Page 90 of Echo: Burn
"Twenty-seven Committee operatives down." The number sits heavy. "Five vehicles departed the scene with approximately fifteen survivors, multiple wounded among them."
"Any of ours?" Kane asks.
"Odin's injured but stable. Sarah took some shrapnel but she's functional. Everyone else is..." I check vitals monitors. "We're operational."
"Good." Kane sounds exhausted. "Then we held."
We held. We survived. Against forty-plus elite operatives, we survived.
I'm counting thermal signatures for the third time when I realize—the commander Mercer chased into the trees never appeared in any exit vehicle.
Neither did Mercer.
"Where's Mercer?" Rourke's question cuts through my realization.
The cameras. Southern sector. Eastern corridor. Northern perimeter. Southwest maintenance access.
No Mercer.
"Mercer, report." Kane's voice is tight. "Mercer, come in."
Static.
"When did we last have eyes on him?" My mouth is dry.
"Eighteen minutes ago. Southern sector. He was pursuing a Committee commander who broke from the main force. Single target, high-value." Stryker pauses, and I hear something shift in his voice. "Wait. Pull up that footage again, Tommy."
Tommy throws the recording onto the screen. Mercer chases a single figure into the tree line. The figure is moving with purpose, not panic. Leading. Luring. And even through the thermal imaging, even with the distortion and distance, I can see the distinctive gait, the military bearing, the way he moves despite obvious injuries.
The burn scars visible even on thermal signature.
Victor Kessler.
"Son of a bitch," Stryker breathes.
Kane's voice comes through, hollow and terrible. "No. No, he wouldn't...”
But the footage doesn't lie. Mercer follows Kessler into the trees, weapon up, moving with professional caution but moving nonetheless. Trying to eliminate the threat. Trying to end the man who nearly killed Kane outside the Whitefish facility.
The camera angle can't follow them into the dense forest. They disappear from view.
And Mercer never comes back.
"He baited him." Kane's voice is hollow. "Kessler made himself a target Mercer couldn't ignore. Made it look like he was fleeing, wounded, vulnerable. And Mercer went after him."
The silence that follows is crushing.
"The assault," I realize slowly. "The casualties. The retreat. All of it was theater."
"A brutal, deadly distraction," Kane confirms, and I can hear the guilt bleeding through every word. "They let us win the fight so Kessler could take one of ours. I left him alive. I had the shot and I didn't take it. And now he has Mercer."
"You made a tactical decision," Stryker says firmly. "Based on...”
"I made it based on wanting to be a better man." Kane cuts him off. "Wanting to prove to Willa that I wasn't the person who threatened her father. That I'd changed. And Mercer's paying the price for my conscience."
"Kane...” I start.
"He promised, didn't he?" Kane looks at me now, and I see something breaking behind his eyes. "After the Whitefish facility. Kessler promised he'd take from me what I took from Hart. Make me watch. Make me feel what Hart felt."
