Page 116 of Rangers Last Promise

“They know you're here.”

I look at him.

“What did you tell them?”

“That Doc finally found his way home.”

Home.

I look away.

“This isn't my home.”

Wolf doesn't argue.

Somehow that makes it worse.

Mara steps beside me.

Not touching.

Just there.

Wolf lays the folders on the hood of Tate’s SUV.

“Blaze had access to some archived records through an old contact. Nothing classified. Mostly personnel assignments and deployment histories.”

“Anything on Twenty-Three?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

Mara frowns. “Nothing at all?”

“That's the strange part. Operation Twenty-Two exists. Twenty-Four exists. Twenty-Five exists.”

“And Twenty-Three?”

Wolf taps the folder.

“Skipped.”

Mara looks at me.

“Twenty-three never existed.”

“Not on paper.”

Trigger reaches into another folder.

“But this did.”

He hands me a photocopy.

It's a personnel movement sheet dated nine days before the ambush.

Seventeen names.

I count them twice.