Chapter 3 - The Video That Shouldn't Exist
Mara turned toward Mercer before he had fully entered the hangar.
"You ordered Rourke to stay?"
Mercer stopped.
He had followed her.
Of course he had.
"Mara—"
"Answer me."
"Yes."
The word hit harder than Kane's confrontation ever could.
Mercer had been her commanding officer.
Her mentor.
The man who recommended her for the classified aviation program.
The man who had stood beside her when the mission review board told her Rourke's death wasn't her fault.
"You let me believe I abandoned him."
"I was following orders."
"Whose?"
Mercer looked toward the frozen image of Rourke.
"General Conrad Hale."
Mara knew the name.
Everybody did.
Hale had become one of the most respected military strategists of his generation.
He had retired three years earlier.
"What did Rourke know?"
Mercer opened the flight case.
"The eleven men weren't reconnaissance."
Mara stared at him.
"What were they?"
"Recovery."
"For what?"
Mercer removed the damaged navigation module.
"That."
The module contained data from an experimental guidance system.
A prototype worth billions.
The aircraft carrying it had crashed inside hostile territory.
The eleven-man team was sent to retrieve it.
"But I carried that module home."
"No."
Mercer turned it over.
"This is a duplicate."
Mara remembered Rourke refusing to board.
"He had the real one."
Mercer nodded.
"Hale ordered him to stay until another team arrived."
"Did they?"
"No."
"Why?"
Mercer looked ashamed.
"Because there was no second team."
The truth settled into place.
Rourke hadn't been abandoned accidentally.
He'd been sacrificed.
The projector changed.
A new recording appeared.
Rourke sat in a dark room.
"If you're hearing this, Mara, somebody finally got careless."
He explained that the prototype contained more than navigation data.
It contained flight logs.
Unauthorized missions.
Payments.
Names.
A covert procurement network operating outside legal oversight.
General Hale had been using classified missions to conceal theft and private weapons contracts.
Rourke discovered it.
That was why he had been left behind.
But he survived.
For seven years he had hidden, collecting evidence.
"Why not come home?" Mara whispered.
The recorded Rourke answered almost as though he'd heard her.
"Because the people who abandoned me were waiting there."
The video ended.
A sound came from the darkness.
Mara spun.
Kane stumbled from behind stacked crates.
His hands were bound.
Blood ran from a small cut near his eyebrow.
"Don't shoot!"
Mara rushed to him.
"Who brought you?"
"I never saw him."
She cut the restraints.
Kane was shaking now.
The arrogance from the bar had vanished.
"He said I was supposed to understand what happens when you turn somebody into entertainment."
Mara helped him stand.
"You were used."
"I grabbed you."
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"We'll deal with that later."
Mercer searched the hangar.
Nothing.
Then Kane remembered something.
"The guy said a name."
"What name?"
Kane swallowed.
"Hale."
Mercer and Mara exchanged a look.
A car engine started outside.
Mara ran.
A black SUV disappeared through the far gate.
She caught only part of the plate.
Mercer called it in.
Ten minutes later the answer came back.
The vehicle belonged to a federal contractor.
Owned by a subsidiary.
Which belonged to another company.
Ultimately controlled by Conrad Hale.
"He's cleaning up," Mercer said.
"No," Mara replied.
"He's watching."
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown sender.
A photograph.
Frank standing inside The Rusty Anchor.
Someone had drawn a red circle around him.
Mara immediately called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
She ran for her vehicle.
When they reached the bar, the front door was unlocked.
Broken glass remained on the floor.
The livestream phone was gone.
"Frank?"
Silence.
Mara moved behind the counter.
A chair lay overturned.
Then she saw Frank's phone.
Beside it was an old photograph.
Frank.
Rourke.
And General Hale.
Taken twenty-five years earlier.
Mara heard Mercer inhale sharply.
"You knew?"
Frank's voice came from the hallway.
"More than I wanted to."
He emerged slowly.
He wasn't injured.
But he held an envelope.
"I recognized that insignia because Rourke showed it to me years ago."
Mara stared.
"You knew Rourke?"
"He's my brother."
The revelation hit the room.
Frank placed the envelope on the bar.
"He mailed this to me six years ago with instructions never to open it unless Raven Six walked into my bar."
Mara looked down.
Her name was written across the front.
She opened it.
Inside was a key.
And a note.
IF MARA VANCE EVER SEES THIS, HALE HAS FOUND ME.
The second line contained coordinates.
Mercer entered them into his phone.
His face changed.
"What?"
He turned the screen toward her.
The coordinates belonged to an abandoned Air Force installation in Nevada.
Mara recognized it immediately.
She had trained there.
Raven Six had been built there.
Frank whispered, "There's something else."
He turned the note over.
A final sentence had been written on the back.
Mara read it twice.
Then a third time.
RAVEN SIX WAS NEVER DECOMMISSIONED.
At that exact moment, Mercer's secure phone sounded an emergency alert.
He looked at the screen.
May you like
His face went white.
The aircraft had just powered on.
