Cover Those Arms, Nurse Ashworth

“My father?””

The question came out barely above a whisper.

Margaret looked at my face.

“You didn't know?””

“Know what?””

She seemed to regret speaking, but there was no time to retreat.

“Caroline, your father wasn't killed in an ordinary accident.””

I felt the floor shift beneath me.

“His name was Robert Ashworth. He was a civilian maintenance contractor at a naval facility. He died when I was twenty-three.””

“I know who he was.””

“How?””

Margaret glanced toward the corridor behind us.

“Because his personnel file was stored with the records from the old surgical wing.””

My mind raced.

My father had worked with military equipment for most of his adult life. He was an electrician, a practical man who could repair almost anything and disliked discussing his work at the dinner table.

When I enlisted, he had been proud.

When I was deployed, he called whenever the time difference allowed.

Then, during my final year of service, I received a call from my mother.

A truck had struck my father's car on a rural road.

The driver had fled the scene.

The police found my father's vehicle in a ditch, its front end crushed against a tree.

There had been no witnesses.

No suspect.

No reason to believe it had been anything other than a terrible accident.

I had flown home for the funeral in a uniform I could barely stand wearing.

Now Margaret was telling me that my father's death was connected to the men I'd been trying to save four years ago.

“Why would his file be in a restricted medical unit?”” I asked.

“Because he'd discovered discrepancies in equipment shipments. He reported them through the proper channels.””

“The stolen equipment.””

She nodded.

“He found records linking the contractor to a chain of unauthorized transfers. He copied what he could and tried to deliver it to an investigator.””

“Did he succeed?””

Margaret's eyes lowered.

“I don't know. But his name appeared in the same set of files as the six sailors.””

I gripped the brass key until its edges dug into my palm.

“Who put it there?””

“Commander Rourke signed the authorization. Dr. Voss handled the medical records. A civilian administrator approved the transfer.””

“Pike?””

Margaret looked toward the stairwell.

“Pike was working in compliance at the time.””

The three names settled into my mind like pieces of a puzzle I had never wanted to solve.

Rourke.

Voss.

Pike.

And my father in the middle of their paperwork.

“Why didn't you tell me sooner?””

“Because I was afraid.””

“That doesn't explain four years.””

“No,” Margaret said.

“It doesn't.””

She looked directly at me.

“I signed those transfer records, Caroline. I told myself I was protecting my job. I told myself the patients would receive better care somewhere secure. I told myself I had no way of knowing what would happen to them.””

Her voice cracked.

“Then I saw Jonah Reeves being moved through the basement corridor with restraints on his wrists. He looked straight at me and asked me to call his family.””

She covered her mouth.

“I did nothing.””

My anger rose, sharp and immediate.

“Six men were alive, and you let their families believe they were dead.””

“Yes.””

“And my father?””

“I don't know what happened to him. I only know his name was in the file.””

I wanted to demand more.

I wanted her to make sense of four years of lies in a few sentences.

But the alarm continued sounding, and footsteps were approaching from the far end of the corridor.

Margaret wiped her eyes.

“The records room is below the old east wing. If Voss destroys the files, we'll never know who else was involved.””

I looked at the key.

“Then we're not letting him destroy them.””

The old east wing had been closed during a renovation five years earlier.

Its entrance was hidden behind a service corridor on the hospital's ground floor. A faded sign warned staff that the area was restricted due to structural hazards.

Margaret led me through a linen storage room and pushed open an unmarked door.

Behind it was a narrow concrete stairwell.

The air smelled of damp stone and old disinfectant.

“Where does this lead?”” I asked.

“The former surgical recovery unit.””

“Why isn't it sealed?””

“Parts of it are. The restricted program used the sections that remained accessible.””

We descended one flight.

Then another.

At the bottom, a metal door stood beneath a flickering fluorescent light.

A keypad had been installed beside it.

Margaret pulled a small access card from her pocket.

“Where did you get that?””

“I never returned it.””

I stared at her.

“Of course you didn't.””

She swiped the card.

The light turned green.

The lock clicked open.

Beyond the door was a narrow hallway lined with empty hospital beds. Plastic coverings had yellowed over unused equipment. A clock hung crookedly on one wall, frozen at 2:17.

I stepped into the corridor.

The hospital above us seemed impossibly distant.

At the far end stood a door marked B-17.

I inserted the brass key.

It turned.

Inside was a small records room with metal shelving, a desk, a locked filing cabinet, and a computer terminal.

The room was warmer than the corridor.

Someone had been working here recently.

A paper cup of coffee sat beside the keyboard. A desk lamp was still on. An open folder lay beneath a stack of documents.

I moved toward it.

The first page contained a list of names.

Six military personnel.

Their service numbers.

Their original medical classifications.

And a new designation beside each name.

*DECEASED — ADMINISTRATIVE CLOSURE.*

Someone had deliberately converted living men into dead records.

I turned the page.

