62. Fantom
FANTOM
Two attacks.
Four thousand miles apart.
Launched within seconds of each other.
That wasn’t coincidence. It was coordination.
The men attacking our Alaska headquarters weren’t trying to breach the command center. If they’d wanted inside, they would have brought explosives capable of tearing through the reinforced doors.
Instead, they’d opened fire from the east dock and forced us to divide our attention.
They wanted me watching Alaska while their men took Kate Collins.
It almost worked.
“Three hostiles moving toward the roof,” Sniper said from the console beside me. “A fourth is holding the northern stairwell.”
He wasn’t talking about our building.
We had taken control of the parking garage cameras after the explosion, and Sniper was moving from one feed to another, following Kate through smoke, fire, and intermittent darkness.
Rook and the others were outside dealing with the assault on the dock.
I stayed with Kate.
“You have thirty seconds before they reach the ramp,” I told her.
Her breathing came hard through the phone, but there was no panic in it.
“You said your man was coming for me.”
“He was.”
I looked at the unmoving operative on the garage floor.
Rogue had arrived less than a minute after the explosion. He’d taken out the man who was about to execute Kate, then gone down before he could get her to safety.
I didn’t know whether he was alive.
I couldn’t let myself think about that yet.
“Do you have anyone else nearby?” Kate asked.
“Yes.”
That was true.
They just weren’t close enough.
Maverick and Reef were racing toward the garage from opposite ends of the city. Both had been tracking Vale before he disappeared from surveillance.
Vale had known.
He’d drawn them away from Kate, then walked into the garage and warned her himself.
The arrogance of it made me want to put my fist through the monitor.
Sniper opened a live feed from the rooftop.
“Fantom.”
I saw it.
A black helicopter hovered beyond the edge of the building. No identifying marks. Side door open. One man behind the controls and another waiting in the rear compartment.
“They have air extraction,” I said.
“Then I’m not going to the roof,” Kate answered.
She changed direction without hesitating or waiting for me to agree.
She entered the third level and ran toward the south stairwell.
Sniper brought up another camera. “She has two coming from below.”
“I heard him,” Kate said.
Of course she had.
“Can you fire the rifle?” I asked.
“My shoulder is injured.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I can fire it.”
Gunshots cracked through the phone.
Kate dropped behind the concrete wall as a bullet struck the railing above her.
She returned fire with one hand.
One of the men spun backward.
The other disappeared behind a parked truck.
“You hit the first one,” I said.
“I know.”
Despite the danger, I almost smiled.
She didn’t need reassurance.
She needed information.
“The second man is behind the white pickup on the driver’s side. He’s moving toward the rear bumper.”
“I can’t see him.”
“I can.”
Sniper watched the camera feed beside me. “He’s reaching for something.”
The man pulled a grenade from his vest.
“Kate, move!”
She threw herself through the stairwell door.
The grenade bounced once before detonating.
The camera feed vanished in a burst of white static.
“Kate?”
No answer.
I gripped the edge of the console.
“Kate!”
Something struck the phone. Then I heard coughing.
“I’m here.”
Relief hit so hard that I had to draw a breath before speaking.
“Are you hurt?”
“My ears are ringing, and I’m reconsidering several of my career choices.”
“You can reconsider them when you’re out.”
“Very comforting.”
She was still moving.
Sniper switched feeds, locating her on the second level. “Maverick is ninety seconds away.”
“Reef?”
“Two minutes.”
Too long.
The men on the roof had changed direction. Two entered the northern stairwell while the third returned to the helicopter.
The fourth hostile remained between Kate and the main exit.
They were closing the trap.
“Kate, can you reach the first level?”
“I can reach it. That doesn’t mean I can get out.”
“I’ll get you out.”
“You’re in Alaska.”
The doubt in her voice wasn’t fear.
It was a challenge.
I pulled up the garage plans and studied every exit, maintenance corridor, and ventilation shaft.
The main vehicle entrance was blocked by fire. The two pedestrian doors were covered. The roof belonged to the helicopter team.
