Chapter 15 - The Sabotage Manifest
Twenty minutes later, both survivors were secured inside the heated rear cabin of the Hägglunds transport. Diaz had stabilized the injured flight technician with field dressings and an IV drip of warm saline, while Mason knelt beside Avery, wrapping her hands in chemical heat packs and holding a thermos of hot broth to her lips.
As the color slowly returned to her cheeks, Avery pushed the cup aside and reached down for a locked carbon-fiber data drive tethered to her belt with a steel lanyard.
"Mason," she whispered, her voice hoarse from inhaling cold fumes. "The crash... wasn't an accident."
Mason stiffened, his fingers pausing on the blanket clasp. "The dispatch report said dual turbine flameout due to polar icing."
"Polar icing doesn't cause fuel lines to bleed dry simultaneously forty minutes after takeoff," Avery said, her breathing shallow but steady. "Someone swapped the fuel control modules at Andrews Air Force Base before my departure. The secondary injection valves were locked open by a digital logic worm. The engines starved themselves."
Diaz turned around from the driver's bucket, his eyes wide. "Doctor Sloan, who the hell would sabotage a presidential DOD transport?"
"The people who knew what I was bringing to Greenland," Avery answered, tapping the hard drive against her knee. "For the past six months, I haven't just been evaluating logistics bases. I’ve been conducting an internal audit of the Defense Logistics Agency's Arctic Defense Initiative—a sixteen-billion-dollar automated radar network contracted to a private defense consortium called Vanguard Apex."
Mason felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Vanguard Apex.
The name echoed like a ghost in his mind. Vanguard Apex was the primary defense contractor championed by his father’s congressional defense lobbying committee in Washington. For years, Mason had sat at family dinner tables listening to his father boast about the lucrative consulting contracts Vanguard had secured with the Department of the Army.
"My audit found that sixty percent of the hardware deployed across the northern warning chain was counterfeit," Avery explained, looking directly into Mason’s eyes without blinking. "Refurbished commercial components stamped with forged military-spec serial numbers. The entire northern early-warning radar corridor is effectively blind to next-generation hypersonic signatures. Vanguard Apex pocketed four billion dollars in kickbacks. And yesterday, I finalized the forensic financial report that proves the conspiracy leads directly to civilian lobbyists and three retired flag officers."
Mason’s voice barely carried over the engine rumble. "Is my father on that list?"
Avery held his gaze. There was no mockery in her expression, only the profound sadness of an honest arbiter. "Richard Kincaid's signature is on the final procurement waiver, Mason. He signed off on the falsified safety certificates four months ago."
Mason lowered his head, pressing his palms against his temples. The shame that washed over him was different from the childish sting he had felt at Fort Calder. This was rot. Deep, systemic corruption that disgraced the uniform he had spent his youth admiring. His father hadn't just protected his son from military discipline; he had sold out the national security of the country for stock options and boardroom seats.
"He's arriving at Pituffik tomorrow morning," Avery added quietly. "A congressional oversight delegation led by Senator Robert Sterling and General Richard Kincaid was scheduled to tour Outpost Bravo to inaugurate the automated network. They didn't think I would survive the flight."
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Mason took a slow, deep breath, lifting his chin. The cold inside the cab seemed to vanish, replaced by a quiet, burning fire.
"They don't know who they're dealing with, ma'am," Mason said, his voice dropping into hard, unwavering certainty. "And this time... we aren't running."
