Captain Kate’s Tracker Kept Moving After the Fall

I lifted the receiver to my ear. “Colonel?”

“I have heard every word,” Whitaker said. His voice was low and very controlled. “Quinn, stay on the line. A team is already inbound.”

Price crossed the room in three strides and yanked the cord out of the wall.

The line went dead. He stood there holding the severed plug, and I watched understanding catch up with him, and then watched something else, something far more dangerous, take its place.

He dropped the cord. He raised his rifle.

“Nobody leaves this building,” he said.

Chapter 4 – Fault Lines

Nobody moved.

The generator droned behind the wall, and the red indicator lights on the server racks blinked in patient rhythm. Harlan had gone completely still in the corner. I stood beside the dead telephone with my wrenched shoulder pulsing and my right hand empty, and I made myself think the way I had been trained to think when a situation narrowed to a single bad option.

Price had a rifle. Voss and Reed had rifles. I had a cracked handset, a tracker that could not talk, and a contractor in a jumpsuit.

But Price had made one mistake. He had said nobody leaves, which meant he had finally admitted that the plan was no longer to explain, only to contain. And the other two had just heard him say it.

“Sergeant,” Reed said. His voice was thin. “The colonel heard everything. He knows.”

“The colonel heard a conversation,” Price answered, not taking his eyes off me. “Conversations can be disputed.”

“He said a team is inbound.”

“The team is forty minutes out, minimum. We have time.”

“Time for what?”

Price did not answer, and the quiet that followed was worse than any answer.

I said, “He wants you to finish what you started.”

Voss flinched.

“That’s right, Eric. He needs one more thing from you. When the team arrives, the story has to hold, and a story needs people who will tell it the same way. That means nobody who might change their mind.”

“Shut up,” Price said.

“The lieutenant fell. Harlan Brooks was never here. And three decorated soldiers searched the area and found nothing.” I kept my eyes on Voss. “Do you see where you fit in that account?”

Voss’s rifle sagged another inch. His eyes were wet. “He said no one would get hurt.”

“He lied to you. He lied to me for six weeks.”

“Eric.” Price’s voice dropped into the calm, fatherly register he had used on every young soldier in the company, the voice that had once made me feel lucky to be commanded by him. “Think about Tacoma. Think about your girl. You do what I tell you, and she never wants for anything.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you’re a man who pushed his commander out of a helicopter. Alone.”

I watched that threat settle over Voss like a net.

“No,” Reed said suddenly.

Price’s head turned.

“That’s not true,” Reed went on, louder now, his hands trembling on his weapon. “You were standing right there. You gave the signal. Two fingers. I saw it.”

“Specialist.”

“I saw you give the signal, Sergeant. We would not have done it without the signal.”

For the first time that day, Price looked uncertain. It lasted barely a second, but I was watching for it, and I moved.

I did not go for a weapon. I went for the light switch beside the door, slapped it down with my good hand, and the room dropped into darkness.

Someone fired.

The sound was enormous inside the concrete block, a flat, concussive crack that rang through my skull and set my ears whistling. A bullet struck a rack of servers and sparks showered in blue-white fans. I threw myself sideways behind the nearest crate and felt a jolt run through my injured shoulder that turned my vision white.

“Hold your fire!” Reed was shouting. “Hold your fire, you’ll hit the equipment!”

“Find her!” Price roared.

I pressed my back against the crate and forced myself to breathe quietly. Footsteps scuffed near the door. A flashlight snapped on, then another, and their beams swung across the ceiling and the stacked boxes.

“Harlan,” I whispered into the dark.

A pause. Then, from the corner, barely audible: “Here.”

“The generator feed. If you cut it, does the building go dark?”

“It’s already dark.”

“Does it kill the emergency beacon on the roof?”

“No. That runs on battery. It transmits a standing signal that anyone with a handset can lock onto.” A beat. “But it’s off. They switched it off when they arrived.”

“Can you turn it on?”

“The panel is behind the second rack. I’d have to cross the open floor.”

“How long?”

“Ten seconds.”