Chapter 3 - The words followed me out of the Rusty Spur.He was assigned.
Not rescued.
Assigned.
I kept hearing them as I led Rex through the back alley.
Rain had started falling.
Cold drops hit the blood on my forehead.
Sirens approached from somewhere downtown.
I didn't wait.
Neither did Butch.
He followed me.
That bothered me more than the gunmen.
I stopped beside an abandoned pickup.
“Why are you following me?”
Butch raised both hands.
“I want out.”
“Out of what?”
He looked at Rex.
“The Vipers.”
I almost laughed.
“You think I'm interested in your motorcycle club problems?”
“No.”
His voice dropped.
“I'm telling you the Vipers aren't a motorcycle club.”
That got my attention.
Butch looked older suddenly.
Tired.
Not physically.
The kind of tired that comes from carrying information you were never supposed to learn.
He reached inside his vest.
I raised the stolen rifle.
“Slowly.”
He pulled out a photograph.
A woman.
Mid-thirties.
Military uniform.
Short dark hair.
Standing beside Rex.
My chest tightened.
I knew her.
Captain Elena Ward.
My former handler.
Declared killed in Afghanistan eleven years ago.
I had attended her funeral.
But there was something wrong with the photograph.
It had been taken last month.
On the back was a handwritten message.
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO FIND HIM.
I looked at Butch.
“Where did you get this?”
“From a man who gave me a job.”
“What job?”
He hesitated.
“To watch you.”
I stared at him.
“For how long?”
“Six months.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody was waiting for you to come back.”
“Come back from where?”
He looked at me.
“You already know.”
The answer sat between us.
Afghanistan.
I lowered the rifle.
“Who hired you?”
Butch shook his head.
“I never met him.”
“Then how did you get paid?”
He pulled out a phone.
Encrypted messages.
Bank transfers.
Coordinates.
Photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Rex.
Me.
My house.
My truck.
The diner.
Pictures taken before I arrived.
I scrolled.
My skin turned cold.
There was a photo of Rex sleeping beside my bed.
Taken three days ago.
There was another of me pumping gas.
Then another.
Rex standing beside me.
And finally one that made my blood stop.
A photograph of Elena Ward.
Standing outside a military hospital.
Taken thirty-six hours ago.
Alive.
I looked at Butch.
“Why now?”
He shook his head.
“Because yesterday someone changed the order.”
“What order?”
Butch stared into my eyes.
“Do not kill him.”
I said nothing.
“They've spent eleven years waiting for you,” he continued. “Now somebody wants you alive.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“But you know where they are.”
Butch looked toward Rex.
“Maybe he does.”
I frowned.
“What?”
Butch crouched.
He pointed toward Rex's collar.
“There's something inside that.”
My hand immediately went to the collar.
Rex growled.
Not at Butch.
At me.
That stopped me.
Rex had never growled at me.
Not once.
I touched the collar.
His ears moved backward.
I removed it carefully.
Inside the leather was a tiny metal capsule.
I stared at it.
Butch whispered:
“They made us believe Rex was a dog.”
I looked at him.
“What else would he be?”
Butch's face went pale.
“A witness.”
I opened the capsule.
Inside was a microSD card.
And engraved on the metal lid were two words.
PROJECT ECHO.
My hands went cold.
Because Project Echo was a name I had buried eleven years ago.
It was the name of a mission that officially never existed.
And Captain Elena Ward was the person who had ordered me to forget it.
My phone suddenly vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
I opened it.
STOP DIGGING.
A second message arrived.
THEN COME ALONE.
Coordinates followed.
I stared at them.
They were thirty miles north.
At an abandoned military airfield.
Then a third message appeared.
BRING REX.
I looked down.
Rex looked back.
And for the first time since leaving the diner, I felt something worse than anger.
I felt dread.
Because whoever had sent that message knew exactly where we were.
May you like
And they knew something else.
They knew Rex was carrying the key.
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