Chapter 6 - The Man Who Didn't DieAt 11:43 the next night, rain began falling over Fort Redstone.
Not enough to become a storm.
Enough to erase tracks.
Eli always liked rain.
“Nature's evidence destruction,” he used to say.
I parked half a mile from the abandoned range.
General Weller had ordered me confined to secure quarters.
I had ignored him.
Some habits survive retirement.
I carried no visible weapon.
That didn't mean I was unarmed.
A ceramic knife sat inside my right boot. A compact pistol rested beneath my jacket. Colonel Cole had given me both.
That surprised me.
More surprising was what he'd said afterward.
“If Rourke asks whether I regret leaving him, tell him yes.”
“What if he asks why you did it?”
“Tell him I was a coward.”
I had stared at him.
“You weren't.”
“That's kind of you.”
“It wasn't kindness. Cowards run to save themselves. You followed an order.”
“And what's the difference to the person left behind?”
I hadn't answered.
At 11:58, I reached the old range.
Concrete shooting bays sat abandoned beneath pine trees.
One floodlight burned.
The rest were dark.
A speaker crackled.
“Leave the gun.”
His voice.
I stopped.
“Come get it.”
A soft laugh emerged from the darkness.
“That sounds more like you.”
My throat tightened.
“Show yourself, Eli.”
Nothing.
Then footsteps.
A man entered the edge of the light.
My brain recognized pieces before the whole.
Height.
Shoulders.
The slight tilt of his head.
But the man I remembered had been twenty-six.
This one was thirty-eight and looked fifty.
A pale scar crossed his jaw and disappeared beneath his collar.
Two fingers were missing from his left hand.
His right leg dragged slightly.
But the eyes—
The eyes were the same.
Gray-blue.
Always watching.
“Hey, Vance.”
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
Every version of this reunion I'd imagined over twelve years had been wrong.
I had pictured a hospital.
An airport.
A government office.
A graveyard after someone discovered he'd been buried under another name.
Never an abandoned firing range.
Never with both of us armed.
“You're alive.”
“Technically.”
I stepped forward.
He lifted one hand.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
“What happened to you?”
His smile was empty.
“How much time do you have?”
“All of it.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“You had twelve years.”
That hurt because he meant it to.
“I thought you were dead.”
“You signed a paper saying I was.”
My jaw tightened.
“I learned about that yesterday.”
“Convenient.”
“I was drugged after surgery.”
“You signed.”
“Yes.”
“That's what matters.”
“No. What matters is that somebody forged a radio transmission in my name and convinced you I abandoned you.”
Something moved behind his eyes.
I continued.
“Peter Dalca had my damaged radio.”
“Peter had lots of things.”
“You know?”
“I know more than you.”
“Then explain.”
He laughed.
“Still giving orders.”
“Still avoiding questions.”
For the first time, something familiar appeared.
A tiny smile.
The old Eli.
Gone instantly.
He turned away.
“They captured me three hours after you left.”
I felt the sentence physically.
“Who?”
“First militia. Then somebody better organized.”
“Government?”
“No.”
“Private?”
He looked back.
“Americans.”
That chilled me.
He walked beneath the floodlight.
“For four months, I was held in a facility that didn't exist. They wanted to know what I'd intercepted.”
“The leak.”
“Yes.”
“Who was it?”
“Dalca was one.”
One.
Not the only one.
“Who else?”
“I'll show you.”
“Why the performance yesterday? The shooting?”
His expression hardened.
“Because I needed to know who reacted.”
“To the Chimera signal.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Three people reacted exactly as expected.”
“Me, Nathan, Weller?”
“No.”
He paused.
“You. Nathan.”
“And?”
Eli looked past me.
“Travis Kane.”
I almost laughed.
“Kane was sixteen when Kandar happened.”
“I know.”
“Then how—”
A twig snapped behind me.
I spun.
Kane stepped from the darkness.
My hand moved toward my weapon.
“Easy,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“Following you.”
“I told nobody.”
“Your truck has a tracking unit.”
I stared at him.
“General Weller.”
“No.”
Kane's face darkened.
“Captain Shaw installed it yesterday.”
That made no sense.
Eli watched him.
“Tell her.”
Kane looked between us.
“When the Chimera signal played yesterday, I recognized it.”
I said nothing.
“My father taught it to me.”
The world seemed to narrow.
“Who is your father?”
Kane swallowed.
“Peter Dalca.”
Silence.
Rain struck the metal roof behind us.
I looked at Kane again.
Different last name.
Different age.
But now that I knew, I saw something.