There had to be another way.
Buildings always had another way.
“The garage shares a wall with the courthouse annex,” Sniper said.
I enlarged the plans. “No connecting door.”
“Not officially.”
I saw the narrow space between the foundations.
A maintenance tunnel carried electrical and water lines from the annex into the garage.
Too small to walk through.
Maybe not too small to crawl through.
“Kate, go to the southwest corner of the first level.”
“I’ll be trapped there.”
“Trust me.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Then trust that the men behind you want you alive for a reason you won’t survive.”
She was silent for half a second.
“Southwest corner,” she said. “I’m moving.”
The command center door opened.
Evie entered with a medical bag in one hand. Blood stained the sleeve of her sweater.
I turned toward her. “Are you hurt?”
“Not mine. Cobra caught shrapnel along the dock.”
“How bad?”
“He’s still complaining, so he’ll live.”
She stopped beside the console and looked at the camera feeds. “Is that Agent Collins?”
“Yes.”
Evie studied the attackers. “They’re using the same containment pattern Graves’s teams used in the field.”
“What pattern?”
“They leave one apparent escape route, then push the target toward it.”
I looked at the maintenance tunnel on the plans.
Was I leading Kate exactly where they wanted her to go?
“What was the purpose?” Sniper asked.
“Psychological control. If the target believes she discovered the escape route herself, she won’t question what’s waiting on the other side.”
I went cold.
“Kate, stop.”
She froze near the bottom of the stairwell.
“What?”
“Don’t go to the maintenance tunnel.”
“I’m almost there.”
“That’s why they haven’t tried harder to stop you.”
On the camera, two armed men entered the level behind her.
They fired, but the shots went wide.
Deliberately wide.
Herding her.
“Then where do I go?” she asked.
I scanned the plans again.
No open exit.
No safe stairwell.
Nothing but reinforced concrete and fire.
The attackers had controlled every choice from the moment Vale approached her.
Every choice except the one no rational person would make.
“Drive out.”
“My SUV exploded.”
“Take another vehicle.”
“The entrance is blocked.”
“Not the entrance.”
I enlarged the exterior wall separating the lower level from the alley. It was concrete, but the original plans showed a narrow section that had once been an access opening. During a renovation, contractors had filled it with cinder block and covered it with a thin concrete veneer.
It looked like the rest of the wall.
It wasn’t.
“South wall,” I said. “Twenty feet from the corner. Find the largest vehicle you can.”
“You want me to drive through the building?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your plan?”
“It’s the only exit they didn’t create for you.”
Gunfire erupted.
Kate fired back.
“I see a city maintenance truck.”
“That’ll work.”
“It has a snowplow attached.”
“Even better.”
Sniper leaned toward his screen. “Hostile moving in from the west.”
“Kate, you have fifteen seconds.”
“I need keys.”
“Check the visor.”
“This isn’t an action movie.”
“Humor me.”
I watched her reach the truck. She yanked open the driver’s door and climbed inside.
Five seconds passed.
Then the engine roared.
“The keys were in the visor,” she said.
I allowed myself one breath of relief. “Seat belt.”
“Seriously?”
“Very.”
Kate fastened it.
The first attacker emerged from behind a line of parked cars.
“Go!”
The truck lurched forward.
Bullets struck the windshield.
Kate ducked but kept her foot on the accelerator. The snowplow slammed into a parked sedan and shoved it sideways.
“Faster,” I ordered.
“There are cars in the way.”
“You’re driving a snowplow.”
“That doesn’t make them disappear.”
“It does if you hit them hard enough.”
She accelerated.
The plow caught the rear of a second vehicle, spinning it out of her path. The truck crossed the garage, gathering speed.
The south wall filled the screen.
For one terrible second, I wondered whether I’d read the plans incorrectly.
Whether the renovation had reinforced the old opening.
Whether I had just sent her into solid concrete.
“Michael?”
It was the first time she’d used my first name.
