Chapter 5 - The Names on the Card
The first gunshot came from outside.
Cole shoved me behind the wall.
“Down!”
Another shot cracked through a boarded window.
Mercer pulled Rachel behind a concrete divider.
Vale yelled, “Kessler's cleaning the site!”
Military police returned fire.
I crawled toward the hallway.
Cole grabbed my jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Rear exit.”
“Locked.”
“Service tunnel.”
Rachel heard me.
“This building has one?”
“Redwood did. Structures from that period reused the same civil-defense plans.”
Vale stared.
“She’s right.”
We moved.
Mercer kept the microSD card.
Cole covered the corridor.
A military police officer found the basement stairs.
The rear access hatch was rusted but functional.
Outside, gunfire continued.
Whoever Kessler had sent had planned to eliminate everyone inside.
That included Vale.
Which meant his usefulness had ended.
We entered the tunnel.
Dark.
Narrow.
Concrete walls.
The smell hit me.
Smoke.
Not real smoke.
Memory.
My breathing changed.
Rachel noticed.
“Avery.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're not.”
“I can move.”
That was enough.
Cole walked ahead, then stopped.
“You know this feeling?”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Being told you're fine because you can still stand.”
I almost smiled.
“Not the time.”
“Probably not.”
We kept moving.
The tunnel opened behind an old maintenance shed nearly two hundred yards from Building 41.
Military police extracted us from there.
By midnight, Fort Benning was under a security lockdown most recruits would never understand.
Vale was detained.
Rachel was placed in protective custody.
Evan was relocated again.
And the microSD card was taken to a secure forensic workstation.
I sat beside Cole and Mercer while technicians opened it.
There were seventy-three files.
Personnel records.
Medical reports.
Transfer orders.
Audio recordings.
Photographs.
Most were from Redwood.
Some were not.
The operation had extended far beyond one hospital.
Names appeared from facilities in Georgia, Texas, Virginia, and North Carolina.
Soldiers who had reported crimes.
Contractors who had threatened testimony.
Officers who became politically inconvenient.
Some had legitimate psychiatric diagnoses.
Others did not.
Their records had been altered to discredit them.
One folder was labeled:
BENNETT, A.
I stopped breathing.
Mercer opened it.
My file contained surveillance photographs.
School records.
Employment history.
Hospital schedules.
Then Army recruiting documents dated years after the fire.
“They tracked me.”
Cole leaned closer.
“They knew you enlisted.”
Another document appeared.
RECOMMENDATION: ASSIGN SUBJECT TO TRAINING ENVIRONMENT, FORT BENNING.
I looked at Mercer.
“You think my assignment here was random?”
He didn't answer.
Cole did.
“No.”
More documents.
A note from nine months earlier:
SUBJECT CONTINUES TO RETAIN PERSONAL EFFECT ASSOCIATED WITH REDWOOD EVENT.
I touched my collar.
“They knew about the jacket.”
Rachel whispered, “They knew the card was in it.”
“No,” Mercer said.
“If they knew, they would've taken it.”
Cole looked at the monitor.
“They suspected.”
That made sense.
Someone knew Rachel hid something.
Someone knew I kept material from the hospital.
They didn't know exactly where.
So they had watched.
Waited.
Maybe the heat.
Maybe uniform enforcement.
Maybe they hoped someone would force me to remove it.
My stomach tightened.
I looked at Cole.
He understood.
“You think I was used.”
“Yes.”
His face darkened.
“Who told you to focus on uniform violations today?”
He didn't answer.
“Cole.”
He stood.
“Senior training memorandum.”
“From who?”
He walked out.
Ten minutes later he returned with a printed directive.
The order instructed drill instructors to perform strict warm-weather uniform compliance inspections.
Signed electronically by Colonel Marcus Vale.
Vale, however, stared at it and shook his head.
“I didn't issue that.”
Mercer compared digital records.
“The signature is valid.”
“Then someone used my authorization.”
Cole looked sick.
“They expected me to force Bennett's jacket off.”
“Yes,” I said.
He rubbed his jaw.
“And when I did…”
“Someone photographed it.”
Rachel looked at me.
“They confirmed the scars.”
“Why would that matter?”
She hesitated.
“Because the patient who pulled me out knew you survived.”
“Jacob Reed?”
“Yes.”
“He told Kessler?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Rachel's face tightened.
“Avery, Jacob had severe burns too.”
My throat closed.
“He came back inside?”
“For you.”
I stared.
“What?”
“After getting me into the tunnel, he went back.”
I remembered.
A man beneath the smoke.
Hands grabbing my shoulders.
Dragging me across broken glass.
I never saw his face.
I always assumed a firefighter rescued me.
“Jacob saved me.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Rachel looked at Mercer.
Mercer opened another file.
Jacob Reed.
Missing.
Presumed dead.
No death certificate.
No burial location.
The final note:
SUBJECT REED POSSESSES ORIGINAL TESTIMONY.
Cole leaned forward.
“Testimony against Kessler.”
Rachel nodded.
“The transfer list proves the system existed. Jacob's testimony proves who ordered it.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
My phone vibrated.
Everyone looked at it.
Unknown number.
I almost didn't answer.
Then a text appeared.
DON'T TRUST VALE.
Another.
DON'T TRUST MERCER.
Mercer saw it.
“So much for subtlety.”
A third message came.
DON'T TRUST RACHEL.
Rachel went pale.
Cole stared at my phone.
“Someone wants you isolated.”
One final message.
TRUST THE MAN WHO PULLED YOU FROM THE FIRE.
Attached was a location.
No name.
A rural address forty miles outside Columbus.
Mercer immediately ordered surveillance.
Before anyone moved, Cole said, “Wait.”
He pointed to the metadata.
The message had been routed through an old emergency relay network.
Military.
Mercer checked the sender architecture.
His face drained.
“What?”
He whispered, “This system was shut down five years ago.”
Rachel said, “Jacob worked communications before Redwood.”
Cole looked at me.
“You think it's him?”
“I don't know.”
Vale suddenly laughed from the other side of the room.
Everyone turned.
He looked at the address.
“I know that place.”
“Where?”
“Old recovery property.”
“What kind?”
Vale met my eyes.
“Kessler owned it through a shell company.”
Rachel whispered, “Then don't go.”
Vale shook his head.
“You have to.”
Cole frowned.
“Why?”
Vale looked directly at me.
“Because if Jacob Reed is really alive, he's the only person who can destroy Kessler.”
Mercer checked the time.
“We move at dawn.”
I looked again at the address.
Then noticed something beneath the coordinates.
A timestamp.
2:17 P.M.
The exact minute Cole had ordered me to remove my jacket.
Someone had scheduled the message before that moment happened.
I zoomed in.
May you like
A final hidden line appeared beneath the timestamp:
AVERY, I HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU SINCE THE DAY I SAVED YOUR LIFE.
