Chapter 4 - THE BUCKET
Nguyen had placed the bucket.
Daniel contacted him three weeks earlier through an encrypted military channel.
Nguyen believed the message might be fake, but the sender knew a private phrase from Kandahar.
He hid the flash drive inside the bucket and arranged for me to be assigned brass collection.
Tyler kicking it open was not expected.
The humiliation accidentally exposed Daniel’s evidence sooner.
The drive contained ammunition ledgers, convoy logs, and recordings of Hale ordering unauthorized strikes.
But the most important file was locked.
Password hint:
THE SHOT EMILY REFUSED.
I had refused one shot in my career.
During a joint operation in Syria, I declined to fire on a vehicle because a child was visible through the rear window.
The official report called it hesitation.
Minutes later, the vehicle proved civilian.
Daniel told me afterward:
“Restraint is also marksmanship.”
The password was RESTRAINT.
The file opened.
Inside was a live tracker.
Daniel was alive at Fort Sentinel, a decommissioned desert base.
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Then Hale’s men attacked the range tower.
Read Chapter 5 to see how Emily escaped the locked firing line.
