Chapter 37 - The Father's Last Transmission
"Punch it!" Miller roared.
The van’s tires spun on the wet gravel, grabbing asphalt with a violent jerk that threw me against the padded wall as the vehicle surged onto the darkened access road.
Above us, the night sky was torn open by the deafening, twin-turbine roar of an MH-60 Black Hawk cutting through the clouds, its searchlight slicing the woods into sharp fragments of silver and pitch black.
*Crack-crack-crack.*
High-velocity rounds punched through the roof of the van, showering the interior with sparks and shredded acoustic insulation.
"They're using suppressed fire—they don't want the state police investigating a gunshot report on the interstate!" Hayes shouted, returning fire through a specialized firing port in the rear door with controlled, three-round bursts.
The technician’s monitor flashed violently. A new audio stream began to decrypt itself through the induction handshake we had just initiated. It wasn't an operational directive.
It was a voicemail recording dated forty-eight hours prior—routed through an encrypted satellite relay from the holding cell at Fort Meade where my father, Major Thomas Vance, had been detained after his capture at the docklands.
The voice that filled the van was not the arrogant, detached voice of the man who had watched his daughter bleed on the hardwood floor of his suburban home. It was broken, hollowed out by fear and exhaustion.
*"Hannah..."* the recording began, static crackling over the syllables. *"If you're hearing this, the rib beacon is active. Which means Maya did what I was terrified she would do... and you survived it."*
I froze, ignoring the bullets ripping through the sheet metal above my head.
*"I couldn't tell you,"* Thomas's voice whispered, strained and trembling. *"Denise had surveillance in every room. The Deputy Secretary’s people held the mortgages, the accounts, the clearances. They threatened to execute you during your deployment to Poland if I broke pattern. I had to let them believe I was complicit. I had to let Denise think she had won."*
A heavy concussive blast rocked the van as a flash-bang exploded just outside the rear bumper, blowing out the back windows in a rain of safety glass.
*"Your mother didn't build that system to destroy me, Hannah,"* the recording continued, the voice breaking into a ragged sob. *"She built it to save you from them. The key doesn't just open Vault 4. It proves the Deputy Secretary orchestrated the ambush on Catherine’s convoy. I'm sorry, Hannah. I'm so sorry I stood there. I had to make them believe I didn't care... so they wouldn't kill you before the signal cleared."*
The recording clicked off.
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"He knew," I whispered through gritted teeth, tears mixing with the cold sweat on my face. "The bastard knew every second of it."
***
