Chapter 6 - The Southern Rail
The heavy armor of the SUV swallowed the sound of the city fading into the bleak industrial sprawl of the southern corridor.
Javier gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white as the vehicle hurtled down the interstate toward the abandoned rail yards near the Indiana border. The rain had settled into a persistent, freezing mist that blurred the red tail-lights of the trucks ahead of us into bleeding smears of crimson.
“We’re two miles out from the transfer yard,” Javier said, his eyes darting to the dashboard GPS where a flashing red dot blinked erratically. “Vance’s tracking ping on the van is bouncing off a burner phone left in the cab. They’ve likely ditched the vehicle by now.”
“They didn't ditch it to hide,” I replied, staring out the rain-streaked window at the dark silhouettes of rusted shipping containers stacked like jagged teeth against the night sky. “They ditched it because they’re meeting a freight connection. O’Neill doesn't smuggle data through highway tolls when he owns the cargo lines running straight into the state ports.”
Javier glanced sidelong at me, a rare flicker of doubt crossing his granite features. “Boss, let’s talk logistics for a second. If she’s a federal cyber-intelligence analyst, as Vance claims, she wasn't running from O’Neill by accident. She engineered this entire collision. She used you to clear a path out of that hotel because she knew O’Neill’s hit squad was closing in on her data drive.”
“I know,” I said coldly.
“So why are we burning fuel and risking a federal crossfire to pull her out of the fire?”
I turned my head slowly to look at him, my expression devoid of warmth. “Because she took three terabytes of encrypted ledger data that includes every shell corporation, every bribe recipient, and every political asset O’Neill uses to choke this city. If the feds get that drive before we do, they won't just lock her up—they’ll use her leverage to dismantle every block of turf we’ve spent five years securing. And if O’Neill gets it back, she dies in a ditch, and we lose our only window into his offshore accounts.”
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Javier fell silent, hitting the headlights’ high-beams as the tarmac gave way to rutted gravel and overgrown weeds.
The SUV drifted to a halt behind a row of rusted boxcars, cloaked in complete darkness.
