Chapter 4 - Into the Fog
The salt spray froze instantly against the windshield of the utility boat as we cut the engines, letting the heavy hull drift silently into the shadowed alcove of the rocky Nova Scotia coastline.
The night was pitch black, swallowed entirely by a thick, suffocating sea fog that rolled off the dark water like smoke. Towering granite cliffs loomed on either side of the narrow inlet, jagged and unforgiving. According to the decrypted coordinates, the abandoned weather station sat less than a quarter-mile up a steep, overgrown goat trail.
"Radar is completely dead," Brooks whispered from the bow, his fingers moving rapidly across a portable tactical tablet. "There’s a heavy electronic jamming signal bouncing off the cliffs. We're operating entirely blind."
"That’s not atmospheric interference," I said, scanning the dark shoreline through my night-vision monocular. "That’s a localized military-grade scrambler. Someone wants to make sure no outside communications get in or out of this valley."
Cole checked the slide of his sidearm with a soft, metallic click, securing the weapon beneath his heavy weather coat. "Henderson was always paranoid about perimeter security. Even back during the deployment, he wouldn't sleep without a backup comms array rigged to a marine battery."
"Or maybe he has good reason to be paranoid," I muttered, stepping cautiously over the gunwale of the boat onto the slippery, weed-covered rocks of the shore. "If he's been running from ghosts for twenty years, he knows someone is hunting him."
We moved up the cliffside trail in single file, boots crunching softly against wet shale and pine needles. The wind howled through the ravine above us, carrying the rhythmic, mournful toll of an automated navigational buoy somewhere out in the deep water.
Ten minutes later, the rotting wooden silhouette of the weather station emerged from the fog.
It was a dilapidated two-story structure built on stilts over a rocky shelf, its gray clapboard siding peeling away from the frame like old skin. A single, flickering yellow light burned from a cracked window on the second floor.
"He's inside," Cole signaled with a hand gesture, dropping into a low tactical crouch beside the rotting porch stairs.
I drew my knife, keeping low as I moved toward the side entrance. The door hung slightly off its hinges, swaying gently in the wind with a soft, metallic groan.
We didn't wait. Cole kicked the door inward with a sharp slam, his weapon raised, while I swept the lower room, my eyes scanning the shadows.
The interior was a graveyard of old maritime equipment. Rusted radio consoles, tangled spools of copper wire, and empty ration tins littered the floorboards. In the center of the room sat a heavy oak table illuminated by a kerosene lamp.
Resting squarely in the middle of the table was an open leather-bound journal.
And beside it lay a familiar silver dog tag, stained with dark, dried rust.
I stepped forward, my boots crunching on the debris, and picked up the dog tag. The stamped lettering read: MILLER, T. - USN.
"Miller," Cole breathed, stepping into the room behind me, his face draining of color. "Miller's chopper went down three miles off the coast during the extraction. We watched his bird spin into the whitecaps."
"Then whose dog tag is this?" Brooks asked, his flashlight beam sweeping across the dark corners of the room.
Before anyone could answer, a sharp, metallic click echoed from the shadows of the upper loft stairs.
May you like
"Put the weapons down," a voice rasped from the darkness above—weak, trembling, but carrying an unmistakable authority that froze us in our tracks. "Step away from the table, Commander. Or the next sound you hear won't be a warning."
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