Chapter 7 - The Abandoned Boathouse
The Lake Michigan shoreline was pitch black, whipped by a cold wind that rolled off the dark water and rattled the skeletal frames of rusted dry docks. The old municipal boat club sat on wooden pylons fifty yards out over the water, accessible only by a rotting wooden pier that groaned underfoot with every step.
I kept my hand inside my jacket, gripping the grip of the recovered pistol, my eyes scanning the shadows for movement.
The boathouse door was ajar, a faint, pale beam of light cutting through the crack.
I pressed my back against the weathered cedar wall beside the entrance, listening closely. Inside, I heard the faint, rhythmic tapping of a keyboard combined with the low hum of a portable generator.
“Carter?” I called out quietly, keeping my voice low.
The keyboard stopped instantly. Heavy footsteps approached the door from the inside.
“Clara?” Carter’s voice answered, laced with tension as he pulled the door open, lowering a tactical carbine he had been holding. “Thank God. You made it. What happened to your face?”
“A welcoming committee on the red line,” I said, stepping past him into the damp, cavernous interior of the boathouse. “They’re tracking our communications or our movements faster than we anticipated.”
“That’s because it’s not just corporate security,” a new voice spoke from the shadows near a workbench cluttered with radio equipment.
I spun around, weapon half-raised, before lowering it as a tall figure stepped into the light.
“Miller?” I breathed.
The former team sniper looked older, leaner, with a jagged scar running along his jawline, but his eyes were as sharp as ever.
“Good to see you breathing, Clara,” Miller said, offering a grim, tight-lipped smile. “Carter brought you the drive, right?”
I pulled the encrypted drive from my pocket and tossed it onto the workbench. “I have it. But we need to know what’s actually on it before they track us here.”
Miller sat back down at the laptop, plugging the drive into an isolated terminal. Lines of green code cascaded down the screen before a classified operational manifest opened.
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“This isn't just an old ledger,” Miller said, his face draining of color as he scrolled through the encrypted files. “It’s the operational roster for the entire black-ops black-budget division. And right at the top is the name of the man who ordered our elimination five years ago.”
Before he could name him, the windows of the boathouse shattered inward in a hail of automatic gunfire.
