Free No Return by Brett Battles

the ground.
    Suddenly the picture whipped up and focused on the sky. Center frame was the plane. The image held for five seconds, then cut off.
    The next shot started with a jolt. Shadows. Car mats. Shoes. Then the dash of the Highlander, and the desert outside. The picture bounced and jerked with the movement of the car.
    Another shot. Still inside the SUV, this time with burning vegetation on all sides. In the distance was the back of the Escape Wes had been driving, and beyond that the cloud of dust and smoke that enveloped the plane.
    The final shot started in the car, but the chaotic motion was gone. Suddenly the door opened and the picture moved outside. The frame moved up and down as the image quickly approached the downed jet, then steadied once it was in position.
    It spun to the right and focused on Wes trying to get up to the cockpit, then caught his miscalculation as he nearly fell off. The image stayed on Wes while he pulled himself back up and leaned into the cockpit. Unfortunately, Danny had positioned himself so that Wes blocked the view of the pilot from the camera.
    “Dammit,” Wes whispered.
    Danny sped forward, keeping the pace just slow enough so he could get an idea of what was going on. But the whole time there was no clear shot of the pilot.
    Then Danny had followed him with the camera as he’d made his dash for the knife.
    “For God’s sakes, Danny,” Wes said.
    “What’s wrong?” Anna asked.
    “Nothing,” he said. “Everything’s fine.”
    Wes watched himself race past burning brush for the SUV. Anna ran out to meet him, handing him the knife. Then, as he turned to go, Dione stopped him.
    As Wes pushed past her and headed back toward the plane, the image panned quickly to the cockpit, then swung back to pick up Wes again.
    Wes rewound to the cockpit shot, then hit Pause.
    The image of the man’s face was there for only a few frames before he turned his head to look back at Wes on the wing. Wes clicked through, frame by frame. Five total. NTSC, the video format used in the United States, ran at approximately thirty frames a second, which meant the man’s face was on camera for only one-sixth of a second.
    Wes studied each frame separately, but they were too blurry to distinguish anything. He then looped them so that they’d play over and over. In motion, unlike still images, there was just enough to get an idea of what the pilot looked like.
    He did have to admit that it didn’t definitively prove it wasn’t Lieutenant Adair, but to his eyes, he was sure the man in the shot wasn’t the same man whose picture had run in the paper.
    “I thought you said you were only going to be a few minutes,” Anna said.
    “I am.”
    “It’s already been twenty.”
    “No it hasn’t.”
    “You’re right. It’s actually been twenty-three.”
    Wes glanced at the clock on his computer and was surprised to see she was right.
    “Look, if you’re going to work all night, I’m going back to my room.”
    There was the rustle of blankets and sheets.
    “No, don’t go,” he said. “I’m just finishing up.”
    He saved the file to both the hard drive and his portable thumb drive. Behind him, he could hear Anna shuffle across the floor, then felt her lean over his shoulder and look at the screen.
    “What are you doing?”
    Wes closed the laptop and stood up. “If I tell you now, you’ll fall asleep before I finish. How about we wait until morning?”
    Before she could say anything, he picked her up and carried her to the bed.
    “Don’t think this is helping your cause,” she said. “I’m going back to sleep.”
    “I doubt it.”
    “You do?”
    “I do.”

WHEN WES RAN OUT OF HIS ROOM THE NEXT morning, he was already three minutes late for morning call time. But he slowed his pace as soon as he noticed no one else was at the SUVs yet. Behind him, he heard someone on the sidewalk, and wasn’t surprised when Anna jogged up.
    “We’re first?” she asked.
    “Looks like it.”
    Wes