The eyebrows.
The jaw.
A resemblance I had missed because I had never looked for one.
“Why Kane?”
“My mother's name. My parents never married.”
“Does Shaw know?”
“No.”
“Weller?”
“No.”
Eli laughed softly.
“Now you understand why I needed him.”
Kane faced him.
“You contacted me three months ago.”
My eyes snapped toward him.
“You've been working with Eli?”
“I didn't know who he was at first.”
Eli added, “He thought I was an investigator.”
“You lied to me,” Kane said.
“Yes.”
“You said my father was stealing.”
“He is.”
Kane's jaw flexed.
“But you left out terrorism.”
“Your father prefers ‘national security consulting.’”
I stepped between them.
“Enough. Where is Dalca?”
Eli looked toward the far end of the range.
“Close.”
“How close?”
A red laser dot appeared on Kane's chest.
I grabbed him and pulled him behind a concrete barrier.
Gunfire erupted.
Not the deliberate misses from yesterday.
Real fire.
Concrete chipped near my face.
Eli rolled behind another barrier and produced a rifle from beneath a tarp.
“Dalca found us!”
“No kidding!”
Three shooters moved between the trees.
Professional.
Suppressed weapons.
Night optics.
Eli fired twice.
One dropped.
Kane looked at me.
“I don't have a gun.”
“Stay down.”
“That advice feels insulting now.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Another burst hit the barrier.
Eli shouted, “Drainage tunnel, west side!”
I remembered the range layout.
Thirty yards.
Open ground.
Bad.
A vehicle engine approached from behind the trees.
Headlights exploded across the clearing.
Colonel Cole's SUV crashed through a chain fence.
The passenger door opened.
“Move!”
I didn't ask questions.
Kane ran first.
I covered him.
Eli hesitated.
Cole saw him.
For the first time in twelve years, the two men looked at each other.
Cole whispered, “Elias.”
Eli raised his rifle.
I stepped between them.
“Not tonight.”
His eyes burned.
“He left me.”
“I know.”
“You don't know anything.”
“Then survive long enough to tell me.”
That worked.
Barely.
We reached the SUV.
Cole accelerated while bullets struck the rear window.
Kane ducked.
Eli returned fire through shattered glass.
Two minutes later we entered the forest road and lost them.
Nobody spoke.
Then Cole looked into the mirror.
“I'm sorry.”
Eli laughed bitterly.
“You rehearsed that?”
“For twelve years.”
“Should've practiced harder.”
Cole accepted it.
I turned toward Eli.
“You said Americans held you.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Sentinel Praxis.”
Kane went still.
His father's company.
Eli continued.
“Except it had another name then.”
“What did they want?”
“The recording.”
“What recording?”
Eli reached inside his jacket.
He removed a tiny waterproof memory card sealed inside clear resin.
“I intercepted the call that sold our route.”
I stared at it.
“You've had it twelve years?”
“No.”
“I hid it before they captured me.”
“Where?”
He smiled for the first time.
“Inside the snake.”
I understood.
Our old emergency cache marker.
A stone carving at an abandoned monastery outside Kandar.
“You went back.”
“Three years ago.”
“Why not release it then?”
“Because the recording identifies only one voice.”
“Dalca?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Eli looked toward Colonel Cole.
Then me.
“Major General Thomas Weller.”
Nobody spoke.
The SUV continued through darkness.
Finally Cole said, “That's impossible.”
Eli leaned forward.
“Is it?”
“Weller was a lieutenant colonel in procurement.”
“Exactly.”
Kane looked horrified.
“The general sent Mara here.”
“Yes,” Eli said.
“Why?”
I knew before anyone answered.
Forty-three buried complaints.
Corrupt contracting systems.
Dalca's company.
My arrival.
Eli's sudden reappearance.
Weller hadn't brought me here to expose Shaw.
Shaw was bait.
So was Kane.
Maybe so was I.
My phone vibrated.
Unknown sender.
One image.
General Weller standing inside the secure command center.
Beside him stood Captain Shaw.
They were watching a live map.
Four moving dots appeared on it.
Our SUV.
My blood went cold.
Then a text appeared.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING ROURKE TO ME.
Cole saw it.
“Tracker.”
Kane shouted, “My phone.”
He threw it out the window.
The dots kept moving.
“Vehicle,” Eli said.
Cole swerved.
Too late.
Lights appeared ahead.
Then behind.
Black SUVs closed from both directions.
Eli looked at me.
May you like
“Welcome back to Chimera.”
And this time, there was nowhere left to run.
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