The Cost of Honor a serial by Samuel E. Douglass

At the height of the Cold War, a previously unreported incident sees the light of day and demonstrates that governments will always cover up embarrassing incidents, but individuals will often find a way to do the right thing.

Cold War Story - I still don’t know if I can legally tell you this. It happened a long time ago. Hell, I’ve been retired from the Air Force for over 20 years, and this happened five or six years before that. But it was so highly classified at the time, I still don’t know if it has been declassified. It would probably be a good idea if you didn’t spread it around, sort of keep it quiet, you know.

The next day - To appease me, they suggested that maybe a low key search of the vault would give us something more to go on. Agent Kokawski thought that if we found Lt Bird’s fingerprints inside the vault or on records he wasn’t cleared for, it might justify a more formal investigation.