Chapter 18 Jack #2
My hands found the edge of the console, gripping so hard my knuckles went white. I couldn't take my eyes off the thermal image. Those two small shapes. Still. Unmoving.
Hold on, Daisy. Daddy’s coming. Hold on, Anna. We’re here.
James grabbed his mic, his thumb pressing the button with deliberate pressure. "Command copies. All teams, stand by." He took a steadying breath, his eyes locked on those two precious blobs of heat. I saw a drop of sweat fall down his face. Saw him swallow.
He was a father, too. Three kids. He understood.
"Echo Team," he said, his voice carrying the weight of command. "Execute." And just like that, James offered me a nod and jumped out of the van.
There was no dramatic explosion. No Hollywood thunder.
On the helmet cam feed, the lead operator placed a small, pancake-shaped breaching charge on the rusted metal door's lock. Precise. Controlled. He backed away, hand raised in signal.
A muffled crump echoed faintly from the direction of the mill, a sound more of pressure than noise, a dull thump felt in the chest rather than heard.
The door blew inward in near-silence. Smoke curled. The shadows poured inside like water finding a crack.
I stopped breathing.
The radio chatter became a staccato rhythm of professionalism that felt surreal, disconnected from the reality of what was happening.
"Echo One, clear. Entry point secure."
My daughter was three floors above those men. Three floors and however many yards of concrete and rust and industrial debris between her and safety.
"Moving to stairwell alpha. Visual on barricade. Confirmed. Heavy industrial debris."
The thermal image showed the three prowling signatures still moving. Pacing near the windows. They hadn't heard the breach yet. Hadn't reacted.
"Deploying hydraulic entry. Cover the angles."
On a different screen, the helmet cam showed the barricade up close, a nightmare of twisted metal. Old industrial looms, their frames rusted but still massive. Metal shipping pallets. A tangle of chains. Carter had built this obstacle with meticulous care. With time and planning, and hatred.
The spreader was positioned. Its hydraulic whine was faint through the audio feed but unmistakable, a high-pitched scream of metal against metal.
On the thermal, one of the pacing signatures near the windows stopped.
My heart stopped with it.
The heat signature's head, a brighter spot, turned sharply toward the sound.
He'd heard it.
Then, a new sound. Not from the radio. Not from the speakers.
From the mill itself.
Echoing across the empty waterfront, distorted by distance and concrete and the early morning air, but unmistakable.
A man's voice. Raised in a shout of raw alarm. Rage and panic merged into something primal.
Carter.
The sound made every hair on my body stand on end.
It was followed, a heartbeat later, by another sound. Different. Higher.
A cry, stripped of all control, all humanity. Pure terror that sliced through the dawn and through my soul like a blade made of ice.
Daisy.
Her name was a silent explosion in my throat. My body moved before my brain could authorize it, lunging for the van door, hands already reaching for the handle. A fear, building in my chest, primal and unstoppable.
I had to get to her. Now. Right now. Fuck the plan, fuck the tactical approach, fuck everything—she was screaming, my daughter screaming, and I had to—
Vance was there.
His arm shot out. Not gentle, not careful. A bar of solid muscle and bone that caught me across the chest like a steel beam. The impact slammed me backward, my spine hitting the console hard enough to jar my teeth.
"No, sir." His voice was low. Absolute. Iron-clad. Not an employee to a boss. A retired soldier to a civilian about to compromise an operation. "They are in. You moving now will get someone killed. Maybe your daughter. Trust them."
I struggled against him for a second, pure instinct and desperation. But he was immovable. A mountain. And the words penetrated through the red haze.
Maybe your daughter.
I froze. Every muscle locked in place even as everything in me screamed to move, to run, to get to them.
On the screens, chaos erupted in calm, professional terms that made it somehow worse.
"He's spooked!" One of the operators announced. "He's moving toward the hostages!"
On the thermal, the signature that had stopped, the one who had heard the hydraulic spreader, was moving now. Fast. Straight toward those two huddled shapes.
Toward Anna and Daisy.
"Third floor, move, move, move!" James barked into his mic, his professional calm cracking. "He's with them! Breach the room now!"
The helmet cam feeds became a jostling nightmare. The operators abandoned stealth for speed, boots pounding up the cleared stairwell, weapons raised, breathing heavy through their mics.
The camera bounced violently, showing flashes of concrete walls, rusted railings, numbers spray-painted on walls marking floors.
Second floor. Third floor. Moving down a corridor.
The thermal image was a horror show. Three signatures now clustered around the two huddled forms. The pacing signature had reached them. The other two male signatures were scrambling, one moving toward the approaching SWAT team, one toward a far corner of the room.
"Contact! Right door!" An operator's shout.
"Gun! He has a—" Another voice, cut off by the sudden eruption of movement on screen.
Then, a single, sharp, unmistakable crack split the morning air.
Not from the speaker.
Not from the radio.
From the mill itself. Echoing across the waterfront, bouncing off concrete and water, carrying across the gray dawn with terrible clarity.
A gunshot.
Followed by a scream that pierced through the symphony of dawn.
Anna.