The Manila envelope arrived unmarked, hand-delivered into the Washington Tribune’s secure system. Evelyn Blackwood knew immediately it wasn’t ordinary. Inside were a USB drive and four words that froze her blood: They killed your father.
Her father, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Blackwood, had supposedly died six years earlier in a training accident—brake failure, closed casket, case closed in eight weeks. Evelyn, a former military intelligence analyst turned reporter, decrypted the files on a private air‑gapped laptop and discovered the truth.
The drive exposed Thornhill Defense Industries for massive fraud: cheap materials substituted in military aircraft, falsified safety reports, and kickbacks to Pentagon officials. One crash in Kandahar alone had killed twenty‑three soldiers. Buried deeper was an Asset Neutralization Log—a ledger of murders disguised as accidents. Her father’s name was listed: vehicle incident, staged brake failure—completed.
Before she could react, threats arrived—photos of her apartment, video from inside her home. Evelyn went underground with Colonel Harrison “Flint” Grayson and a group of retired officers. A hit squad followed. They survived the night.
In Oregon, Evelyn learned one target on the list was still alive. Then Nathaniel Thornhill, the founder’s son, made contact, revealing his mother had gathered evidence against the company—and that his father had ordered Evelyn’s father killed. He handed over recordings proving it.
As Thornhill’s security forces closed in and bomb threats escalated, Evelyn made her choice.
“We go public,” she said.
There would be no quiet justice—but once the truth was released, the world would be watching back.