Chapter 11 - The Shadow Behind the Curtain
We blew through the police garage security gate at sixty miles per hour, tires screeching against the damp asphalt as the heavy SUV rocketed out onto Front Street.
Behind us, emergency cruisers from surrounding precincts were converging on the headquarters, sirens screaming in a chaotic chorus that echoed off the downtown skyscrapers.
I sat in the front passenger seat, trembling uncontrollably from the adrenaline and the lingering sting of the gas. The dashboard clock read 1:14 a.m.
In less than two hours, my life had ceased to exist. My family was in chains. My home was a crime scene. A transnational syndicate was hunting me down.
"Where are we going?" I asked, gripping the dashboard. "A field office? The federal courthouse?"
Agent Cross didn't answer right away. He navigated through the dark, rain-slicked side streets of the Brewery District, keeping the headlights low, checking his mirrors every three seconds.
"The field office isn't secure," he said finally. "If they had credentials to trip the city's dispatch and override municipal security doors, they have eyes inside the state bureau. I'm taking you to an off-the-grid safe site outside Dublin. It's a private safehouse owned by a retired federal judge. No digital records. No satellite routing."
He reached into his jacket, pulled out a small, disposable burner phone, and tossed it into my lap.
"Keep that on you," he instructed. "If I tell you to run, you dial the single contact programmed into the speed dial. That routes directly to a specialized protective detail at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Do you understand?"
"Yes," I whispered, holding the cheap plastic device like a lifeline.
We drove in silence for thirty minutes, leaving the city lights behind as the four-lane highway dissolved into pitch-black country roads bordered by skeletal cornfields and dense patches of woods.
Eventually, the SUV turned down a long, unpaved gravel driveway hidden behind an overgrown row of weeping willows. At the end of the lane stood a dark, two-story stone cabin with no lights in the windows.
Cross cut the engine. The sudden silence was absolute, broken only by the tick-tick-tick of the cooling radiator and the wind rustling through the dead leaves.
"Stay behind me until I clear the ground floor," Cross murmured, unclipping his holster.
We stepped out into the biting cold. The smell of wet earth and cedar filled the air. Cross unlocked the front door with a physical key, swept the dark entryway with his tactical flashlight, and signaled me inside.
The cabin was warm, furnished with heavy leather furniture and bookshelves. It felt utterly isolated from the horrors of the last two hours.
"Drink some water," Cross said, pointing to the kitchen. "I need to check the perimeter sensors."
He stepped back out onto the porch, pulling the wooden door shut behind him.
I walked to the sink, poured a glass of tap water with shaking hands, and drank it down in three massive gulps. I leaned against the counter, closing my eyes, praying that the nightmare would end when morning came.
*Bzzzz.*
The burner phone in my jacket pocket vibrated.
My breath hitched.
*Cross told me not to use it. He said it was only for emergencies.*
I pulled the phone out. The small, monochrome screen was glowing brightly in the dark kitchen.
A text message had just arrived from an unknown, unlisted number.
My thumb trembled as I pressed the center button to open it.
It wasn't text.
It was an image.
My heart stopped.
The image was a high-resolution photograph taken from the dark tree line outside the house. It showed the side of the stone cabin.
And framed perfectly inside the illuminated kitchen window was me, standing by the sink, looking down at my phone.
May you like
A second message pinged immediately beneath the picture.
*"Cross didn't bring you to a safehouse, Emily. He brought you to the collection point. Step out the back door in thirty seconds, or we bury both of you in the basement."*
