Chapter 7 - The Scar Pattern
The Navy surgeon’s name was Dr. Teresa Lane.
She arrived before midnight.
McAllister wanted an independent medical comparison.
I hated standing in another examination room.
Hated removing the windbreaker.
Hated being photographed.
But this time I chose.
That mattered.
Dr. Lane compared my scars with blast reports from Black Harbor.
“The long posterior burn is consistent with directional incendiary exposure.”
“Meaning?”
“You were facing away from the device.”
I knew that.
I had been covering someone.
Who?
Jonah.
Maybe.
Memory came in fragments.
Not a flashback.
A fact my body still held.
She pointed to the crescent scar.
“This fragment was removed at Landstuhl?”
“No.”
Her head lifted.
“Where?”
“A field clinic.”
“What country?”
“I wasn’t told.”
That was true.
After the mission, I had woken inside a medical facility where nobody used full names.
Two weeks later, I had been moved again.
Then given a choice that was not much of a choice.
Disappear temporarily.
Or risk exposing other survivors.
I disappeared.
“How long before you reached a military hospital?”
“Seven months.”
Dr. Lane stared.
“Your official record shows treatment began forty eight hours after Black Harbor.”
“Then the record is false.”
McAllister swore quietly.
Another piece.
Dr. Lane examined the fragment report.
“The device that caused this was an M97 directional flare charge modified with metal fragments.”
“American?”
“Components, yes.”
“Used by who?”
“Could be captured equipment. Could be supplied.”
Then she pulled the blast map.
The official report placed secondary detonation at 02:31.
My wounds came from that blast.
The false report claimed I left at 02:19.
Impossible.
Then the door opened.
A security officer.
“Admiral, Reed is here.”
My heart stopped.
Jonah Reed walked in using a cane.
Alive.
Older.
A scar along his jaw.
He saw me.
The cane hit the floor.
Neither of us spoke.
Then he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around me.
Pain exploded across my back.
I didn’t care.
“Harper.”
His voice broke.
I gripped his uniform.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
“I watched the truck burn.”
“You pulled me out before it did.”
I froze.
“What?”
He stepped back.
“You don’t remember?”
“No.”
His eyes filled.
“You carried me.”
The room blurred.
“How far?”
“Almost three miles.”
I laughed once.
Chloe had called me coward.
The word felt smaller now.
Jonah looked at my scars.
“You shielded me when the second charge went.”
Dr. Lane nodded.
That explained the pattern.
Then Jonah’s expression changed.
“There’s something you need to hear.”
He sat.
McAllister closed the door.
Jonah had survived the ambush.
He regained consciousness inside a Somali fishing compound two days later.
A local militia faction had taken him.
Not the same group that attacked us.
They eventually traded him to an intelligence intermediary.
He disappeared into an off book recovery program.
Luis and Evan survived separately.
Nobody knew where Harper had gone.
Then, nine months ago, Jonah and Luis compared fragments of memory.
A radio voice.
American.
Call sign:
Atlas.
Jonah remembered one phrase clearly.
“Use Sterling authentication. She’s already compromised.”
My stomach dropped.
“Sterling authentication?”
“Yours or your father’s. I never knew.”
Then:
“I heard the voice before.”
“Where?”
He looked at Richard through the glass.
“At Coronado.”
My father.
I felt cold.
Jonah continued:
“But it wasn’t Captain Sterling.”
Relief came too early.
“Who?”
“I couldn’t place it.”
Then he saw Douglas Kane through another window.
Being escorted down the hall.
Jonah’s face changed.
His hand tightened around the cane.
“Harper.”
“What?”
“That voice.”
May you like
He stared at Kane.
“I think it was him.”
