Chapter 9 - What Owen Carried
Owen's story came in pieces, separated by long silences.
He had survived the attack by crawling into a drainage culvert with the wounded civilian. The woman died before dawn. Owen was captured two days later by men who already knew his name and rank. They asked about the recording chip Luke had handed me.
“I told them you had it,” he said. “I thought they'd go looking for you instead of shooting me.”
“That's how you stayed alive.”
“That's how I put a target on your back.”
Months later, a local doctor helped him escape. An American rescue team recovered him, but his medical identification was deliberately flagged as unreliable. Owen believed Meridian had people inside the processing chain. He vanished from a military hospital before anyone could send him back.
“Why didn't you call me sooner?” I asked.
He looked down. “I heard you signed the report saying we were dead.”
The words hurt because they were true in a way I had spent years avoiding.
I had signed a casualty summary while sedated and concussed. The officer who brought it told me the rescue teams had found no survivors. I should have insisted on reading every line. Instead, I had signed so they'd let me leave the hospital and see Luke's family.
“I signed what they gave me,” I said. “I didn't know they were using it to close the investigation.”
Owen pressed his fingers against his eyes.
“The recording chip wasn't the only copy,” he said. “My camera had a backup, but the memory card was damaged. I hid it inside Mateo's repair kit before we were separated.”
“Where's the kit?”
Owen pulled a folded receipt from his pocket. A salvage warehouse in Maryland had sold confiscated field equipment in a government surplus auction. The kit had been listed by serial number last month.
Leah came in from the porch. “There's something else. I just got the court notice.”
She showed me her phone.
May you like
Thorne's defense had filed an emergency motion accusing me of falsifying casualty records and contaminating a missing witness.
They wanted me arrested before the next hearing.
