Chapter 17 - The severed line
Complete darkness swallowed the gym, save for the pale moonlight filtering through the gaps between the window blinds. Outside, the steady drone of the highway traffic had abruptly vanished, replaced by an eerie, artificial stillness that settled over the block like a suffocating blanket.
Tessa emerged from the back office without turning on a flashlight. Her footsteps were nearly soundless as she carried the medical supplies, moving by muscle memory alone. "The backup breaker didn't kick in, Dad. The main line at the pole was cut."
"Stay low," Marcus commanded in a measured whisper. He grabbed Travis by the collar of his jacket and eased him down onto the floor against the reinforced concrete foundation. "Keep your back to this wall. Do not stand up, no matter what you hear."
Outside, the faint scrape of rubber soles against gravel rustled near the alleyway entrance. Two shadows glided past the frosted glass of the secondary exit. Marcus reached into the gunmetal locker and withdrew a small, matte-black receiver with an earpiece. He slid the unit into his ear and clicked the toggle twice. A sharp static burst filled his eardrum, followed by a voice speaking through an encrypted channel.
"Target perimeter secured," a harsh voice murmured through the receiver’s frequency scan. "Local law enforcement dispatch has been looped to a false alarm on the north highway. You have seven minutes to clear the mechanic’s vault and retrieve the drive. Non-lethal force on the girl if possible; terminate the veteran if he resists."
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Marcus’s jaw hardened, the muscle twitching once beneath his weathered skin. They were operating on military protocols, using local frequency jamming to isolate the building from emergency calls. They believed they were hunting a retired mechanic who had spent twenty years under the hood of pickup trucks.
They did not know that Marcus had built the vault under that floor with his own hands, and every square inch of the warehouse was mapped in his mind as a tactical kill zone.
