Chapter 24 - The ghost frequency
The wind roared like an approaching freight train as the black helicopter hovered less than forty feet above the gravel lot. Rotor wash flattened the tall grass, tearing shingles off the gym's roof and blinding Viktor’s remaining mercenaries with a storm of dust and debris.
"Cover!" Viktor shrieked, scrambling behind the armored rear door of his limousine. He had completely abandoned his elegant cane, dropping it into the dirt as he dragged himself toward the vehicle's interior. "Return fire! Clear the airspace!"
His men fired blindly into the blinding halo of searchlights. Muzzle flashes flickered against the darkness like dying fireflies, but their bullets pinged harmlessly off the reinforced belly plates of the aircraft.
Marcus moved with terrifying speed. He didn't rush Viktor. He spun around, scooped Tessa into his left arm, and kicked the heavy oak gym door shut with his heel just as a volley of stray rounds chewed through the doorframe.
Inside the gym, the dim emergency lights cast long, jagged shadows across the canvas boxing ring. Tessa buried her face against Marcus’s neck, but she didn't cry. Her small fingers clutched the back of his canvas work jacket.
"Daddy," she whispered, her voice trembling slightly beneath the deafening noise outside. "The watch is singing. That's the sound Mommy told me to listen for."
Marcus set her down behind the reinforced concrete counter of the reception desk. He knelt before her, his large hands cupping her cheeks. His thumb swept away a smudge of motor oil near her ear. "Listen to me, Tessa. Remember what we practiced when the sirens went off at the air base three years ago?"
She nodded rapidly. "Hide in the crawlspace. Don't speak. Don't answer anyone unless they say the counter-sign."
"The counter-sign is 'November Iron,'" Marcus said, his eyes drilling into hers with fierce protectiveness. "Anyone else opens that floor grate, you do not make a sound. You understand?"
"Yes, Daddy."
The leather watch on Tessa’s wrist emitted a second tone—a flat, sharp beep that repeated every four seconds. Marcus pulled the watch gently from her arm, fastening it around his own wrist. As the leather settled against his scarred skin, the watch recognized his biometric pulse. The faceplate shifted, the old analogue hands sliding aside to reveal a tiny digital readout displaying three words:
GHOST PROTOCOL ACTIVE.
Marcus felt a cold sensation in the pit of his stomach. That frequency didn't belong to the Pentagon. It didn't belong to Miller's federal oversight division. It belonged to Task Force Chimera—a unit that had been officially erased from history seven years ago after an ambush in the mountains of Syria. The men in that helicopter weren't federal marshals coming to arrest Viktor.
They were cleaners. And in the doctrine of Chimera, cleaners never left surviving witnesses. Not Viktor. Not Marcus. And certainly not Tessa.
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Outside, the heavy fire ceased abruptly. The deafening silence that followed was heavier than the gunfire. Footsteps crunched softly over broken glass on the porch. Marcus drew the serrated combat knife from his boot, stepped into the shadows near the entrance, and pulled the slide back on his sidearm.
The hunt was shifting, and the new hunters wore no flags on their sleeves.
