The crewmember showed us to the stateroom—king bed, wide windows overlooking the water, a bar displayed in the corner.
"If you need anything, just call," he said, and disappeared.
I went straight to the bar.
Found whiskey—good stuff, older than I was—and poured two glasses. Handed one to Amelia, downed mine in one swallow, and poured another.
She sipped hers, watching me over the rim.
"You good?" she asked.
"No," I said. "But I will be."
I took another drink, slower this time, and leaned against the bar.
"I need to tell you something," I said. "About two years ago."
Her eyes sharpened. "Levi?—"
"No," I cut her off. "I need to say this. I should've said it then, but I couldn't. Now I can."
She set her glass down and waited. I took a breath.
"We're past top-secret bullshit," I started. "But what happened goes even higher than that."
Her brow furrowed, but she didn't interrupt.
"You were right," I said. "About the story. About the contractors. Some political prick thought he'd save the world on his own, naively appropriating funds for a small army of private mercenaries. These guys were especially cunning. Very good at disguising themselves as the good guys."
I swirled the whiskey in my glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light.
"At first, I really didn't think there was a story," I continued. "I thought you were chasing shadows. But then, not hours before I was supposed to pick you up at the motor pool, I found out the truth. It was by accident. I overheard a conversation that led to me poking a little deeper."
Amelia's expression didn't change, but I could see the tension coiling in her shoulders.
"What I found shocked me," I said. "These mercenaries weren't just running off-book operations. They were preparing something big. A large-scale operation to exterminate an entire village. Civilian targets. Women, kids. The whole town."
Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh, my God."
"And that wasn't the worst part," I said. "They knew about you. They knew you were digging. And they were prepared to kill you, too. Make it look like collateral damage. Another journalist caught in the crossfire."
The glass in her hand trembled.
"I wasn't about to let that happen," I said. "So, I took a small team—guys I trusted—and we followed the mercenaries. Let them get far enough out that they thought they were clear. Then I called in the wolves."
I drained the rest of my glass.
"Air strikes. Fire from my team. We wiped out the entire platoon. Every last one of them."
Silence.
Amelia stared at me, eyes wide, processing.
"When my chain of command found out, they went ballistic," I continued. "Threatened to lock me away for life. Court-martial. Leavenworth. The whole nine yards. But someone must've had a level head, because they understood that I'd done for them what they couldn't do for themselves—I'd cleaned up the mess in short order."
I set the empty glass down.
"After that, the dominoes fell quickly. I had to disappear. Swift reassignment. I had to sign no fewer than three NDAs. The 'official' story was concocted for the media—the one you and the rest of the world saw. And the politician who arranged it all? He was found a week later. Heart attack. Thirty-nine years old."
