Chapter 3 - Scorched Earth in Pasadena
Before heading south to Long Beach, I had to see the crime scene with my own eyes. I needed intelligence. I commandeered the blacked-out SUV provided by my old team and tore through the streets toward my home in Pasadena.
Ten minutes later, I pulled up to my suburban house. The quiet neighborhood looked surreal under the afternoon sun, completely oblivious to the atrocity that had taken place on my driveway.
I stepped out of the vehicle and walked toward the dark stain I had seen on the camera feed. Up close, the smell hit me immediately: synthetic accelerant mixed with industrial-grade chemical solvents. They weren't just vandalizing the property—they were burning electronic signatures and erasing chemical tracking markers.
I knelt down, scraping a sample of the black sludge into a containment vial from my trunk’s tactical kit.
"Commander," a voice barked through my tactical earpiece. It was Miller, my former communications specialist from Unit 7-Delta.
"Go ahead, Miller. Tell me you have eyes on them."
"We intercepted the cell towers around your grid," Miller reported, his tone dead serious. "Evelyn’s phone pinged three miles north before going completely dark. But we traced the chemical compound from your driveway—it’s an unauthorized military-grade jammer fluid used to blind local fiber-optic networks. Eleanor isn't working alone. She linked up with a rogue PMC outfit called Vanguard Apex."
A cold realization settled in my chest. Vanguard Apex was run by Victor Vance—a former mercenary I had put in a federal supermax facility six years ago. Vance had recently escaped or been bought out. Eleanor and Evelyn hadn't just gotten greedy; they had made a deal with a monster who held a personal vendetta against me.
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"They used my daughter as bait to draw me out," I whispered.
"Correct, David," Miller replied. "And they're expecting a soldier. They aren't expecting a father with nothing left to lose."
