Page 4 of Shadow Burn

He stifled a sigh. “My word on it.”

This was where she had to push. “I need it in writing.”

One brow rose. “You want me to sign an NDA.”

“Yes.” She slid the document out from under her black notebook. “I have one here.”

It was three pages, single-spaced, that she had drafted herself the night before. He read it slowly, finger tracking down each page, then paused at one of her clauses and glanced up.

“This covers everything I might learn, including in the course of declining.”

“Yes.”

“It also covers everything you say verbally during this meeting.”

She nodded. “That’s the point.”

Another tight sigh. “It’s thorough, I’ll give you that.”

“It’s reasonable.”

He uncapped his pen and signed without further comment, then slid it back, almost like a challenge.

She tucked the signed copy into the back of the black notebook.

“Walk me through what you have,” he said.

This was it. Her pitch needed to give him enough to entice him without giving classified information away.

She opened the navy notebook. “Ten years ago, I joined the Agency’s History Staff. My specialty is institutional records from the Cold War through the early two thousands. I handle the kind of operational documents that get reviewed for declassification, internal histories, and occasional cross-referencing for active investigations. I’m a Senior Archivist.”

He sipped his coffee, seeming unimpressed. And wasn’t that annoying. “Go on.”

“Eight weeks ago, I flagged a 2019 internal memo. It referenced a cover name that belonged to a field officer who, according to every Agency record, was killed in action in 1994. But the memo treated him as an active resource, present tense. Operational, as in, he’s still in the field.”

“I know what operational means.” Jasper scribbled a few words on the notepad. “And?”

Her fingers tightened on the mug. “And I submitted the flag through proper internal review channels. It’s standard protocol for a records inconsistency. Two weeks later, I was reassigned here to process the personal papers of a deceased Station Chief, Walter Vance, whose wife had donated them to the University of Montana. The reassignment was framed as routine.”

His gaze was steady. “I take it it isn’t.”

“No, but here’s why it matters. I went back into the system after I got here and pulled the file on my flag. The routing log had been altered. My flag had been reclassified as a clerical anomaly and marked resolved. Without notification, without my input, and without—as far as I can tell—any actual review.”

Jasper set the pen down. “Who has authority to do that?”

“My supervisor. The Chief of the History Staff. Anyone at the Associate Deputy Director level or above.”

“And your theory?”

“I’m not sharing it before I have evidence to support it.”

His mouth twitched again. “What does that have to do with the Vance papers?”

“I found a second reference to the same cover name. Handwritten and dated 2003—nine years after the officer’s supposed death.”

“Written by Vance.”

“Written by Vance.”