Chapter 6 - Ben’s Voice in Rex’s Collar
I could not breathe.
Ben’s voice had lasted less than five seconds, yet it filled every corner of the hangar.
Emily, if Rex found the tag, Donovan has already lied to you.
Eight months of grief had trained me to survive memories: his coffee mug, his side of the closet, the voicemail I could not delete.
It had not trained me to hear him deliver a warning in the present tense.
I gripped the steel bars.
Rex pressed his muzzle against my knuckles, his breath warm and uneven.
“When was that recorded?” I asked.
No one answered.
I turned toward Donovan.
He stood beside the dark monitor, one hand still extended toward the power cable. The old unit ring gleamed beneath the emergency lights.
“You knew his voice was in that collar.”
“No.”
Rex remained quiet.
The handler looked at him. “That answer may be true.”
“Then what did you lie about?”
Donovan lowered his hand.
“The mission. The report. My location.”
“And the third man?”
His eyes shifted toward the aircraft.
Harper checked the phone. The countdown now read twenty-three hours, fifty-eight minutes. A small symbol matching the tag had appeared beside it.
“The system gave us more time,” she said.
“Or whoever controls it did,” Doc replied.
He moved the encrypted drive closer to Rex’s collar. Their lights synchronized.
A second tone sounded from the equipment case.
The amber indicator returned to green.
“We completed one layer,” the handler said. “Name, phrase, tag, collar.”
“And the recording?” I asked.
“Authentication.”
“Ben used me to authenticate the sequence.”
Donovan’s expression tightened. “He trusted that you would recognize the phrase.”
“I didn’t. I barely remembered it.”
“You remembered when it mattered.”
The gentleness in his voice angered me more than his lies.
“Don’t speak to me like you’re still the man who carried Ben’s flag.”
Pain crossed his face, but I no longer trusted pain.
Doc removed a small scanner from the medical cart and swept it over Rex’s collar. The display showed an internal cavity beneath the newer stitching.
“There’s storage material inside.”
“Can you open it?” I asked.
“Not without cutting the collar.”
Rex pulled away when Doc approached with a tool.
The handler shook his head. “He won’t allow removal unless he receives the release command.”
“Do you know it?”
“No.”
I searched my memory again.
Ben rarely discussed work. Even his habits had layers I did not understand. He tapped doorframes twice before entering unfamiliar rooms. He always sat facing exits. He used odd phrases when he wanted me to end calls without asking questions.
One phrase returned.
During his final call, after saying home is quiet, Ben had smiled at Rex.
Then he told me, “The watch is yours.”
I had thought he meant his old wristwatch, which he wanted our nephew to inherit.
I looked at the dog.
“The watch is yours.”
Rex sat immediately.
The handler’s mouth opened.
Then Rex turned his head, exposing the buckle of his collar.
Doc crouched slowly. “Good boy.”
He unfastened the collar without resistance.
Beneath the newer stitching was a thin memory strip and a folded piece of waterproof material. Doc placed both on a sterile tray.
The material looked like a section cut from a mission map, though every marking was blurred and unreadable beneath a chemical coating.
One corner had a small dried stain.
Doc’s face changed when he examined it.
“Is that blood?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
“Ben’s?”
“I need a lab.”
Donovan moved closer. “The base lab is compromised.”
Harper looked up. “How do you know?”
“Because whoever staged this can access our hangar controls, communications, and internal equipment logs.”
“Then where do we test it?” I asked.
Doc glanced toward the medical cart.
“I have a field blood analyzer. It can establish type and limited genetic markers without connecting to the base network.”
Donovan objected instantly. “No.”
That single word decided it.
“Test it,” I said.
Doc prepared the analyzer.
The machine hummed for forty seconds.
Rex watched the map fragment.
Donovan watched Doc.
I watched Donovan.
When the result appeared, Doc’s face went still.
“Well?” I demanded.
“The sample includes two contributors.”
“Is one Benjamin?”
“I would need a reference profile.”
“The military has one.”
“Not available offline.”
I pulled a chain from beneath my dress uniform.
Ben’s wedding ring hung beside a tiny sealed memorial capsule containing a strand of his hair from an old deployment tradition.
Doc looked at me.
“That can provide a reference.”
I unclasped the chain and placed it in his palm.
Minutes later, the analyzer completed its comparison.
Doc stared at the result.
“One contributor is consistent with Benjamin.”
My knees weakened.
“And the other?”
He looked directly at Donovan.
May you like
“The second profile is listed in the medical cache as deceased three years before Ben’s mission.”
📖 Identify the dead man whose blood was mixed with Ben’s—and discover why his record pointed back to Donovan’s old unit in CHAPTER 7. 👇
