Chapter 27 - The Midnight Evacuation
"Transmission detected!" Miller shouted, her eyes widening behind her ballistic glasses. "Secondary uplink initiated! He routed an automatic upload through a satellite dish on the roof!"
"Cut the power!" Hayes barked, hauling Thomas off the desk by his collar. "ABW team, establish perimeter! We're burning this place and extracting to the airfield now!"
Before Hayes could drag Thomas toward the hallway, a high-caliber round smashed through the double-pane window, obliterating the wall behind us in a spray of splintered wood and shredded masonry.
"Sniper! North ridge!" an ABW operator yelled, dropping to one knee and returning fire through the shattered window.
The forest outside was suddenly alive with muzzle flashes. Heavy, synchronized automatic fire hammered the front facade of the lodge, ripping through the cedar logs like wet paper.
"Private military contractors!" Hayes shouted, shoving Thomas down into the crawlspace beneath the desk. "They aren't here to rescue him—they're here to sanitize him!"
Thomas began screaming in terror, covering his head with his zip-tied arms as a spray of 7.62 rounds shredded the ceiling above him. "Don't let them kill me! I'll talk! I'll give you the names! I have the names of the admirals who approved the routing!"
"Keep your mouth shut!" I roared, grabbing the back of his collar and dragging him toward the rear utility exit.
Miller grabbed the laptop and the detached hard drive, shoving them into an EMP-shielded transport pack. "The transmission was thirty percent complete! If they wipe this room before we get off the network, the DoD won't be able to trace the receiving node!"
"Hannah, cover the rear!" Hayes ordered, drawing his sidearm as he guided the terrified, stumbling Thomas through the corridor.
I pivoted at the threshold of the service door, brought my carbine to bear, and pushed through into the freezing snow.
Two contractors clad in unmarked arctic camouflage were sprinting across the clearing, their weapons raised toward Hayes’s back.
I didn't hesitate.
My breathing slowed. The recoil of my weapon felt smooth, almost mechanical. Three double-taps echoed through the pines. Both contractors dropped into the snow, their weapons sliding across the ice.
"Van is secured!" the ABW driver shouted over the comms, the heavy diesel engine of the Sprinter roaring as it reversed through the trees, its reinforced steel bumper smashing through the logging fence.
We piled into the back of the armored van, dragging Thomas Vance by the scruff of his neck. As the heavy steel doors slammed shut and the driver floored the accelerator, heavy fire raked the reinforced sides of the vehicle, the rounds ricocheting off the ballistic plating with the sound of sledgehammers on iron.
Inside the dark cabin, Thomas was hyperventilating, his eyes wide and wild with terror, staring at the blood on my uniform.
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"You're going back to Maryland," I told him, leaning in until he could see the cold certainty in my eyes. "And you're going to sit in a room across from my father and tell him the truth."
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