Chapter 5 - The Wrong Suspect
A base-wide notice flashed across Mercer's phone: CAPTAIN NOLAN VOSS FOUND DEAD. PERSON OF INTEREST: STAFF SERGEANT GRANT MERCER. The accompanying photograph showed Mercer carrying Avery into the training room hours earlier. The image had been cropped to look like a struggle.
“He was breathing when I left,” Mercer said.
“Then somebody needs you guilty.”
Avery shoved the supply-room door open a fraction. A pair of guards marched past, radios crackling. She waited until their boots faded before leading Mercer down the service hallway.
At the equipment cage, Private Ruiz was waiting in civilian clothes with a backpack twice his size. He nearly dropped it when he saw them.
“You weren't supposed to come together,” he said.
“You weren't supposed to be here at all,” Avery answered. “What did you see?”
Ruiz took out a memory card. “The monitors store a second feed during power fluctuations. I copied twelve seconds.”
On his phone, Avery watched the drill: the grip, her raised hand, the pivot, the kick stopping short. At the edge of the picture, Voss touched his earpiece and nodded to a figure outside the camera's field.
“Can you see who he's signaling?”
“No. But the audio picked up one sentence.” Ruiz turned up the sound.
Voss's voice crackled: “If she has the key, move Emma tonight.”
Avery felt the room tilt. She pressed the phone closer, replaying the words until Mercer took it gently from her hands.
“We have to get this to investigators,” he said.
“Not the base investigators.” Ruiz unzipped his bag and produced a folded map. “Emma sent me this two hours ago.”
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Marked in red was a civilian warehouse twelve miles away. Beneath it, written in unmistakable block letters, were four words: BRING AVERY. NO ONE ELSE.
Mercer turned the map over. On the back was a photograph of him standing beside Emma.
