Chapter 4 - THE VOICEPRINTThe first man through the broken door wore a police uniform.
Mason shot him in the shoulder.
The man spun backward into the hallway.
Marcus fired at another figure.
Chaos erupted.
Emma dropped behind the desk, clutching Owen’s flash drive against her chest.
Dr. Lawson dragged a nurse toward the supply corridor.
“Move!”
Mason fired twice more.
The attackers retreated.
“Go!” he shouted.
Emma followed Marcus through the rear door.
The corridor beyond was narrow and dark.
Emergency lights flashed.
Mason staggered behind them.
His left hand pressed against his ribs.
Blood seeped between his fingers.
Emma stopped.
“You’re worse.”
“I’m excellent.”
“You’re bleeding through three layers.”
“Later.”
He pushed her forward.
They emerged near a loading elevator.
Marcus swiped his card.
Nothing happened.
“Power’s down.”
Mason looked toward the stairwell.
“Garage?”
“Three floors.”
They descended.
By the second flight, Mason’s face had become gray.
Emma caught him when his knee buckled.
“I told you.”
“Still alive.”
“Barely.”
He tried to continue.
She blocked him.
“I’m a nurse. You’re my patient.”
“Currently you’re a target.”
“And currently you have internal bleeding.”
Marcus listened at the stairwell door.
“Quiet below.”
Emma looked at Mason.
“What happens if you die before telling me everything?”
Mason gave a tired smile.
“You’ll be annoyed.”
“I already am.”
Something in his expression softened.
“Owen would have liked you like this.”
“He did.”
Mason nodded.
“I know.”
They reached the garage.
Marcus led them toward his truck.
Emma stopped.
“My mother.”
“What?” Marcus asked.
“I need to get my mom.”
Mason shook his head.
“Not directly.”
“She’s alone.”
“That’s exactly why.”
Emma stepped toward him.
“She knows your name.”
“I know.”
“She knows more than she told me.”
“I know.”
“I’m going to her.”
Mason stared at her.
“You really are Owen’s sister.”
“Is that supposed to insult me?”
“No.”
For the first time, his voice broke.
“It’s the highest compliment I know.”
Emma looked away.
Marcus unlocked his truck.
“Everybody in.”
They drove out through a rear garage gate while alarms continued flashing behind Harborview.
Emma watched the hospital disappear.
Four months into her career, she had imagined plenty of bad nights.
None involved gunfire, classified secrets, or discovering her dead brother may have been murdered.
Mason sat in the passenger seat.
Emma sat behind him, continuing pressure on his wound.
“Where are we going?” Marcus asked.
Mason gave an address near Ocean View.
Marcus glanced over.
“What’s there?”
“Safe location.”
Emma said, “You have a safe house?”
“I have several.”
“Normal people have apartments.”
“Normal people don’t get shot at hospitals.”
Emma almost smiled.
Again.
She hated that he could do that.
Fifteen minutes later, they pulled into the garage of an abandoned-looking beach cottage.
Inside, however, was different.
Medical supplies.
Emergency food.
Locked weapons cabinet.
Two laptops.
Encrypted radios.
Marcus stared.
“You live like this?”
Mason lowered himself onto a chair.
“I survive like this.”
Emma immediately opened the medical cabinet.
She found saline, sutures, pain medication, sterile gauze.
“Who stocks this?”
“I do.”
“You keep IV supplies at home?”
“Not my home.”
Marcus locked the doors.
“I’m starting to regret helping.”
“You can leave,” Mason said.
Marcus looked at Emma.
“No.”
Emma appreciated that more than she could say.
She started an IV on Mason.
“You need surgery.”
“Not yet.”
“If you keep saying that, eventually I’m going to let you pass out just to prove a point.”
Mason looked at her.
“Owen did that once.”
Emma paused.
“What?”
“He was treating me after a blast injury. I kept trying to return to the perimeter.”
“What did he do?”
“Injected me with ketamine.”
Emma stared.
“He drugged you?”
“He called it medical leadership.”
Emma laughed.
It escaped before she could stop it.
Mason smiled.
For several seconds, the nightmare disappeared.
Then Emma looked at the flash drive.
“My voice.”
Mason nodded.
“How?”
“Owen recorded you.”
“When?”
“Probably calls home.”
“That seems creepy.”
“It was.”
Emma picked up the drive.
