Hidden Trucks

The room was still buzzing when Catherine Vance stepped out into the corridor and let the banquet noise shut behind her.

Her coat dripped onto the polished floor. She took it off slow, folded it over one arm, and stood there in her dress blues while Captain Rebecca Miller came up fast with a tablet in hand.

“Ma’am,” Miller said. “You need to see this.”

Catherine looked once at the screen. Snow streaked across a black-and-white feed from a depot camera. Under the wash of yard lights, three unmarked trucks backed into a loading bay while men in cold-weather gear rolled out pallets marked U.S. property. A forklift bumped one crate, then another. No one on the dock wore a name tape.

Miller zoomed in on the second truck. A man in a hood turned his face toward the camera for half a second.

“Preston Hale,” Catherine said.

Miller gave a short nod. “His brother’s company is on the delivery manifests.”

Catherine kept her eyes on the image. The trucks moved like they belonged there. That was the part that made her jaw go still. Not the masks. Not the snow. The ease.

“Who has this feed?” she asked.

“Depot security. NCIS pulled it fifteen minutes ago.”

Inside the banquet hall, laughter broke, then cut off. A chair scraped. Someone had probably noticed she was gone.

Catherine handed the coat to Miller. “Get me Briggs. 0445. Conference room. NCIS present.”

Miller hesitated. “Ma’am, Lieutenant Torres says there’ve been heating complaints in Barracks Four for two weeks. No repair work logged.”

“Put that on the same table,” Catherine said. “With the banquet invoice.”

Miller blinked once, then was already moving. “Yes, ma’am.”

Catherine started back toward the doors, then stopped when another image popped up on the tablet. A freight manifest, clean and neat, with a signature at the bottom.

Arthur Hale. Not Preston. His brother.

There it was. The shape of it. Banquet money, depot crates, a family name used like a key.

Catherine looked through the glass at the dining room full of officers who had been laughing a minute ago.

“Lock the base down,” she said. “And don’t let Hale leave his room.”

Miller’s mouth tightened. “He already tried, ma’am.”

Catherine turned back.

“He what?”

“Security says he’s on the road to Main Gate now. Fast.”