Operation Atlas. Syria.
The classification markers are higher than anything I've accessed before. Eyes Only. Compartmented. The kind of files that aren't supposed to exist outside secure facilities.
Close it. Tell Dylan you found something above your clearance level and let him decide whether to proceed.
I click open instead.
The first document is an operational briefing. Chemical weapons testing. Authorized personnel only. Target site: civilian village, northern Syria. Population approximately 350.
My hands shake as I scroll through the details.
They chose the village specifically because it was isolated. No international observers, no media presence, no witnesses except the ones they wanted gone anyway. The operation was designed to test chemical agents on a live population under battlefield conditions. Measure dispersal patterns, casualty rates, symptomatic progression. Scientific method applied to mass murder.
Three hundred forty-seven civilians died.
The medical files load before I can stop myself.
The images are clinical. Sanitized. Bodies arranged on metal tables like specimens in a laboratory. But underneath the detached scientific notation, the horror is undeniable. Chemical burns. Tissue necrosis. Respiratory failure documented in excruciating detail.
One file catches my eye. Subject Seven. Female, age eight.
I open it and everything tilts.
The medical photographs are methodical. Progression of chemical exposure over time. An eight-year-old girl with dark hair and darker eyes, systematically photographed as the chemicals destroyed her from the inside. The notes are worse. Clinical observations of her deterioration. Time of death marked with the same casual precision as the ambient temperature.
My coffee cup hits the floor. The sound echoes like a gunshot in the quiet room.
Dylan moves fast. Steadies me before I realize I'm swaying. His hand on my shoulder is the only thing keeping me upright.
"Breathe." His voice cuts through the roaring in my ears. "Just breathe."
I can't. Can't breathe, can't think, can't process what I'm seeing. That child. Eight years old. Murdered by her own government.
"They documented it." The words come out strangled. "They took pictures while she died."
"Close the file, Reagan."
"They measured her suffering like a science experiment."
"Close it." Dylan's hand tightens on my shoulder. Not threatening. Anchoring. "You don't need to see more."
But I do. Someone has to bear witness. Someone has to remember these people as more than test subjects and operational statistics.
Another file. Subject Twelve. Male, age fourteen.
The name stops me cold.
Khalid Hassan.
The boy in the corner. The fifteen-year-old who sits too still and watches everything with eyes that have seen too much.
The medical report details chemical exposure. Critical condition. Prognosis: death within hours. But there's a notation at the bottom, handwritten in different ink.
Extracted. Status: Alive.
"You saved him." I look up at Dylan. "You were there. You saw what Morrison did and you saved Khalid."
"I was there to ensure compliance. Make sure the operation proceeded without complications. Document the results. Eliminate any witnesses who survived."
