Chapter 10 - Doc Carter Disappeared with the Drive
Doc had vanished from the aircraft.
So had the encrypted drive.
Harper ran down the stairs and ordered personnel to seal every internal access point. The hangar remained locked from outside, but the smoke breach had exposed maintenance routes nobody had checked.
I followed Rex into the aisle.
“Carter!” the handler shouted.
No answer.
The medical cart stood where we had left it. One drawer was open. Inside lay a cut strip of sterile foam from the equipment case.
Doc had prepared to remove something before the smoke attack.
Harper searched the cart. “His tablet is gone too.”
I thought of Donovan’s call.
Do not trust Carter.
It could have been a warning.
It could have been manipulation.
Donovan had already lied about Ben’s death, his mission, and his presence overseas. Yet the system had labeled his status unresolved, not hostile.
Doc had appeared helpful from the start. He blocked Donovan from taking the envelope. He tested the blood. He found the memory strip in Rex’s collar.
He also had access to medical records, equipment, and Rex before the ceremony.
“Who assigned Carter here?” I asked.
The handler checked a roster on an offline terminal, keeping the screen angled so nothing was readable from a distance.
“He volunteered for the retirement medical detail.”
“When?”
“Four days ago.”
One day before Rex’s collar returned from storage.
My stomach tightened.
“Did he ever treat Ben?”
The handler searched again.
“No record.”
Harper examined the blood analyzer. “Could Carter have falsified the comparison?”
“Yes,” I said.
The hope created by Ben’s matching profile collapsed into doubt.
Maybe the blood was not his.
Maybe the video was staged.
Maybe every discovery had been designed to drive me toward the case.
Rex paced to the aircraft stairs, then stopped and looked back at me.
“He wants us to follow,” the handler said.
We descended.
Rex crossed the hangar toward a floor drain near the medical station. He sniffed the grate and pawed once.
Beneath it ran a maintenance conduit.
A technician removed the grate.
The passage was too narrow for a person but large enough for cables—or small objects.
At the bottom lay Doc’s stethoscope.
The tubing had been cut.
Tucked beneath it was the black encrypted drive.
“He left it?” Harper asked.
The handler shook his head. “Or someone took it and dropped it.”
Rex sniffed the drive, then rejected it, turning his head away.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“He doesn’t recognize the scent.”
“But Doc handled it.”
“So did several of us.”
The handler lifted it carefully. “This may not be the same device.”
We compared it with Harper’s earlier video. The casing looked identical, but a tiny scratch near one corner was missing.
The drive had been switched.
The real device was gone.
A metallic tapping sounded from beneath the floor.
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
Pause.
Three taps.
The technician knelt. “There’s a service corridor below us.”
“How do we access it?”
“Outside the hangar.”
Still locked.
Rex moved to the side wall, following the sound. He stopped at a sealed utility panel and whined.
We forced it open.
Doc lay inside the cramped conduit, wrists bound with medical tubing, blood at his hairline. His tablet was missing.
He was conscious but disoriented.
“Who did this?” I asked.
His eyes struggled to focus.
“Harper.”
Everyone turned.
Lieutenant Harper stood ten feet behind us.
Her smartphone was raised.
Not recording.
A small dark device was connected to its charging port.
The real encrypted drive.
She pressed one finger against the screen.
May you like
“If anyone moves,” she said, “Ben’s next file disappears.”
📖 Discover why Harper stole the real drive—and what she demanded from Emily before releasing Ben’s next recording in CHAPTER 11. 👇
