Chapter 136
The campsite was an abandoned maintenance shed half a mile north of the airport perimeter, tucked into scrub oak with sightlines to the access road but hidden from casual observation.
Charlotte had chosen it the way she chose everything—by weighing terrain, cover, and escape routes with the instinct eight states had burned into habit.
She left at full dark. Mason sat on his bedroll with Jack pressed against his side while she checked the pistol Liam had given her and tucked it into the waistband of her pants.
The jacket was still too large, but in poor light it might pass for military issue.
The identification card was in her pocket.
She’d memorized the Cyrillic name printed there, and that would have to be enough.
“I’ll be back by morning,” she said. “If I’m not, wait until noon. Then take the horses northeast toward the foothills. The map shows a settlement near Golden. Tell them you’re with the resistance. They’ll help you.”
Mason nodded. He didn’t ask to come or to argue.
The trust he placed in her lived in that silence, and the weight of it made her want to promise something she couldn’t guarantee.
She kissed the top of his head. His hair smelled of pine and woodsmoke.
Jack whined softly and nosed her hand. Then she was moving.
The night was clear and cold, with a quarter moon offering enough light to navigate by.
She kept to drainage ditches and tree lines, using burned cars, collapsed fences, and ruined structures for cover.
The altered uniform helped. Twice, she passed within fifty yards of patrol vehicles without attracting attention.
The soldiers moved with the bored vigilance of men focused on the roads rather than the shadows between buildings.
She found her target near the northern perimeter fence.
He was a young soldier on foot patrol walking along the chain-link with a rifle slung and a cigarette glowing between his fingers.
Charlotte watched him complete two circuits.
The pattern was consistent. He reached the northwest corner, paused to smoke, then continued south before looping back.
The pause gave her eight minutes of isolation if she timed it right.
She moved on to the third circuit. When he reached the corner and turned to light a fresh cigarette, she came from behind the burned shell of a delivery truck with the knife in her right hand.
The takedown was the same motion she had used before: weight driven forward, knife positioned, hand over mouth, before sound could escape.
He fought, and his elbow caught her ribs and drove the air from her lungs.
She jammed the knife harder against his side, not breaking skin but communicating intent, and his body went still.
She bound his hands with zip ties and dragged him into the delivery truck’s cab, where darkness and the smell of burned upholstery masked the sound of his breathing.
He was terrified, young, and probably conscripted, but none of that mattered.
What mattered was that he had information she needed.
She questioned him in Russian, using phrases from the tapes, Mason’s lessons, and weeks of listening to radio traffic.
She kept it simple. Where are the prisoners? Which building?
He answered in fragments. The main hangar is on the west side.
Cells converted from offices. Processing happens there before the transfer.
She needed more. So, she tightened her grip on the knife and asked again, specifically.
The change in his expression was visible even in the near-dark.
She had asked specifically about children, and that altered the calculation behind his eyes.
He spoke fast, panicked, and she caught enough to follow.
Separate section. West hangar, lower level, behind the administrative offices.
Younger prisoners were kept there for questioning and transfer.
He didn’t know why or where. Charlotte believed him.
The answers were too specific to the architecture she had observed through binoculars.
The west hangar matched what she had seen: the largest structure, with vehicle access and the heaviest security.
She asked about guards, shift changes, and patrol patterns inside the facility.
He answered what he knew until the details began to repeat, then she stopped.
She bound his ankles, gagged him with a strip of cloth from her pack, and left him in the cab with enough slack in the restraints that he wouldn’t lose circulation before someone found him.
She moved back toward the campsite with the soldier’s answers arranged in her mind like terrain features on a map.
The intelligence was partial, but it was enough.
Something was all she needed to cross the fence.
Mason was awake when she returned. He sat by the small fire with Jack’s head in his lap, and the relief on his face when she stepped through the door was immediate.
She kneeled beside him and put her hand on his shoulder.
“She’s in the west hangar,” Charlotte said. “Lower level. Behind administrative offices. That’s where they’re holding her.”
Mason nodded. His hand found Jack’s ears and stayed there, and in the firelight, his expression carried the same assessment Charlotte had seen on the granite shelf and in the gorge, the look of a child who understood exactly what came next.