Chapter 12 - Thirty-Seven Seconds
Brooks grabbed the recorder while Marcus pushed June toward the opposite exit. A rock shattered the shed's rear window. Nobody came through it. Whoever had thrown it wanted them frightened and moving.
Viper barked twice. The military police officer outside called for backup. The sound of an engine faded into the distance.
"Everybody okay?" Brooks asked.
June was shaking too hard to answer. Marcus looked at the recorder. "Play it. Right now."
They listened through a tiny speaker, standing among shelves of dusty tools. Danny's voice came first.
"Lower road is not clear. Families on the shoulder. Request upper-route diversion."
Marcus heard his younger self: "Viper's alerting. Halt the line."
Then Rusk: "Lantern's route is approved. Override the civilian warning and proceed. My authorization."
June's recorded voice said, "Sir, live observation conflicts with the display."
"Log the route as clear, Corporal."
There was a pause. A truck horn. Danny shouted, "They're still in the road!"
Then came the explosion, the screams, and thirty-seven seconds of terrible noise.
The recording ended with a weak voice Marcus knew better than his own.
"Marcus, if you hear this... tell Ruby I didn't leave them."
Marcus sank onto a wooden bench. He had spent four years hearing people say Danny died because Marcus disobeyed. Here was Danny's voice proving he had tried to stop the disaster.
"That's why I kept it," June said. "I couldn't bear to destroy the only part of him that still spoke."
Ortiz arrived with two MPs and listened without interruption. "General Shaw needs this under formal evidence control," she said.
The recorder was sealed in a documented evidence bag. Marcus watched Ortiz sign the chain-of-custody form.
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Then June checked the current Lantern route on her phone. Her face went white.
"Captain," she said, "today's convoy is following the same kind of warning they ignored at Black Ridge."
