Chapter 8 - THE EVIDENCE BURNED
We copied the surgical footage onto three separate drives.
Mercer sent one to a federal judge he trusted.
I gave one to Dr. Lawson.
The third remained hidden beneath the lining of my medical bag.
At 1:14 a.m., the security-room door exploded inward.
The blast threw Mercer against the desk.
I hit the floor as smoke swallowed the room.
A masked man entered with a suppressed pistol.
He fired twice.
I rolled beneath the console.
The first bullet shattered a monitor.
The second struck the wall where my head had been.
Mercer reached for his sidearm, but the attacker kicked it away.
I grabbed a broken metal chair leg and drove it into the man’s knee.
He fell.
Mercer tackled him.
The attacker bit down on something inside his mouth.
Foam appeared between his lips.
“Cyanide,” Mercer said.
The man convulsed once, then went still.
The computer screens sparked.
Fire spread behind the console.
I crawled toward the main drive, but flames had already swallowed the server rack.
Mercer pulled me backward.
“Leave it.”
“The footage.”
“We copied it.”
A second explosion shook the room.
Sprinklers activated.
Water poured over the flames, monitors, and dead attacker.
We escaped into the hallway as alarms screamed.
Military police rushed toward us.
Dr. Lawson arrived from the elevators.
Her face was white.
“My office was searched.”
“The drive?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“Gone.”
Mercer checked his phone.
No signal.
He called the judge from a secure line.
The call connected.
A clerk answered.
Judge Michael Arden had suffered a fatal heart attack twenty minutes earlier.
Mercer lowered the phone.
“They killed him.”
I reached inside my medical bag.
The hidden drive was still there.
Then I noticed the seam.
It had been cut.
The drive inside was a duplicate.
Empty.
All three copies were gone.
The original server burned.
Keene’s evidence had vanished in less than an hour.
Barrett appeared at the end of the corridor.
Blood stained his sleeve.
“Keene’s gone.”
Mercer turned.
“What happened?”
“Two men dressed as military police came through the kennel entrance. They shot me with a tranquilizer.”
“Where is Lawson?” I asked.
Barrett looked confused.
“Right there.”
I turned.
Dr. Lawson stood beside me.
But something in her face had changed.
Her breathing was too even.
Her eyes avoided mine.
I grabbed her wrist.
A fresh needle mark marked the inside of her arm.
“What did they inject you with?”
She pulled away.
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
Her lips trembled.
“I had no choice.”
Mercer stepped closer.
“What did you do?”
She looked at me.
Tears filled her eyes.
“They have my son.”
My stomach dropped.
“You gave them the drive.”
She nodded.
“And Keene?”
Her silence answered.
Barrett cursed.
Lawson reached inside her coat.
Mercer raised his weapon.
“Slowly.”
She removed a small envelope.
“They told me to give you this.”
Inside was a photograph of Fort Talon.
Ranger stood chained beside a transport plane.
Keene and his daughter knelt nearby.
On the back, four words had been written.
COME ALONE OR WATCH.
Then the hospital intercom clicked on.
May you like
General Vale’s voice filled every corridor.
“Captain Donovan, you have one hour.”
