KANDAHAR PROVINCE, AFGHANISTANTHREE YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS AGOThe village was dead long before Marcus Kane arrived.He felt it as soon as his boots hit the dirt; that silence. Not just quiet. The kind that followed after breathing stopped. Twenty-three houses. Seventy people at dawn. Now just wind through empty doorways and the smell of blood cooking in 110-degree heat.“Jesus Christ,” Sergeant Danny Ortiz whispered, lowering his rifle. “What the hell happened?”Marcus didn’t answer. He was counting bodies. Seven in the street. Four more slumped against the well. Old men, and two boys no older than twelve. Clean shots, center mass. Precise. No panic, no wasted bullets.Whoever did this was trained.“Kane.” Lieutenant Graves’s voice was tight as wire. “You need to see this.”The schoolhouse sat at the village center, its mud-brick walls painted white by some hopeful aid group. The door hung crooked on one hinge. Marcus didn’t want to go inside. Thirty-two bodies later, he’d learned to

The interrogation room was exactly like the dozens Marcus had sat in from the other side of the table. Beige walls. Metal table bolted to the floor. Mirror that wasn't really a mirror. Fluorescent lights designed to make everyone look guilty.He'd been here three hours. No water. No phone call. No lawyer yet.Just him and his bloody hands and the weight of what he'd done pressing down like a physical thing.Marcus stared at his reflection in the two-way glass. They'd taken his clothes, given him paper coveralls that crinkled every time he moved. His hands were bagged in evidence bags, clear plastic turning pink where the blood hadn't fully dried. He looked like a ghost. Like something already dead.Maybe he was.The door opened. Marcus didn't look up. He knew the rhythm of interrogations, knew they'd let him sit and stew before sending in whoever they thought would crack him fastest. Probably Devereaux. The captain would play the disappointed father, the mentor betrayed.But it wasn't

The holding cell was eight feet by six feet. Concrete walls. Metal bench. Toilet in the corner that reeked of bleach and desperation. Marcus had processed enough suspects to know exactly what this place was designed to do; break you down, make you feel small, make you ready to confess to anything just to get out.He sat on the bench, head against the cold wall, and tried to remember.The hour. That missing hour. It had to be in there somewhere, locked behind whatever door his mind had built to keep him from seeing it. People didn't just lose time. Memory didn't work that way. Even in the worst PTSD episodes, there were fragments. Impressions. Something.But when Marcus reached for that hour, there was nothing. Just a smooth wall of black where memory should be.He closed his eyes and forced himself back. Started with what he could remember.His apartment. The bourbon. He'd poured two fingers, neat, and stood at the window looking out at the city lights. It was 10:43 PM. He remembered

Marcus woke to the sound of his cell door opening. Not the methodical clang of regular rounds. Quick. Urgent. Wrong.He sat up, instantly alert. A figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the corridor lights."Get up. We're leaving."Marcus recognized the voice before his eyes adjusted. "Tommy?"Detective Tommy Reeves stepped into the cell. Not the lawyer, the cop. Sarah's old partner from narcotics. Heavy-set, fifty-something, with a face like a bulldog and loyalty that ran deeper than regulations."Yeah. And we've got maybe three minutes before this gets real complicated, so move."Marcus stood. "What's happening?""Sarah called in a favor. Said you needed to disappear for a few hours." Tommy jerked his head toward the corridor. "I'm officially taking you for a medical evaluation. Possible concussion from processing. There's a van in the loading bay.""Tommy, if you do this, your career….""Is already fucked six days from Sunday, but that's my problem." Tommy grabbed Marcus'

The streets blurred past as Sarah drove, weaving through traffic with controlled aggression. Marcus gripped the door handle, the burner phone tight in his other hand.Eight blocks to Detective James Whitmore's location. Twenty-seven minutes until the suicide protocol completed."Tell me about Whitmore," Sarah said, running a red light."9th Precinct. Homicide. Former Marine. Two tours in Iraq. Good cop." Marcus checked the phone again. "We worked a case together once. Solid guy.""Married?""Divorced two years ago. Ellis sent his file. He volunteered for Meridian eighteen months after PTSD and depression."Just like Marcus. Just like all of them. Broken people looking for a fix, and Devereaux had offered a solution that turned them into weapons."What's the plan?" Marcus asked."Stop him from killing himself. Everything else is secondary."They pulled up to Whitmore's building six minutes later. Five-story walkup, peeling paint, bars on ground-floor windows. The kind of place cops li