Chapter 5 - The Brass Cartridge
Miles opened a small evidence pouch from his range bag.
Inside lay one spent brass cartridge.
He had recovered it after Avery’s previous qualification attempt.
The casing carried a lot code that did not match the ammunition listed on the official range sheet.
Raines’ voice sharpened.
“You removed government property.”
Miles did not flinch.
“I reported it.”
“To whom?”
“You.”
That silenced the line.
Miles had submitted a written discrepancy report four days earlier.
Raines claimed he never received it.
Ward checked her tablet.
The digital system showed the report had been uploaded.
Then deleted eleven minutes later by an account assigned to the range commander.
Raines stepped toward Miles.
“You’re accusing a colonel based on a database error?”
Ward moved between them.
“No one is accusing anyone yet.”
Avery watched Raines carefully.
His anger was real.
But beneath it was something else.
Urgency.
He was not frightened by the scorecard alone.
He was frightened by the cartridge.
Avery examined the lot code again.
Her grandfather’s notebook contained old ammunition records from his own years at Blackridge.
The first four digits matched an entry he had circled nearly twenty years earlier.
Beside it, he had written one name.
May you like
Raines.
👉 Avery’s grandfather had documented the same suspicious ammunition decades before she arrived.
