Chapter 16 - The run through the pines
They burst through the heavy steel emergency exit into the freezing mountain night, gasping for fresh air as the toxic halon cloud billowed out behind them like ghost smoke.
"Daniel, the truck is blocked!" Amanda wheezed, stumbling on the frozen pine needles. One of the gray sedans was parked directly across their pickup's rear bumper.
"We go on foot into the tree line," Evelyn commanded, pulling Amanda upright. "The ridge slopes down to the old rail spur. If we reach the valley floor, the trees will hide our heat signatures from any airborne drones they brought."
Behind them, gunfire shattered the lock of the exit door. Hayes stumbled out into the cold, coughing violently, his tactical vest dusted with white halon frost. He fired wildly into the tree line, bullets snapping branches above their heads like firecrackers.
"Vance!" Hayes shouted, his voice cracking with rage. "You think Davis will let you tell this story? He built this entire state’s political machine on your mother’s blood! If you walk out of these woods, you bring down the entire command structure! You’ll be branded a traitor before you hit the highway!"
"Keep running!" Evelyn whispered, pushing Daniel and Amanda ahead of her through the thick underbrush.
The forest was treacherous. Black ice coated the rocks, and fallen timber formed jagged barriers in the pitch darkness. Daniel held Amanda’s hand, pulling her through every ditch, while Evelyn brought up the rear, the heavy telemetry sphere strapped securely inside her flight jacket against her chest.
After ten agonizing minutes of downhill sprinting, the roar of a heavy twin-rotor helicopter began to vibrate through the mountain floor.
"Is that Davis?" Amanda gasped, clutching her side as they huddled beneath an overhanging rock ledge. "Did your mayday call bring help?"
Evelyn listened intently, tilting her ear toward the night sky. She knew every engine sound in the military inventory. The low, thumping cadence was not the rescue bird she flew, nor was it the sleek sound of the Coast Guard helicopters Davis commanded.
"That's a private Sikorsky S-76," Evelyn whispered, her blood running cold. "Corporate aviation. Heavy turbine. Hayes wasn't working for Davis tonight. He was working for the people who bought Davis."
The searchlight cut through the pine canopy like a scalpel of pure white light, turning the forest floor into daylight. The downdraft whipped the pine boughs into a frenzy, showering them with needles and dirt.
A loudspeaker boomed from the belly of the hovering helicopter, a voice smooth, aristocratic, and chillingly familiar:
"Evelyn, darling. Your father always was terribly sentimental about keeping keepsakes in the dust. Step into the light. Let's finish the conversation your mother started in the snow."
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Evelyn looked up through the branches. The voice didn't belong to a military officer.
It belonged to Victoria Sterling—Marcus’s daughter, and the CEO of Sterling Aerospace, the defense contractor that held eighty percent of the Pentagon’s avionics contracts.
