Chapter 9 - Turning the Tables

We emerged from a maintenance grate behind an abandoned rail yard two miles inland, shivering, wet, and covered in soot.

“That was too close,” Carter panted, leaning against a rusted freight car to catch his breath.

“They knew exactly where we were,” Miller said, pulling out a small satellite receiver from his waterproof vest. “Which means there’s a localized tracking beacon broadcasting from inside our gear.”

I froze, my mind racing backward through every event of the evening. My scrub pocket at the hospital. The public locker at the subway station.

“The burner phone Carter gave me,” I realized aloud, unzipping my duffel bag and pulling out the device. “It wasn't just an encrypted comms link. It was a homing beacon all along.”

Carter stared at the phone in my hand, his expression hardening with cold realization. “I didn't know, Clara. When my contact handed it to me…”

“Your contact was already compromised,” I interrupted, powering down the phone and ripping out the battery before smashing it against the steel rail. “Which means whoever is hunting us is already tracking the signal we just left behind us.”

“Then let’s use it to our advantage,” Miller said, a dangerous glint appearing in his eyes. He tapped the screen of his tactical laptop. “I managed to download the decryption keys before we blew the boathouse. I know who funded the operation. It’s General Vance—the former director of our oversight committee.”

“Vance is retired,” Carter said.

“He retired with millions in misappropriated black-budget funds,” Miller countered. “And we are the only living witnesses who can connect him to the illegal operations in Central Asia.”

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“If Vance wants us, let’s give him a direct invitation,” I said, opening my trauma kit and pulling out a secure satellite transmitter I had kept hidden in the lining. “We broadcast our exact coordinates at the old federal grain silos on the edge of the city. We draw him and his personal strike team into an enclosed zone where numbers don't matter, and preparation does.”

Carter and Miller exchanged glances, then both nodded slowly in grim agreement.