Chapter 22 - Smoke and Ash in Indiana
The small screen of the satellite terminal flickered to life, bringing up a live, encrypted audio-visual link routed through a local drone hovering above the Indiana rail-maintenance depot.
The image was grainy through the thick, curling smoke, but the devastation was unmistakable. The wooden and corrugated iron depot was little more than a smoldering skeletal frame. The exterior ground was littered with spent shell casings, shattered glass, and the charred wreckage of two Vanguard tactical vehicles.
“Can you zoom in on the rear perimeter?” I asked, my voice tight with dread.
Sarah manipulated the drone’s optical tracker, panning the camera toward an old drainage culvert behind the loading dock. There, huddled beneath a concrete overhang and coughing violently from the acrid smoke, were my father and Judge Harrison. They were flanked by two local state troopers who had finally responded to the automated perimeter alarm.
“Thank God,” I breathed out, burying my face in my hands as a massive wave of relief washed over me. “They made it out before the structural collapse.”
“They made it out, but Vanguard isn't going to stop hunting them,” Sarah said gravely, pulling up a secondary telemetry window on her console. “David Sterling has already dispatched a secondary quick-reaction team to intercept the local police transport convoy currently moving your father and the judge toward a secure medical facility in Chicago.”
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I lifted my head, my eyes locking onto Sarah with a fierce, cold resolve. “Then we aren’t going back to Tahoe. We’re heading straight back to intercept that convoy before Vanguard’s hit squad reaches them.”
Ethan cracked his knuckles, picking up a spare tactical rifle from the cabin rack and checking the magazine. “Route the chopper toward northern Illinois. Let’s show Mr. Sterling what happens when you corner a ghost.”
