Chapter 4 - The Device Beneath His Skin
I dropped to my knees in the rain.
Ghost’s breathing came in shallow bursts. His jaw clenched, but he made no sound. The blue light beneath his skin pulsed once every two seconds.
“Get him inside,” I ordered.
Mason slid both arms beneath Ghost’s body. He lifted with controlled effort, keeping the dog’s spine supported while I held the head and neck.
Behind us, the dark SUV fishtailed out of the parking lot and disappeared toward the street.
The intruder had escaped.
Ghost had not.
We carried him into the surgical room. Julia locked the rear entrance while one of the waiting veterans shoved a steel cabinet in front of it.
Admiral Ross appeared in the doorway.
“You cannot operate.”
I cut the harness away from the incision.
“I’m not asking.”
“That device may contain classified technology.”
“It’s causing ventricular irregularity.”
“How do you know?”
I pressed my stethoscope against Ghost’s chest. His heartbeat skipped, then hammered twice.
“Because I’m listening to it.”
Mason stood at the table, soaked and pale. “Remove it.”
Ross’s eyes snapped toward him.
“That is a direct order not to interfere.”
“He’s my dog.”
“He is government property.”
Mason stepped closer. “He’s under my care.”
The difference between those statements hung in the room.
I prepared a local anesthetic and scanned the incision with the clinic’s portable ultrasound. A small object sat just beneath the tissue—flat, oval, and surrounded by swelling.
It was not a normal identification chip.
A wirelike filament extended toward the deeper muscle.
“Someone designed this to cause pain,” I said.
Ross’s silence confirmed it.
Ghost’s eyes found mine.
“Stay with me.”
His ears shifted at my voice.
I made the smallest incision possible and removed the device with forceps. It was black, no larger than a dime, with the blue indicator still blinking.
The instant it left his body, Ghost’s muscles relaxed.
Mason exhaled as if he had been holding his breath for years.
I dropped the device into a metal specimen bowl.
It vibrated.
Then smoke curled from its edge.
“Back!” Mason shouted.
He swept the bowl into the empty stainless-steel sink just as the device sparked and split open. The clinic’s fire alarm began shrieking.
Inside the broken casing sat a scorched memory wafer.
Not fully destroyed.
Ross moved first.
She reached for it.
I blocked her hand with a surgical tray.
“Don’t touch my evidence.”
“Your evidence?”
“Someone implanted a remote punishment device into an animal under my medical care, sent a man to steal a warning from my clinic, and activated the device when Ghost pursued him. Yes. My evidence.”
For several seconds, we stared at each other.
Then Mason’s radio crackled from his vest.
A voice announced that the abandoned SUV had been found two blocks away.
The driver was gone.
Mason and one security officer left to inspect it while I monitored Ghost. Ross stayed near the door, refusing to release the folder.
Twenty minutes later, Mason returned carrying a clear evidence pouch.
Inside was a disposable phone and a photograph.
He placed the photograph on the counter.
It showed me entering my clinic the previous evening.
Another image lay behind it.
Me leaving my house.
A third showed me standing at Ethan’s memorial marker at the naval cemetery one month earlier.
Someone had been following me before Ghost was brought here.
Mason turned on the disposable phone. It had one unsent draft message.
Delivery confirmed. Cole recognized asset. Proceed to Phase Lantern.
I stared at the words.
Phase Lantern.
Our private command had not been private after all.
Then the phone rang.
The screen displayed a blocked number.
Mason answered on speaker without speaking.
A man’s distorted voice said, “Dr. Cole has something that belongs to us.”
The call ended.
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Ghost slowly raised his head from the table and looked directly at Admiral Ross.
📖 Discover what Admiral Ross finally admitted about “Phase Lantern”—and why the truth made Mason lock both security officers outside in CHAPTER 5. 👇
