Chapter 2 - The Ghost of the USS Leviathan"Clear the center of the room," Admiral Thorne ordered, looking around the ballroom.
The guests didn't need to be told twice. Senators, CEOs, and socialites scrambled backward, pressing themselves against the gold-leafed walls to create a wide, open corridor between the stage and the entrance.
My mother, Beatrice Vance, finally looked up from her folded hands. Her eyes were wide with a terror she hadn't felt since the day the Navy officers first knocked on our mahogany front door five years ago to deliver a casualty notification.
"Clarissa," my mother whispered, her voice shaking. "They told us... they said the USS Leviathan went down with all hands. They said there were no survivors in Compartment Four."
"They were wrong, Mother," I replied, stepping forward until the heels of my boots clicked rhythmically against the floor. "Compartment Four flooded in thirty seconds. The bulkhead warped from a direct anti-ship missile strike. The emergency release was jammed by four tons of burning titanium."
I turned slightly, letting the dimming light catch the ridges of scar tissue on my left shoulder blade.
"I spent six hours underwater in a pocket of air the size of a coffin, using a plasma cutter to slice through the structural ribbing while my skin was melting. I dragged three unconscious sailors out through a torpedo tube before the reactor core sealed itself. When the rescue sub finally latched on, my medical file was classified Top Secret under orders from the Secretary of the Navy to protect a joint-strike operation."
I looked directly at Arthur, whose face had gone from pale to an alarming shade of slate grey.
"And while I was recovering in an underground military hospital in San Diego under an alias... my own father was signing a three-billion-dollar defense contract with the same conglomerate that supplied the faulty hydraulic valves that nearly killed us."
The silence in the ballroom was absolute. You could hear the hum of the air conditioning vents high above.
"Is that true, Arthur?" Senator Thomas, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, stepped out from the crowd. His voice was dangerously quiet. "Did Vance Maritime supply the bypass valves for the Leviathan class?"
Arthur’s knees buckled slightly. He caught himself on the edge of the mahogany podium. "Senator... Thomas... let’s not—that was an unverified mechanical failure—"
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"It was corporate negligence," Admiral Thorne stated flatly, pulling a sealed manila folder from his attaché case and handing it to the senator. "And Captain Vance’s classified after-action report contains every single diagnostic log proving it. Which is why she was requested here tonight—not as a guest, but as the lead federal investigator for the Department of Defense Inspector General's office."
Audrey let out a sharp, choked gasp and fainted straight back into the arms of a horrified hedge fund manager.
