Harry had a long reach and used it. He slammed his fist into Hughes’s cheekbone, then headbutted him for good measure. Hughes’s eyes rolled, but he remained conscious. Harry grasped him by the shoulders and put him in a chokehold.

“Move and I snap your neck,” Harry said, breathing hard.

Removing his other shoelace from his pocket, Harry tied Hughes’s wrists together, then knocked his legs out from under him. He was done playing games.

Lying prone beside his defender, Lance Corporal Thompson had observed the short altercation in silence, his face devoid of color.

“You’re making a mistake, Captain,” Thompson said quietly.

Harry gave Thompson his undivided attention. One trick he had learned during his military service—wait the guilty party out. When emotions ran high, the wrongdoer often gave up more information than they intended.

“Private Hughes had nothing to do with this,” Thompson insisted.

“I caught Hughes removing crates with a forged work order. Unless you know something you haven’t shared, Thompson, Private Hughes is every bit as guilty as you are.”

Thompson closed his eyes, exhaled loudly, then opened them again. “You can’t arrest, Hughes. It’s me you want.” He turned his head away, shame in every line of his body.

“I’m not buying that you’re the only person responsible for selling and shipping arms from this base,” Harry snapped. Thompson didn’t have the brainpower for covert operations of this magnitude. That type of planning called for a great deal of cunning. Someone else was definitely calling the shots. “Who threatened you?” Harry asked as he obtained both guns and slipped them inside his waistband.

Thompson shook his head. “I can’t say. If I do, I’m a dead man.”

Taking first Thompson, then Hughes, by the arms, Harry propelled them toward the office in his stocking-clad feet.

Hughes’s and Thompson’s arrests would spread like wildfire the minute Matthews opened his mouth. If Thompson was working with someone of higher rank on the base, he’d get a free walk the second Harry departed for the Highlands. Harry had no intention of allowing that to happen. But if Thompson really was in danger . . .

“If you need protection, Thompson, you’d better confess all of it. Right now.”

Thompson’s jaw worked, the muscles bunching under the skin.

“Who ordered those shipments?” Harry demanded.

Thompson refused to answer.

“Maybe Captain Benson can help you,” Hughes urged. “Tell him, Ollie.”

“Lance Corporal Thompson, I asked you a direct question, and I expect a straight answer,” Harry barked, sounding like a drill sergeant. “Was Private Hughes part of this?”

“No. The kid’s been at me to stop drinking, so I don’t get cashiered from the army. But I’m trying to be disgraced, then Danny will leave me alone.” Thompson’s eyes widened, and he looked as though he wanted to slap a hand over his mouth.