade.
Ramsay’s smile faltered, just for a second. The cogs were turning. He was trying to figure out if I’d just insulted him.
Behind the glass, Pierce straightened. I could almost hear him: “What did she just say?”
“Explain that,” Ramsay demanded, his authority reasserting itself, but with a new edge of irritation.
I leaned back slightly, keeping my posture open, non-confrontational. I was the helpful logistics manager, trying to clear up a misunderstanding. “Norfolk Naval Base is a major East Coast installation. Its general layout, operational capacity, and primary defensive positions are matters of public record for anyone with basic research skills. Half of these photos,” I tapped one, “look like they were pulled from Google Earth. The resolution is civilian-grade.”
I pointed to one of the “classified” diagrams. “And this schematic of the power grid? It’s outdated. That substation, right there, was refitted 18 months ago after the hurricane scare. The main conduits were rerouted. This diagram shows the old layout. What makes information classified, Staff Sergeant, isn’t its existence. It’s its accuracy and specificity. Most of this… it’s just noise. It’s the kind of packet a third-rate intelligence service would buy, thinking they had gold.”
Ramsay’s jaw tightened. This wasn’t going according to his script. He was supposed to be breaking down a hysterical, star-struck wannabe, not debating operational security with a logistics manager who sounded like a DIA analyst.
“She’s right,” Commander Blackwood, who I sensed had joined the others behind the glass, said quietly. His voice was a low murmur, but I knew he was there. “Half of what he’s showing her could be pulled from Jane’s Defense Weekly.”
Ramsay, flustered and angry, swept the photos aside as if they were trash. He replaced them with a new set of documents. Personnel files.
“Fine,” he snapped. “Let’s talk about something more specific. Something you can’t find on Google.” He spread them out. “These are the active duty records for SEAL Team 6. Names, deployment histories, family information. Their kids’ names. Their home addresses. The kind of data that gets people killed.”
My focus sharpened. The air in my lungs turned to ice. This was different. This wasn’t open-source. This wasn’t “noise.” This was real.
My breathing pattern shifted. Still controlled, but deeper. Heightened alertness. My internal temperature dropped. The “Evelyn Cross” persona thinned. I reached for one of the files. My movement was precise, confident. The gesture of someone who handled classified materials every single day of their life.
I scanned the top page. The name. The photo. A man I’d shared a meal with. A man with a wife and a new baby. My blood turned to sludge.
“This information is current as of last month,” I observed. My voice was cold now. All pretense of “logistics” was gone. “That suggests ongoing, active access to classified personnel databases. Not a one-time theft.”
The observation hit Ramsay like a slap. He’d been so focused on his performance, on his “gotcha” moment, that he’d forgotten basic operational security. By showing me current, active intelligence, he had revealed a critical, catastrophic piece of the puzzle: the leak wasn’t just inside. It was active.
“That’s not your concern,” he snapped, his composure cracking, the first visible fissures appearing in his perfect facade.
“Isn’t it?” I set the file down, pushing it gently back toward him. I looked directly at him, into his eyes. “You’re accusing me of espionage based on documents I’ve never seen, while simultaneously demonstrating that highly classified, life-and-death information is being actively leaked from sources I couldn’t possibly have access to. That seems like a logical contradiction, Staff Sergeant.”
Behind the glass, Cain whistled softly. “She’s not just running circles around him. She’s running the whole damn track.”
Ramsay stood abruptly. The chair screeched against the concrete, a harsh, grating sound designed to startle, to intimidate, to re-seize control.
I didn’t flinch. I didn’t even blink.
My head tilted, tracking his movement. My body remained relaxed, but poised. Ready to move. Every muscle fiber was awake.
“You know what I think?” he said, pacing behind me now, a classic interrogation-room power move. Using his height and position to loom. “I think you’re a professional. Not some wannabe playing dress-up, but an actual intelligence operative. The question is, which service? CIA? DIA? Or maybe something… more exotic?”
It was a classic fishing expedition. He was desperate for a reaction, for any small piece of data he could grab onto.
I
