Chapter 28 Hawk
Hawk
The hum of the transport’s engines settled into a steady drone, the kind that could almost trick you into calm if you didn’t know what waited at the other end.
Miles sat across from me, headset on, eyes flicking between his laptop screens. Boone dozed with his weapon across his chest. Julia sat at my side, studying the map glowing on her tablet. Her knee brushed mine every time the aircraft banked—a small, human reminder that we were still breathing.
Outside, dawn burned off the last of the storm, turning the clouds to gold. It should’ve been peaceful. It wasn’t.
“ETA forty minutes,” Aaron said from the cockpit.
Julia leaned back, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Feels longer.”
“Everything does before the fight,” I said.
“Still not tired of those yet?”
“Fights or flights?”
She smiled faintly. “Both.”
Miles stiffened suddenly, one hand pressing to his earpiece.
“Talk to me,” Aaron called.
“Picking up something on a closed frequency. Military encryption—but not ours.”
My gut tightened. “Could be chatter from the facility.”
“Negative,” Miles said slowly, fingers flying. “This is directed at us. It’s piggybacking on our comm relay.”
Julia straightened. “Someone’s calling us?”
He nodded once. “Or watching.”
Static hissed through the cabin speakers. A few clipped bursts of sound, then a voice—smooth, calm, and unmistakable.
“You shouldn’t have followed the breadcrumbs, Jensen.”
Every head in the transport turned toward the speaker.
Reese. Alive.
Miles muted his mic, eyes wide. “How the hell—”
“Patch him through,” I ordered.
Miles hesitated. “He’s not requesting permission—he’s already in our system.”
“I expected Markham to keep you longer,” the voice continued, unhurried. “But then, you never did play by the rules.”
“Where are you?” I asked.
A dry chuckle. “Close enough to see the storm I started. Far enough that you can’t stop it.”
Julia leaned forward, voice sharp. “You killed people who trusted you. You think hiding behind code makes you untouchable?”
“You misunderstand, Detective. I didn’t kill them. I repurposed them. Everyone becomes useful in the right system.”
I felt my grip tighten on the armrest. “What do you want?”
“I want you to understand what Veridian really is. You keep chasing the pieces like it’s a puzzle, but you haven’t asked the only question that matters: who ordered it?”
Aaron’s voice crackled from the cockpit. “He’s triangulating us.”
Miles cursed under his breath, typing furiously. “I’m trying to block it—he’s moving through six proxy nodes—he’s good.”
“You won’t stop me by cutting lines,” Reese said. “By the time you reach Missouri, you’ll see what I’ve built. Then you’ll have to decide which of you is willing to shut it down.”
The line went dead.
The cabin felt smaller after his voice vanished. The hum of the engines returned, but the air carried static that had nothing to do with interference.
Julia broke the silence first. “He said which one of you. What did he mean by that?”
Aaron’s voice came over the intercom, low and steady. “He’s trying to divide us.”
“Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he knows something we don’t.”
Miles slammed his laptop shut. “He traced us long enough to get our flight path. He could have teams waiting when we land.”
I met Julia’s gaze. “Then we land ready.”
She nodded, that familiar fire sparking behind her eyes. “Always.”
When the plane descended through the last layer of clouds, the landscape below came into focus: endless green fields, silver rivers cutting through the heart of the country—and in the middle of it, a patch of fenced concrete that shouldn’t have existed.
Miles looked up from the forward monitor. “Welcome to Springfield.”
Aaron’s reply was quiet, grim. “And to Veridian’s heart.”