“Thank you, office warrior.”
The table laughed again.
Rebecca's smile faded.
A younger Marine noticed.
He glanced toward Tyler, then back at Rebecca.
But nobody intervened.
Tyler continued.
“You know what the funniest part is? She even had a call sign.”
Rebecca felt something tighten inside her chest.
“Tyler.”
He grinned.
“Oh, come on. It's hilarious.”
“Leave it alone.”
He turned toward his friends.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my sister's legendary call sign was Nightingale.”
A few Marines laughed.
Someone asked why.
Tyler spread his arms dramatically.
“Because apparently the Air Force needed somebody to sing everybody to sleep.”
Rebecca lowered her glass.
“Tyler, stop.”
He didn't.
He deepened his voice and pretended to speak into a radio.
“Attention, gentlemen. Nightingale is here. Please remain calm while I finish my spreadsheet.”
The laughter grew louder.
Rebecca stared at her brother.
She remembered a different radio.
A different room.
A night when a frightened voice had asked whether anyone was still listening.
She remembered smoke filling a communications station.
A damaged headset.
A Marine calling for medical evacuation.
And Daniel Mercer's final words before the network went silent.
Her fingers tightened around the glass.
“Enough.”
The single word cut through the laughter.
Tyler blinked.
“What?”
“I asked you to stop.”
His smile hardened.
“Rebecca, it's a joke.”
“Then find another one.”
An uncomfortable silence settled over the table.
Tyler looked embarrassed.
He glanced at his friends, then shrugged.
“Okay. Apparently we're not allowed to have fun anymore.”
Rebecca stood.
“I need some air.”
“Seriously?”
She picked up her handbag.
“I'll be back.”
Tyler shook his head.
“Unbelievable.”
Rebecca turned toward the exit.
That was when Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Holloway entered the room.
He was fifty-one, broad-shouldered, with closely cropped gray hair and a narrow scar beneath his left ear. He carried a coffee mug in one hand and a folded newspaper in the other.
He had served more than two decades in the Marine Corps.
He had survived four combat deployments.
He had buried friends.
And he had spent eleven years trying to forget the worst night of his military career.
As he approached the table, Tyler called out.
“Gunny! You've got to hear this.”
Holloway smiled faintly.
“What now, Bennett?”
“My sister's old Air Force call sign.”
Rebecca stopped walking.
“Tyler, don't.”
But he was already laughing.
“Nightingale.”
Holloway stopped.
The smile disappeared from his face.
“What did you say?”
Tyler grinned.
“Nightingale. Can you believe that?”
Holloway slowly turned toward Rebecca.
She stood beside the doorway, half hidden by the afternoon sunlight.
For several seconds, he stared.
Then his coffee mug slipped from his fingers.
It struck the floor and shattered.
The room went silent.
Holloway took one step toward her.
His face had turned pale.
“Rebecca Bennett?”
She looked at him.
Recognition flickered in her eyes.
“Marcus?”
He swallowed.
“Major Bennett?”
She nodded once.
The older Marine straightened.
Then raised his right hand in a sharp salute.
Rebecca returned it automatically.
“Easy, Gunny,” she whispered.
But Holloway did not move.
His eyes filled with tears.
“I thought you were dead.”
Tyler stared.
“What?”
Holloway lowered his hand.
“I heard the last transmission.”
Rebecca's face changed.
“Marcus, not here.”
But he was looking at Tyler now.
“Your sister was the voice that kept twenty-seven Marines alive in Valley Echo.”
Tyler laughed nervously.
“Gunny, what are you talking about?”
Holloway's expression hardened.
“I'm talking about the night we were surrounded, our extraction was delayed, and command told us help wasn't coming.”
The room became perfectly still.
Holloway turned back toward Rebecca.
“She stayed on the radio.”
Rebecca lowered her eyes.
“She coordinated the people who helped you.”
“No, ma'am,” Holloway said, his voice breaking. “You refused to let us disappear.”
Tyler looked at his sister.
“Rebecca?”
She said nothing.
Holloway took a shaky breath.
“Your sister wasn't sitting behind a desk doing nothing, Staff Sergeant.”
He paused.
“She was holding together a rescue operation while somebody tried to stop it.”
Rebecca's head snapped up.
“Marcus.”
But Holloway continued.
“And the officer who ordered that rescue delayed was connected to the same flight that made Captain Daniel Mercer disappear.”
Rebecca froze.
For eleven years, she had carried that name like a wound.
Tyler looked between them.
“Who's Daniel Mercer?”
Nobody answered.
Then Rebecca's phone vibrated.
She glanced at the screen.
An unknown number.
A single message.
YOU SHOULD NEVER HAVE COME TO CALIFORNIA.
Another message appeared.
NIGHTINGALE WAS SUPPOSED TO STAY DEAD.
Rebecca slowly raised her eyes.
Outside the lounge windows, a dark SUV waited beside the parking lot.
Its engine was running.
And behind the tinted windshield, someone was watching her.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
The broken coffee mug lay scattered across the floor, but Gunnery Sergeant Marcus Holloway seemed unaware of it. His attention remained fixed on Rebecca Bennett.