Chapter 2 - The Voice on the Line
The plane’s wheels slammed onto the tarmac with a violent shudder, but my pulse was already racing far faster than the jet’s engines. I pressed the phone against my ear, straining to hear over the roar of the thrust reversers.
“Who is this?” I growled into the receiver, my voice pitched low enough that the passengers around me wouldn’t panic. “Where is my daughter?”
A smooth, raspy chuckle echoed from the speaker—a man’s voice, cold and devoid of any human empathy. “Your daughter is currently asleep, David. Or rather, indisposed. You always were a difficult man to track, but your family... they made it embarrassingly easy.”
“If you lay a single finger on Lily, I will spend every remaining breath of my life hunting you down,” I said, every muscle in my jaw tight.
“Save the action-movie monologue, David,” the man sneered. “Your dear wife, Evelyn, and her mother sold you out months ago. They wanted your off-shore contingency accounts, and they were more than happy to trade the girl to get the decryption key. You have three hours to arrive at the old industrial shipping yards in Long Beach. Come alone, or the next video you receive won’t be from your doorbell.”
The line went dead.
My hands trembled with a mixture of cold rage and calculated terror. Evelyn. My wife of eight years. The woman I thought I was protecting by keeping my past buried deep under classified files. She hadn’t just betrayed me; she had orchestrated the violent abduction of our nine-year-old daughter alongside her mother, Eleanor, and her three sisters.
The plane taxied to the gate, but I didn't wait for the seatbelt sign to turn off. I pushed past the gasping passengers, shoved my way down the jetbridge, and burst into the terminal.
My phone vibrated again. An encrypted text message flashed across the screen from an unmarked number:
[UNIT 7-DELTA SECURE COMM]
May you like
Tactical vehicle waiting at Curb 4B. Keys under the rear wheel well. Tactical kit in the trunk. Godspeed, Commander.
My former unit hadn't abandoned me. The nightmare was just beginning, but I was no longer flying blind.
