Chapter 4 #2
I still have the coded message hidden in my shirt hem.
I find the nearest dead drop location—a loose brick behind a dumpster three blocks away that routes through the established network.
My hands shake as I place the folded fabric inside, as I mark it with the emergency signal that should route to Micah if he's in any position to receive it.
If he's even alive to receive it.
Micah is silent, wherever he is, and I'm on my own.
Weeks crawl by in that safe house. The bruises fade. The cuts scab over and heal. My ribs stop screaming with every breath. The physical damage repairs itself while I stay hidden and wait for some sign, any sign, that I'm not completely alone in this.
Nothing comes.
When my phone finally rings, it's a forwarded call from my land line back in DC. I don't recognize the number, but it’s a military exchange in Alaska.
I almost don't answer. Almost let it go to voicemail because I'm not sure I can handle one more catastrophe. But something makes me pick up.
"Ms. Andrews?" The voice is professional, measured. Navy liaison officer. "This is Lieutenant Commander Harris. I'm calling regarding your brother, Gabriel Andrews."
The world tilts. "What happened?"
"He was on a training operation in the Alaskan wilderness.
Routine navigation exercise." The careful phrasing tells me everything.
"He didn't make it to the extraction point.
It's been several days. We have search teams deployed, but I wanted to notify you personally given the—given the circumstances. "
Training accident. That's what they're calling it.
But I remember the conversations Gabe and I had months ago. Suspicions he'd mentioned about increased surveillance. Questions about whether his team was being monitored. Concerns that someone in his chain of command might be compromised.
All things I dismissed as paranoia when he first brought them up.
"Ms. Andrews? Are you still there?"
"Yes." My voice sounds distant even to my own ears. "Yes, I'm here."
Now, with Harper dead and Committee operatives knowing my name, I realize my brother saw the pattern before I did.
The Committee's reach goes deeper than anyone realized. Deep enough to identify and target NSA analysts. Deep enough to kill section chiefs. Deep enough, maybe, to disappear a Navy SEAL in the Alaskan wilderness and make it look like a training accident.
There’s been nothing in the dead drop where Micah's response should have been and I finally understand exactly how alone I am.
And the official channels that should help me find my brother are the same ones the Committee has infiltrated.
The laptop screen glows in the darkened safe house, casting blue light across my bruised hands.
I should sleep. Should let my ribs finish healing.
Instead, I'm pulling up months of Committee intercepts, searching for the thread that connects Harper's death to my capture to Gabe disappearing in Alaska.
Somewhere in these intercepts is the pattern. There has to be.
Three hours later, I find it.
Committee communications referencing "Alaska operation" and "SEAL target" in the same forty-eight-hour window Gabe went missing. Mentions of "wilderness deployment" and "containment protocols." Nothing concrete. Nothing definitive. Just fragments that could mean anything.
Or could mean everything.
The intercepts don't tell me if they captured him or if he escaped. Don't tell me if he's alive or dead, injured or whole. Just that the Committee had active operations in Alaska targeting a SEAL during the exact window my brother vanished.
The same people who killed Harper. Who tortured me. Who are systematically eliminating anyone who threatens their operations.
And I can't go through official channels because I don't know who else is compromised.
My phone buzzes. Unknown number. Encrypted routing that makes my NSA training sit up and take notice.
I almost don't answer. Then I recognize the encryption signature.
Victoria Cross. I know that name.
"Ms. Andrews." Her voice is cool, professional, British-accented. "I believe we have mutual interests to discuss."
"I don't—"
"Harper spoke highly of you before his unfortunate accident. He mentioned you were tracking Committee communications with remarkable success." A pause. "I'm sorry for your loss. He was a good man in a profession that doesn't reward goodness."
My throat tightens. "How did you get this number?"
"I make it my business to know how to reach people who might need my services. You need something. I can provide it. For the right price."
"I don't have—"
"Money isn't the only currency, Sarah." She says my name like we're old friends. "Information is. Favors are. Future considerations are. You're NSA signals intelligence with specialized knowledge of Committee operations. That has value."
"What do you want?"
"To help you find your brother. And in exchange, I want your expertise when I have questions about Committee communications patterns. A mutually beneficial arrangement."
I should hang up. Should report this contact to—who? My section chief is dead. My agency is compromised. The Committee knows my name and wants me eliminated.
"I'm listening," I say finally.
"Good. I have a list of burned operators.
Men who were betrayed by the same system that's hunting you now.
Men who have the skills to find your brother and the motivation to hurt the Committee.
