Page 12 of Echo: Spark
Silence fills the vehicle like smoke, heavy with the weight of that statement and what it means. I've crossed lines that can never be uncrossed, killed men I once called brothers, abandoned everything I've ever known for a Syrian boy who deserves better than the hell we've all helped create.
"They'll come harder now," I continue as pine trees blur past the windows. "Morrison can't afford to let that intelligence survive. Or any of us who've seen what's on those drives."
"Good," Kane says with deliberate precision, his weathered hands steady on the wheel. "Let them come."
Tommy’s encrypted channel chirps. One line from the shadow net:WEBB MOVING ASSETS WEST.PROTOCOLS TIGHTENING.No origin we can trust, but the timing tracks like a storm rolling in from the plains.
I catch Kane’s eyes in the rearview mirror and something passes between us—not trust, not yet, but understanding. We're all burned men here, betrayed by those we served without question, abandoned by institutions we bled for across foreign battlefields. Maybe that shared betrayal is enough common ground to build something new on, something that won't abandon its own when political convenience demands sacrifice.
Khalid's hand finds mine, his fingers steady without tremor of fear or shock. I've raised him in violence, taught him to survive in a world of killers and ghosts, shaped him into a weapon because the alternative was death. But maybe—just maybe—this brotherhood of the betrayed can teach him something else, something I never learned in fourteen years of service.
How to live instead of just survive.
The helicopters fade behind us as we disappear into the Montana wilderness, a single vehicle carrying eight damaged souls into an uncertain future. Six men, one boy and Sarah, running from the same masters we once served without question, bound together by shared trauma and the desperate hope that redemption might still be possible.
Rodriguez's blood is still warm on my hands, Martinez's eyes still accuse me from whatever afterlife awaits men like us. They were good soldiers following bad orders, patriots serving corrupt masters. Like I used to be before a Syrian village burned and a boy's screams taught me that some lines should never be crossed.
But I made a choice in that chemical wasteland, chose a boy's life over Committee interests and operational necessity. Now I've chosen again—sided with burned operators againstmy former masters, traded everything I've ever been for the possibility of becoming something better.
Khalid’s hand finds mine, steady as a firing platform. “You chose the boy,” he says. I stare at the smeared blood on my knuckles. “Too late for some choices.” He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t have to. He just stays.
The Committee's monster has slipped his leash and tasted freedom. Freedom tastes like ash and pine, but Khalid’s breath beside me smells like something that might grow into hope. I do not deserve it, but I will protect it.
Morrison should have killed me when he had the chance.
5
KANE
The Oath
The Montana peaks catch the first light, their granite bathed in blood and gold. I stand at the cave mouth watching the light creep down the mountainside, Morrison's death still fresh on my hands. Three hours since Rourke put a bullet through his skull in that Kalispell safe house. Three hours since we crossed the line from hunted to hunters.
Wind cuts through my tactical jacket, carrying the smell of pine and coming snow. Below us, the world continues its morning routine—hikers preparing for trails, families eating breakfast, people living lives untouched by shadow wars. They'll never know David Morrison died screaming about national security while a fifteen-year-old Syrian boy watched justice delivered for his murdered village.
Behind me, the cave system stretches deep into the mountain. Mercer found it two days ago—natural chambers connected by narrow passages, multiple exits, defensible approaches. Our new Echo Base, carved from stone instead of stolen from civilization.
"Kane." Stryker's voice pulls me back inside.
The main chamber flickers with firelight from the metal drum we've converted into a heating source. Smoke draws up through natural vents Mercer identified, invisible from outside. My team—my brotherhood—gathers around the flat stone surface that serves as our tactical table.
Morrison's stolen files spread across the rock like evidence at a crime scene. Banking codes, account numbers, operational funds hidden in black budgets so classified even Congress doesn't know they exist. Rourke liberated them from his safe before we burned the place. Enough money to fund a private war for years.
"Seventy-three million across fourteen accounts," Tommy reads from his tablet, having already started decrypting the financial data. "Untraceable, unaccountable. The Committee's war chest."
"Blood money," Rourke says with deliberate precision. "Every dollar paid for villages like Khalid's."
The boy sits beside him, methodically cleaning weapons with practiced efficiency. Fifteen years old and already carries himself like an operator. What we've all become—what the world made us into.
Stryker breaks the solemn silence, his newly sober eyes clear despite the exhaustion we all feel. "We're not just survivors anymore." He looks at each of us in turn. "What Morrison did to that Syrian village—we made him pay. But the others won't stop coming until we're all dead."
Truth hangs heavy in the cave air. Eleven Committee members remain. Each one a Morrison—architects of black operations, chemical weapons programs, systematic executions. They'll mobilize every resource, call in every favor, activate every sleeper to eliminate us.
I study my men in the firelight. Stryker's hands are steady for the first time in months, sobriety burning fierce in his eyes like a man who's found religion in purpose. Mercer crouches near the wall, that feral intensity barely contained but channeled now toward something beyond mere survival. Rourke stands protective over Khalid. The monster within who’d chosen to be human when it mattered most and a young boy needed him. Tommy hunched over his electronics, fingers dancing across keyboards as he builds our digital fortress.
Sarah Mitchell sleeps against the far wall, sedated while her body processes the trauma. The analyst who discovered the truth and paid for it in blood. Another soul we're responsible for now.
This is the raw material. Damaged men forged in violence, betrayed by those they served, carrying skills worth millions on the open market. But something more too—a shared understanding that transcends training or tactical capability. We've all stood at the same crossroads and made the same choice: protecting innocence matters more than following orders.
