Chapter 12 The Connection
TWELVE
“The Connection”
HALO
Gravity is the only law that never bends.
We drop.
The sensation is sickening—a stomach-flipping lurch as the world vanishes upward. For a second, we’re weightless, suspended in the gray morning air.
Then the rope catches.
SNAP.
My boots slam against the brick facade. Thud. The impact jars my teeth, sends a shockwave up my spine.
I kick out, braking our descent.
ZZZZIP.
The rope hisses against the heavy canvas of my jacket. The friction builds instantly, a sharp bite of heat digging into my shoulder and thigh, but the denim holds.
“Hold on!” I grit out through clenched teeth.
I feed the rope. We drop. Stop. Feed. Drop.
One kick, drop twenty feet. Brake. Kick. Drop.
Above us, the shattered window of Room 514 is a jagged mouth. A figure leans out—black helmet, tactical vest. He spots us.
“Target external! South wall!”
He raises a carbine.
Pop-pop.
Suppressed fire.
Rounds chip the brick inches from my head. Red dust sprays into my eyes.
“Don’t look up!” I roar.
I release the tension. I have to go faster. I have to outrun the friction burn and the bullets.
We free fall for another story. The ground rushes up—gray asphalt, wet and hard.
I clamp down on the rope again.
“Brace!”
I aim for the dumpster—a rusted green metal beast sitting against the wall.
I clamp down hard on the rope, the friction burning through my jacket as I arrest our descent.
We hit the lid with a heavy thud, my knees bending to absorb the remaining momentum, but I keep us upright.
“Clear!”
Cassie slides off my back, her boots hitting the lid next to mine. She stumbles; I grab her arm.
We scramble off the dumpster and drop four feet to the wet asphalt of the alley.
I land in a crouch, scanning the mouth of the alley.
“Move.” I separate from the rope.
Crack.
A bullet strikes the pavement inches from my boot, kicking up a spray of dirty water.
“Go!” I shove her toward the exit. “To the street! Blend!”
We stumble out of the shadows and onto the sidewalk.
The transition is jarring. Hallucinatory.
One second, we were falling out of the sky under fire. Now, we’re standing on a busy Philadelphia street.
A city bus rumbles past. People in wool coats walk by.
Nobody looks up. Nobody sees the shattered window five stories high.
“The garage,” I say. “Walk. Don’t run.”
“My ankle …” Cassie grimaces.
“Lean on me.”
I wrap my left arm around her waist.
It looks like support. It looks like a boyfriend helping his girlfriend.
It feels like possession.
I pull her into my side, shielding her body with mine, scanning the rooftops, the intersections, the passing cars.
Threat vector left. Delivery truck idling. Driver is on a phone. Watch him.
Threat vector right. Police cruiser at the light. Don’t look at it.
My burner phone vibrates against my ribs.
Phoenix. Or Whisper. Or the police scanner picking up the “Shots fired” call at the hotel.
I ignore it.
We cross the street. Cassie is shaking so hard the tremors vibrate through her frame into mine.
“Stay with me,” I whisper in her ear. “Focus on your feet. Left. Right. Left.”
“They were in the room,” she whispers. Her voice is jagged. “They were right there.”
“They’re still there. Keep moving.”
We reach the parking garage. It feels like three miles. Every siren in the distance makes my muscles lock. Every pair of eyes that lingers on us feels like a laser sight.
The maroon minivan is sitting in the shadows of the third deck. It looks impossibly normal. A stick-figure family on the back window. Dust on the bumper.
I scan the perimeter. No black SUVs. No loitering men in earpieces.
Phoenix tracked the IP address to the hotel, but they haven’t triangulated the vehicle. We have a window. A small one. Maybe minutes before they lock down the city grid.
I unlock the doors. “Get in.”
She climbs into the passenger seat, moving stiffly. I slide behind the wheel.
I turn the key. The engine comes to life with a low hum.
We descend the ramp, paying the attendant with cash before merging into traffic.
Ten minutes of silence.
Then the highway on-ramp. I-95 South. Away from the city.
Only then does the adrenaline recede.
And when the adrenaline leaves, rage moves in.
I slam my hand against the steering wheel.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Cassie flinches. She’s huddled against the door.
“I asked you a question,” I snap. The rage is cold, sharp. “I told you every log on is a ping. You compromised your safety.”
“I—”
“We were safe. We were waiting for Cerberus to build a door, and you blew the wall down. You nearly got yourself killed. You nearly got us killed.”
She turns to me. Her face is streaked with tears, but her chin is up. The fire is back.
“While you were waiting for orders, I went to get answers.”
“You disobeyed a direct order.”
“I’m not your soldier.” She shouts it. “And I’m not a package.”
“You’re the mission. If you die, we lose.”
“If we don’t fight, we lose anyway.”
She wipes her face with her sleeve.
“I got a lead. I found a contract,” she says, her voice shaking. “Echo Logistics. It’s not just a shell company. It’s a storage facility.”
I grip the wheel tighter.
“Storage for what?”
“Biological assets. Class 4 pathogens. Something called ML-273.”
I glance at her. “Biological?”
“It was in the service agreement. And it wasn’t signed by a proxy. It was signed by Julianna Stratton. CEO of Stratton Financial.”
“Connected to what?”
“A physical address. 1402 Blackwood Road, Terra Alta, West Virginia.”
I look back at the road. The anger is still there, simmering, but the tactical brain is taking over.
Stratton Financials. West Virginia.
It’s isolated. Hard to access.
“Are you saying that’s why the money moved?” The pieces click into place. “Stratton is liquidating assets to fund the site?”
“I don’t know, but it’s something,” Cassie says. “We aren’t running blind. This is a lead, right?”
I don’t know if it is or isn’t, just that I’m pissed with myself. Pissed that I let emotion cloud my judgment. That I let need override my programming.
I have one job. Keep the principal intact. Instead, I lowered my defenses, fucked her, and now I find myself driving away from a manhunt.
She reaches across the console, her hand covering mine on the gear shift. She looks at my red palms.
“Your hands …”
I pull away. I can’t let her touch me. Not now. “Terra Alta is five hours as the crow flies. If we go there, we’re going into a hardened facility with one handgun and no backup.”
“Do we have a choice?”
In the rearview mirror, Philadelphia is fading into the haze.
“No,” I say. “We don’t, but we need help. We’re not doing this alone. Check the map in my bag. Find me a back road. We stay off the highway.”
She opens my ruck and digs through until she finds a paper map.
I study her profile. The set of her jaw.
I hate that she had to do it. I hate that I let it happen.
But mostly, I hate how much I respect it.
We aren’t running anymore.
We’re hunting.