Claire understood the trap.
Tell the truth, and she exposed an operation classified beyond ordinary Special Access Programs.
Stay silent, and she became a coward forever.
“Not guilty.”
The courtroom erupted.
“Murderer!”
“You left them!”
Then Sarah Miller screamed through tears.
“He called you his sister!”
Claire nearly broke.
But the prosecution called its first witness.
“General Richard Vance.”
Her father took the stand.
“What happened at Checkpoint Echo?” Colonel Nathaniel Price asked.
Richard lowered his eyes with measured grief.
“Leadership failed when courage was required.”
Then the drone footage played.
Miller near communications.
Hayes at the eastern barrier.
Jenkins running ammunition.
Claire in the command yard.
The screen flickered.
When the image returned, Claire was moving toward the western ridge.
Reynolds whispered, “We’re finished.”
“No.”
“What?”
“They removed forty-five seconds.”
His face changed.
“What was in those forty-five seconds?”
Claire stayed silent.
