Chapter 4
Two MPs walked up to the barrier from the QRF position — slow, careful, one on each side of Mullins, the way you approach a guy you've worked with for years and are about to take into custody. The one on his left was Sergeant Bailey, who I'd shared a shift with twice a week since I got to Gate 3. She didn't look at Mullins. She looked at the ground in front of him.
"Staff Sergeant," she said. "Step away from the podium."
Mullins didn't move.
He was still staring at the tablet. Nakamura was holding it steady, screen out, and the still of the box truck hadn't changed, and the 06:38 hadn't changed, and the side gate was still empty.
"That's not my post," Mullins said again. "That's the side gate. That's — I'm not the side gate."
"You're the entry book," Nakamura said. "Entry at 06:38. Vehicle's on the side-gate camera at 06:38. Specialist Delgado's lane camera shows no vehicle at 06:38."
"Then it's a clock problem. The cameras are off by — "
"Staff Sergeant." Nakamura said it the way you say a name you've known for years and are about to say for the last time in a professional context. "I opened an audit fourteen days ago. Random cargo inspection at Gate Seven. Two pallets of commercial goods on post with no entry record, and no matching camera traffic on any inbound lane."
The line stayed quiet. Somebody killed an engine, and the silence got louder.
"I've been matching the entry book to both cameras for two weeks," Nakamura said. "Every signature, every time stamp, every vehicle. The only gap I couldn't close was the side gate. I had the truck. I had the time. I didn't have an entry to hang it on."
He tapped the tablet with one finger.
"Specialist Delgado's pocket log has been closing that gap every morning for fourteen months without telling anyone."
Mullins turned his head and looked at me for the first time since the shove. Not angry. Not even surprised. Something worse. Like he'd finally put together two pieces he'd been staring at for over a year and had never once thought to connect.
"You've been — " He stopped.
"I've been writing it down," I said.
"Since when?"
"Since about month three."
"Fourteen months ago."
"Yes, Sergeant."
He swallowed. His badge was on his chest and his hands were at his sides and his right palm was still bandaged and the 06:38 was still sitting in the corner of Nakamura's tablet screen like a stain.
"Step away from the podium, Staff Sergeant," Bailey said again, and this time she put her hand on his elbow, and this time he moved.
They walked him down the shoulder of the lane, past the front car, past the second car with the phone, past the delivery van that had honked first.
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