Page 99 of Echo: Burn
And standing beside the helicopter, supervising the extraction with calm efficiency, is Victor Kessler.
Even from two hundred meters, even through the morning haze and rotor wash, I can see him clearly. The burn scars on his face catching the early light. His right arm in a tactical sling from where Kane broke it. But his posture is confident. Controlled.
He's looking directly at our position.
Somehow, he knows we're here. Knew we'd be watching.
He wanted us to see this.
"Take the shot," Kane orders, his voice tight with barely controlled rage.
"Negative. Too much rotor wash, too much distance. Wind from the rotors is creating unpredictable drift." Rourke's frustration bleeds through his professional tone. "By the time I adjust for conditions, they'll be airborne. I'd be shooting blind and likely to hit Mercer instead of Kessler."
Kane raises his own rifle, and I watch him run the same calculations. The angle. The distance. The variables. The impossible mathematics of a shot that needs to be perfect because missing could kill our teammate. His finger hovers near the trigger, and I can see the war happening behind his eyes—the desperate need to end Kessler versus the professional assessment that says the shot is impossible.
Kessler raises his good hand. Not in surrender. Not in fear.
In a mocking salute.
The gesture is deliberate. Theatrical. He's playing to an audience he knows is watching. Then he taps his wrist where a watch would be, and even without hearing his voice, I can read the message in his body language:Time's up, Kane. You're too late. Again.
"Don't," I grab Kane's shoulder, pulling him back from the edge before he takes a shot that has no chance of success. "He's baiting you. He wants you to take a wild shot, to waste ammunition, to prove we can't reach them. Don't give him the satisfaction."
"He has Mercer," Kane's voice is raw with barely suppressed rage and helplessness. "He's standing right there, and I can't...”
"Because that's exactly what he wants," I interrupt firmly. "He wants you to feel helpless. To feel what my father felt watching his life get destroyed. But Kane, we're not helpless. We're planning. We're adapting. We'll find Mercer. We'll get him back."
Kessler gestures to the operatives, and they finish loading Mercer into the helicopter. The movements are efficient, practiced—they've done this before. Then Kessler climbs in himself, settling into the seat beside our teammate with a proprietary ease that makes my stomach turn. Even as the aircraft begins to lift, even as the distance increases and the shot becomes even more impossible, Kessler keeps his eyes locked on our position.
He's not just taking Mercer. He's making sure we know it. Making sure Kane feels every second of this failure.
The helicopter banks hard east, rotors thundering, disappearing over the ridgeline with Mercer and Kessler both inside.
Gone.
We were so close. Saw him with our own eyes. Arrived just in time to watch him disappear.
The silence that follows is crushing. The kind of silence that speaks louder than any words could. We all know what this means. We all understand that Kessler didn't just outplay us tactically—he orchestrated this entire thing specifically to make Kane watch.
"They knew we were coming," Stryker says quietly, his voice carrying through comms. "The whole thing was bait. Get us here, make us watch, prove we can't protect our own even when we know where they are."
Kane says nothing for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is cold and absolute. The voice of someone who's made a decision and won't be swayed. "We find him. Whatever it takes. Wherever they've taken him. However long it takes. We bring him home."
"How?" I ask, because someone has to voice the impossible question. "We don't know where they've moved him. Don't know what facility, what protocols, what security. They could be takinghim anywhere—another black site, a Committee stronghold, out of the country entirely."
"Then we find out." Kane turns to face us, and I see the same determination that's kept Echo Ridge operational despite impossible odds, overwhelming enemy forces, and losses that should have broken them years ago. "We find out, we adapt, and we bring our teammate home. That's not negotiable. That's not optional. That's what we do."
But something else is in his expression now. Something harder. Darker. A promise made to himself.
"And when we do," he adds, his voice dropping to something lethal, "Kessler and I are going to have a conversation about the consequences of taking what's mine."
Rourke makes a sound that might be approval through the comms. Stryker's hand tightens on his rifle.
"This is personal now," Kane continues, and there's no question in his voice. Just cold certainty. "Kessler made it personal when he took Mercer specifically to hurt me. When he stood there and made sure I watched him do it. He wants me to feel what Hart felt? Fine. But he's going to learn that the difference between me and Hart is that I have the resources and the will to make him regret every second of this."
"Boss," Stryker says carefully through comms. "We need to keep our heads. This is what he wants—for you to come in hot and sloppy, motivated by emotion instead of strategy."
"I know." Kane's jaw is tight, but his voice is controlled. Professional. "Which is why we're going to plan this properly. Use every resource we have. Find every weakness in their operation. Track where they've taken him using every piece of intelligence we can gather. And when we move, it won't be hot and sloppy. It'll be cold and surgical and absolutely final."
