Chapter 60 - The Black Box Transmission
We moved with lethal, synchronized precision.
Catherine and Miller broke from the rock ledge, using the curtain of boiling steam to mask their descent down the metal service ladder to the sea ice. I followed close behind, my weapon raised, keeping Maya secured to my side by her combat harness.
The mercenary point-man, his night-vision goggles pushed up onto his helmet in panic as he tried to switch to daylight iron sights through the blizzard, never saw Catherine emerge from the whiteout.
She closed the distance in two strides, driving the heel of her palm upward into his chin, knocking his head back before sweeping his boots from the ice. As he crashed down, she seized his carbine, spun, and fired a continuous burst into the engine nacelle of the hovering Osprey.
The aircraft’s left turboshaft engine surged violently, coughing thick black smoke into the rotor wash before its automatic fire-suppression system triggered with a sharp hiss. The pilot, fighting the sudden asymmetrical torque in the howling blizzard, was forced to bank hard to the right, the massive composite blades chewing into a towering ice spire with an ear-shattering screech of tearing carbon fiber.
The Osprey lost stability, its tail swinging wildly before the pilot aborted the hover, limping away into the blinding whiteout on a single screaming engine.
"One bird down!" Miller yelled, securing the weapons from two wounded contractors who lay groaning in the snow.
The remaining two mercenaries on the ice attempted to retreat toward a secondary transport—a heavy, tracked Arctic snowcat parked fifty yards away on the solid ice shelf. Catherine and I didn't give them the chance. We advanced in an alternating bounding overwatch, our rounds finding their marks through the driving snow until both threats were neutralized.
"Clear!" I shouted, sweeping the area.
"Clear," Catherine confirmed, dropping to one knee to search the commander of the sweep team.
She ripped an encrypted communication tablet from his tactical rig, its screen flashing with real-time operational feeds.
"Hannah, look at this," Catherine said, her voice dropping into a register of utter disbelief.
I stepped beside her, shielding the glass screen from the driving snow.
The tablet was connected to an active tactical data-link originating not from a ground station, nor from the Pentagon. The signal was transmitting from an altitude of forty-five thousand feet directly above our coordinates—an airborne command-and-control platform circling inside the Arctic storm cell.
On the screen, a secure audio transmission channel was open.
*CALLSIGN: ARCHON ACTUAL.*
*MISSION STATUS: CLEAN SWEEP IN PROGRESS.*
*OBJECTIVE: CONFIRM TERMINATION OF VANCE CELL.*
And then, through the speaker of the encrypted tablet, a voice came over the line.
It wasn't a voice from a stranger. It was a voice that had spoken to me at the kitchen table while I was nursing broken ribs. It was a voice that had comforted my father while he poured his scotch. It was a voice that had delivered the eulogy at my mother's empty grave eight years ago.
"This is General Marcus Vance," the voice over the radio said, calm, authoritative, and utterly devoid of mercy. "Strike team, report. Has my brother's family been cleared from the board?"
My breath froze in my throat.
May you like
*Marcus Vance.*
My uncle. The four-star Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. The man who had recommended me for my military intelligence scholarship. The man who had handed me the folded flag at Catherine’s funeral.