“Can we open it here?”
Mason looked uneasy.
“If connecting it triggers a network beacon—”
Marcus held up an old laptop.
“No Wi-Fi card.”
Mason nodded.
“Use that.”
They placed the computer on a kitchen table.
Emma inserted the drive.
The screen remained black for several seconds.
Then white text appeared.
VOICE AUTHENTICATION REQUIRED.
Emma stared.
“What do I say?”
Mason looked at the screen.
“Probably a phrase.”
“What phrase?”
A second line appeared.
SAY THE THING YOU ALWAYS SAID WHEN I LEFT.
Emma stopped breathing.
She knew.
Owen had left home constantly when they were teenagers.
Training.
College.
Deployments.
Every time he walked out the front door, Emma yelled the same ridiculous phrase after him.
She had started when she was eight.
“Don’t die stupid.”
The computer beeped.
VOICE MATCH CONFIRMED.
Marcus whispered, “Jesus.”
A video file appeared.
Dated eight years earlier.
Mason stood.
Emma looked at him.
“Sit.”
He obeyed.
She clicked play.
Owen appeared on the screen.
Emma covered her mouth.
He was thirty-one.
Alive.
Tired.
Wearing military fatigues.
A bruise darkened one side of his face.
“Hey, Em.”
Emma began crying before he said anything else.
“If you’re watching this, something went wrong.”
Mason looked away.
Owen continued.
“And if Mason is with you, don’t punch him yet.”
Emma laughed through tears.
Mason murmured, “He knew you.”
Owen’s face became serious.
“We uncovered a network inside our own contracting system. Military. Intelligence. Private security. Maybe higher.”
Images appeared beside him.
Documents.
Names.
Bank transfers.
“The man we believed was leading it was Colonel Warren Voss.”
Emma looked at Mason.
“But Voss is not the top.”
Owen leaned closer to the camera.
“He answers to someone we trusted.”
The video flickered.
Static crossed the screen.
Then Owen said a name.
But the audio disappeared.
Emma hit pause.
“What happened?”
Mason examined the file.
“Corruption.”
“Can it be recovered?”
“Maybe.”
Emma continued playback.
“If Mason tells you I died in the convoy attack, he’s telling you what he believed.”
Mason’s face changed.
Emma slowly turned toward him.
“What?”
Onscreen, Owen continued.
“I survived.”
Mason stood so quickly the chair fell backward.
“No.”
Emma stared at the screen.
Owen looked directly into the camera.
“The official report says I died. I needed it that way.”
Emma whispered, “No.”
Her hands began shaking.
Mason looked physically ill.
Owen continued.
“I had proof the network compromised our command. If I came home, they would follow me to you and Mom.”
Emma could barely hear him.
“So I disappeared.”
Tears poured down her face.
“Eight years?”
Owen continued.
“Emma, I am sorry.”
She struck the table with both hands.
“Sorry?”
Mason reached toward her.
Emma jerked away.
“No.”
The video continued.
“I know what this will do to you. But if I’m right, staying dead is the only way I can keep you alive.”
Emma stood.
For eight years she had mourned.
For eight years her mother had known something.
Mason had believed Owen dead.
Everyone had been trapped inside different versions of the same lie.
Then Owen said something that silenced the room.
“If Mason found this drive, then Voss has found me.”
Emma wiped her face.
The video timestamp shifted.
It had been updated.
Not eight years ago.
Three days ago.
Marcus noticed it too.
“This file was modified this week.”
Mason stared at the date.
“No.”
A second video appeared automatically.
Owen was older.
Gray at the temples.
Alive.
Emma screamed his name.
Onscreen, Owen looked terrified.
“Emma, if this reached you, listen carefully.”
He looked over his shoulder.
“They know about Harborview.”
Mason stepped closer.
Owen said, “Do not trust the emergency department director.”
Emma’s blood went cold.
Dr. Hale.
Then Owen added:
“And Mason—if you’re alive—don’t come looking for me.”
Mason’s eyes hardened.
Owen leaned toward the camera.
“Because I’m being held by the man we thought died in Afghanistan.”
The image froze.
A photograph appeared.
Mason staggered backward.
Emma looked at him.
“Who is that?”
Mason whispered the answer.
“Lieutenant Daniel Cross.”
“Who is he?”
May you like
Mason stared at the face on screen.
“The other survivor.”
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