Page 4 of Echo: Line
Then other footage showing Kane arriving too late. He raises his weapon, calculating the shot then lowering the weapon. Standing there. Watching.
The footage loops. Kane watching. Over and over. The moment frozen in time.
"He could have tried," Kessler says softly. "Could have taken the shot. Probably would have missed, probably would have hit you instead. But he could have tried." He pauses. "He chose not to. Made the tactical call. Cut his losses. That's what good commanders do, isn't it? Sacrifice the expendable asset."
He leaves the tablet on the table, the footage still playing on loop. Kane watching. Kane lowering his weapon. Kane turning away. The door closes again. The locks engage.
I hang there, staring at the looping footage. Something cracks inside my chest. Not breaking—not yet. But definitely starting to fracture.
This is how they win. Not through pain or drugs or exhaustion. Through showing you the moment. The choice. The calculation that made you expendable.
The lights buzz overhead. My shoulders are twin points of white-hot agony. The drugs still fog my thoughts, making everything sharp and distant at once.
I close my eyes against the screen. Count my heartbeats. Calculate how long shoulders can stay dislocated before permanent nerve damage sets in. Forty-eight hours, maybe less. After that, even if Kane finds me, I might never regain full mobility. Career over. Life over, in all the ways that matter.
The camera's red light blinks in the corner. Waiting.
Kessler thinks he's shown me proof of abandonment. What he's actually done is show me Kane making the right tactical call under impossible circumstances.
2
DELANEY
The conference room smells like burnt coffee and bureaucratic anxiety. I slide into a chair at the long table, resisting the urge to check my phone for the hundredth time since Patterson's call. Eleven hours of recycled air and cramped seating makes every muscle protest. My suit jacket is wrinkled despite my best efforts in the car, and exhaustion drags at me like a physical weight.
Patterson stands at the head of the table, rigid with tension I've learned to recognize in my eight years with the Bureau. Someone above his pay grade gave him orders he doesn't like.
"Ward." He doesn't wait for me to settle, just activates the screen behind him. A face appears. Military ID photo, professional and controlled. "Alex Mercer. Former Delta Force, dishonorably discharged three years ago for refusing a direct order during operations in Syria."
I lean forward. Mid-thirties, weathered from too much time in hostile territory. Eyes that calculate angles and threats even in an official photograph. A face that reveals nothing.
"Domestic terrorist classification came down from the Director two hours ago." Patterson's voice flattens the way it does when he's delivering orders he doesn't entirely agreewith. "Mercer's part of a cell calling themselves Echo Ridge. They've been operating in Montana, Wyoming, and surrounding territories. Suspected involvement in multiple incidents over the past six months."
The screen changes. More photos. A burned-out building. Bodies covered with tarps. Tactical gear scattered across snowy ground. Evidence tags everywhere.
"This was a staging facility outside Whitefish, Montana. Four days ago." Patterson clicks to the next image. "Twenty-seven dead. Federal intelligence contractors working counterterrorism operations."
My stomach tightens. Twenty-seven. That's not a firefight. That's a massacre.
"What agency?" I ask.
"Interagency task force. Multiple departments coordinating on domestic threat assessment." Patterson's explanation is deliberately vague, which usually means the classification is above my clearance level. "Mercer and his cell targeted them specifically. We believe Echo Ridge has been systematically eliminating intelligence assets for months."
The screen shifts again. Surveillance footage. Grainy but clear enough. A man moving through trees, weapon raised, pursuing another figure. The timestamp puts it at the same location as the staging facility. The pursuing figure matches Mercer's build, his movement patterns.
"That's him?" I ask.
"Confirmed by facial recognition and gait analysis." Patterson pauses. "Intelligence personnel attempted to apprehend him during this engagement but he evaded capture. He's been at large for four days."
At large. Which means they lost him in the chaos of the firefight.
"Current location?" I ask.
"Unknown, but we have intelligence suggesting he's moved to the Wyoming area." Patterson's jaw tightens. "He's armed, highly trained, and demonstrably willing to kill to avoid capture."
Something about the surveillance footage nags at me through the fog of jet lag. The movement is disciplined, controlled. Professional. But the targeting seems off somehow.
"What was the task force doing at that staging facility?" I ask.