There were copies of transfer orders, photographs, and handwritten notes documenting the movement of patients through the underground unit.

One entry caught my attention.

*PATIENT 06: ROBERT ASHWORTH.*

My father.

The room seemed to go silent around me.

Beneath his name was a date from the week he died.

A transfer authorization.

A medical assessment.

And one sentence written in red ink.

*SUBJECT REFUSED TO IDENTIFY THE LOCATION OF THE ORIGINAL DRIVE.*

My fingers began to tremble.

“Margaret.””

She came to stand beside me.

When she saw the page, she closed her eyes.

“This is what I was afraid you'd find.””

I turned toward her.

“You knew he had been here?””

“I suspected. I never saw the original record until tonight.””

“Did he die here?””

“I don't know.””

I flipped through the folder, desperate for something more.

A discharge order.

A death certificate.

Anything.

Instead, I found a photograph.

My father stood against a blank wall, wearing a hospital gown. His hair was disheveled. A bandage crossed his forehead.

He looked older than I remembered him.

But he was unmistakably alive.

I pressed the photograph against the desk.

“When was this taken?””

Margaret read the date.

“Three days after the accident listed in his death report.””

I couldn't breathe.

For years, I'd carried a small box of his belongings from one apartment to another. His watch. His old work gloves. A photograph of him teaching me to ride a bicycle.

I had believed he died before I could tell him I was proud of him.

Now I was staring at evidence that he had survived the accident.

At least for three days.

“What happened to him?”” I whispered.

Margaret looked at the open folder.

“I don't know.””

I turned another page.

There was a handwritten statement bearing my father's signature.

The writing was shaky but familiar.

*I did not authorize the transfer. I did not give permission for the records to be altered. If anything happens to me, contact my daughter, Caroline Ashworth, United States Navy medical corps.*

My knees weakened.

He had known.

He had known someone was coming for him.

And he'd tried to leave me a warning.

A noise sounded behind us.

The hallway door slammed.

Margaret spun around.

Someone had locked us inside.

I rushed to the door and tried the handle.

It wouldn't move.

“Margaret?””

She was staring at the computer terminal.

The screen had changed.

A red notification blinked in the center.

*REMOTE DELETION INITIATED.*

A progress bar began filling.

I ran to the keyboard.

The terminal requested an authorization code.

“Do you know the code?”” I asked.

Margaret shook her head.

“No.””

“Try your access number.””

She did.

The screen rejected it.

The progress bar advanced.

Ten percent.

Seventeen.

Twenty-three.

I opened the folder and scanned the pages for a number, anything that might help unlock the system.

At the bottom of my father's statement, beneath his signature, was a short sequence of digits.

I entered them.

The screen flickered.

*IDENTITY VERIFICATION REQUIRED.*

A camera above the terminal angled toward me.

Text appeared beneath the message.

*STATE YOUR FULL NAME.*

I leaned toward the microphone.

“Caroline Elizabeth Ashworth.””

The computer paused.

Then a new message appeared.

*IDENTITY CONFIRMED.*

Margaret stared at me.

“Your father must have registered you as his emergency contact.””

The screen displayed a list of encrypted files.

One was labeled with the mission date.

Another carried my father's name.

The third was titled:

*FINAL TESTIMONY — CAROLINE ASHWORTH AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.*

I clicked it.

A video opened.

For a moment, the screen showed only static.

Then my father's face appeared.

He was thinner than I remembered, with bruising along one cheek and an oxygen tube beneath his nose.

But his eyes were clear.

He looked directly into the camera.

“Caroline,” he said, “if you're watching this, it means they failed to keep you away from the truth.””

I covered my mouth.

My father's voice trembled, but he continued.

“I don't know how much time I have. I know what I found, and I know who's responsible for the transfers. But there's something you need to understand about the mission four years ago.””

He paused to breathe.

“The six men weren't abandoned because the extraction failed.””

His gaze shifted briefly toward someone outside the camera's view.

“They were sent there because Commander Rourke knew they had discovered the original records.””

A shadow moved behind him.

My father looked frightened for the first time.

Then he leaned closer to the camera.

“Caroline, one of those men was told to protect you at all costs. He was given an order before the mission began. If I couldn't get you the evidence myself, he was supposed to find you.””

The video distorted.

I stepped closer.

“Dad?””

The sound broke into static.

Then my father said a name.

A name I hadn't heard since childhood.

A name that had no business appearing in a restricted military file.

“Ask your mother about Daniel Mercer.””

The screen went black.

I stood motionless.

My father had been dead for four years.

Daniel Mercer had died before I was born, according to the only story my mother had ever told me about him.

And now, somewhere inside a hospital where living men had been recorded as dead, my father's final message was telling me that both stories were lies.

Then the computer chimed.

A new file had appeared.

*DANIEL MERCER — STATUS: ACTIVE.*

Below it was a photograph of a man in civilian clothes.

I recognized his face immediately.

He was the man who had stood behind Voss in the original photograph.