Page 96 of Echo: Burn
I turn back to the tactical display, studying the satellite image of Whiskey-Seven. The facility sits in a valley surrounded by mountains, a fortress built into the landscape itself. Somewhere in that structure, Mercer is holding on. Resisting interrogation. Buying us time with every second he refuses to break.
And Victor Kessler is probably there too. Watching. Waiting. Hoping I'll come charging in on emotion instead of strategy.
He wants me to feel what Hart felt. To watch someone I care about suffer because of choices I made.
But I'm not giving him that satisfaction.
"Cray," I say, not looking away from the screen. "This intel you're providing. If it gets any of my team killed because you'restill working for the Committee, because this is some elaborate setup...”
"It won't," he interrupts firmly. "I'm done with them. This is me trying to do one thing right before I disappear. One thing that doesn't end with innocent people dead because I followed orders without questioning them."
I study him for a long moment, weighing his words against years of experience with liars and double agents. Then nod slowly. "Get to work. I want that tunnel route mapped down to the centimeter. Every obstacle. Every potential chokepoint. Every place they could have set up surveillance or traps."
"You'll have it," Cray promises.
As the team disperses to their assignments, Willa catches my arm.
"Do you trust him?" she asks quietly, her voice low enough that only I can hear.
"No," I admit honestly. "But I trust that he wants out. That he's tired of being the Committee's weapon. That somewhere under all that training and all those years of following orders, there's still a person who knows the difference between right and wrong."
"And if he's lying?"
"Then we adapt. We overcome. And we still bring Mercer home." I squeeze her hand. "Eighteen hours to plan and prep. Then we go get him."
She holds my gaze, searching for doubt or hesitation. Finding only determination.
"Together," she says.
"Always."
I watch her move toward the medical station, Odin at her heels. Then I turn back to the tactical display where Cray and Tommy are already deep in conversation, mapping tunnel routes and security protocols.
Eighteen hours. That gives us time to plan properly, gather intelligence on the facility, and prep equipment. We go in rested and ready, not exhausted and sloppy.
But even as I'm planning, even as I'm calculating approaches and extraction routes, part of my mind is stuck on Kessler. On the look in his eyes outside that burning facility. On his promise to take from me what I took from Hart.
He took Mercer. Made it personal. Made sure I'd come after him.
And when I do, one of us isn't walking away.
20
WILLA
Countdown: 5 Hours
Eighteen hours of planning, prep, and attempted rest have passed since we got the intel on Whiskey-Seven. Now, with five hours until the inauguration, sleep pulls at me—heavy and insistent. My body wants to shut down, to recover from seventy hours of adrenaline and violence. But my mind won't cooperate, cycling through everything that could go wrong.
Mercer's been in Committee custody for eighteen hours now. Eighteen hours of interrogation, enhanced techniques, psychological manipulation. I've had enough trauma medicine training to know what the human body can endure before breaking. More importantly, I know what the mind does to protect itself—dissociation, compartmentalization, the fracturing that happens when pain exceeds tolerance.
And Kessler is the one holding him. That makes it personal in ways I don't want to imagine.
Kane is in the command center with Tommy and Stryker, finalizing approach vectors and contingency plans. Rourke coordinates with whatever contacts he has inside federal law enforcement to run interference if we trigger alarms.
I should be sleeping. Need to be sharp for the operation. But lying here in Kane's quarters—our quarters now—my thoughts won't settle. Every time I close my eyes, I see possible outcomes.
Mercer alive but broken. Mercer dead. The whole thing a trap and we walk right into it. Success but with casualties. Failure with all of us in body bags. Every scenario I imagine ends worse than the last.