" Papers rustle on her end. "I can provide names, last known locations, operational specialties.
What you do with that information is your concern. "
"Why help me?"
"Because the Committee killed seventeen of my clients last year. Because they're bad for business. Because occasionally I do things that aren't strictly profit-motivated." Her voice hardens. "And because your brother is on my list too, which means we both want him found alive."
The encrypted file arrives thirty seconds after she disconnects. I open it with shaking hands.
Twenty-three names. Locations. Specialties. Assessment of operational status and likelihood of cooperation.
Marcus Thompson - Delta Force, Utah, off-grid, armed response likely.
Lucas Hayes - SEAL Team Six, Wyoming, presumed hostile to contact.
Alex Mercer - Delta sniper, Montana wilderness, extreme isolation, master of evasion and wilderness survival.
My analyst brain catalogs the information automatically.
Mercer. Montana. The intercepts I've been tracking for months showed unusual satellite phone activity in that region.
Brief, encrypted bursts that could be supply runs or dead drop checks.
Movement patterns consistent with someone who knows how to stay invisible but still needs to maintain minimal contact with civilization.
I can find him.
The question is whether I'll survive the trip long enough to ask for his help.
I spend two days planning. Route analysis. Supply procurement. Cover story for the cross-country drive. My ribs still ache with every breath, but I'm functional enough to drive. The split lip has scabbed over. The bruises are fading to yellow-green.
I look like someone who's been in a car accident. Not someone who was tortured by Committee operatives and barely escaped with her life.
Close enough.
The drive to Montana takes four days. I take a circuitous route, watching for surveillance, switching vehicles twice, using cash for everything. Old tradecraft from my NSA training, procedures I never thought I'd need to use.
By the time I cross into Montana, I'm running on caffeine and desperation.
The Whitefish area is vast, heavily forested, perfect for someone who wants to disappear.
I start with satellite imagery, cross-referencing with the communication patterns I tracked.
Narrow it down to a twenty-square-mile area in the wilderness north of town.
Then I start looking for signs.
Supply runs leave traces if you know what to look for. A pattern in the timing of purchases at outdoor stores. Propane tank refills that happen with suspicious regularity. The locations where satellite phone signals briefly appeared before going dark.
It takes another two days of careful searching, driving logging roads that barely qualify as roads, before I find what I'm looking for.
A secondary shelter. Well-hidden, well-defended, exactly the kind of place a burned Delta operator would establish as a fallback position. The cabin is small, positioned with clear sight lines, surrounded by wilderness that would make approach nearly impossible without being detected.
Perfect for someone who wants to disappear.
Perfect for someone who doesn't want to be found.
I park half a mile out and approach on foot, moving carefully despite the screaming protest from my ribs. Every instinct I have says this is stupid. Says I should turn around, find another way, not walk into the territory of a man trained to kill and paranoid enough to live in total isolation.
But Gabe is missing. Harper is dead. Micah is silent.
And I'm out of options.
The cabin is empty when I reach it. No signs of recent occupation, no smoke from the chimney, nothing to suggest Mercer's been here recently. This is his fallback position, his emergency shelter, not his primary location.
Which means I found the wrong cabin.
I lean against the rough wooden wall, trying to catch my breath. My ribs scream. The shoulder wound I thought was mostly healed pulls with every movement. I've been running on adrenaline and desperation for days, and both are running out.
I look down. Blood is soaking through my jacket, dark and spreading. The hike reopened the shoulder wound. Maybe tore something that was barely holding together.
I need to rest. Just for a minute. Just long enough to catch my breath and figure out my next move.
The cabin door isn't locked. I push inside, find basic supplies—cot, blankets, emergency rations. A place to wait out bad weather or worse circumstances. I sink onto the cot and try to think through the fog of exhaustion and pain.
Mercer has a primary location. Somewhere within range of this secondary shelter. If I can just rest for a few hours, I can search the area, find him, ask for help finding Gabe.
If I can just rest.
The world tilts sideways. I'm aware of lying down, of the rough blanket against my face, of warmth seeping through my jacket that shouldn't be there.
Blood. Still bleeding.
I should do something about that. Should apply pressure, find the medical kit, stop the bleeding.
Should stay conscious long enough to make a plan.
My eyes drift closed despite every intention to keep them open.
Just for a minute. Just to rest.
Gabe is missing. Harper is dead. Micah is silent.
And I'm bleeding out in a stranger's cabin, waiting for help that might never come.
Darkness takes me, and I fall without anyone to catch me this time.