There was fear in her voice now.
“Keep going.”
The truck struck the wall.
The camera shook.
Concrete fractured around the plow. Cinder blocks exploded into the alley as the truck burst through the side of the garage and disappeared beneath a cloud of dust.
I stopped breathing.
The exterior traffic camera showed nothing but debris.
Then the truck rolled into view.
Its hood was crushed. Steam poured from the engine. Half the windshield was gone.
But it was moving.
“Maverick has visual,” Sniper said.
A dark SUV turned into the alley behind Kate.
The passenger door opened before it stopped.
Maverick jumped out with his rifle raised.
Two men emerged through the hole in the garage wall.
Maverick fired.
Reef’s vehicle arrived from the opposite direction, cutting off the attackers before they could retreat.
The remaining gunfire lasted less than ten seconds.
Then the alley went silent.
I pressed my hand against the console and lowered my head.
She was alive.
“Fantom?” Rook’s voice came over the radio. “East dock is secure. Four attackers down. Two escaped by boat.”
“Rogue was shot in the garage.”
A pause.
“How bad?”
“I don’t know. Reef is going in for him now.”
“And Agent Collins?”
“Maverick has her.”
On the screen, Maverick opened the truck’s damaged door.
Kate stepped out on unsteady legs, still holding the rifle. Blood ran down the side of her face. Her right arm hung close to her body.
But she was standing.
She spoke briefly to Maverick, then took a phone from him.
Mine rang.
I answered immediately. “Kate.”
“I’m going to assume driving through federal property was your idea.”
Her voice shook slightly.
It was the only sign she gave that the last few minutes had affected her.
“You’re welcome.”
“I may still shoot you.”
“Get in line.”
She looked directly at the traffic camera.
At me.
I couldn’t see the exact color of her eyes through the grainy feed, but I saw the intelligence in them. The anger. The strength.
And something else.
Recognition.
Not of my face.
Of my voice.
“You knew the wall would break?” she asked.
“The original construction plans showed—”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I hesitated.
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You told me to drive into a wall without knowing whether I’d survive it?”
“I knew staying in the garage would get you captured.”
“So you gambled with my life.”
“I gave you a choice they hadn’t controlled.”
She stared into the camera for another second.
Then the anger in her face changed.
It didn’t disappear.
It changed.
“You understood the pattern,” she said.
“So did you.”
“Not quickly enough.”
“You were inside it. That made it harder to see.”
The words silenced her.
Most people viewed fear as weakness. They assumed intelligence should overpower instinct, as if the mind continued functioning normally when the body believed it was about to die.
Kate knew better.
So did I.
“Vale approached me before the explosion,” she said. “He wanted me to stop investigating three incidents.”
“What incidents?”
“I’ll explain when we meet.”
“When we meet?”
She glanced at the burning garage behind her.
“Your people tell me Washington is no longer safe.”
“It isn’t.”
“And Alaska is?”
I looked toward the command center windows. Smoke drifted above the dock where men had tried to kill us less than ten minutes earlier.
“No.”
“Good. I’d hate to be bored.”
The call ended.
Rook entered the command center carrying an assault rifle. Blood streaked one side of his face, and a tear crossed the shoulder of his shirt.
He looked at the photograph of Kate still frozen on my monitor.
“Maverick is taking her to the extraction point,” he said. “Our plane will bring her here.”
“When?”
“She’ll arrive tomorrow afternoon.”
I nodded, trying to ignore the unexpected tightening in my chest.
Rook noticed.
He noticed everything.
“She’s a witness,” he warned.
“She’s a federal agent.”
“She’s also the reason Black Banner attacked us tonight.”
“No. They attacked because she found something.”
“And what happens when the people above her decide she’s the enemy?”
“Then we protect her.”
The answer came too quickly.
Rook studied me for a long moment. “You haven’t even met her.”
“I kept her alive.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Maybe not.
But I could still hear my name in her voice before she drove into that wall.
Michael.
Not Fantom.
Not an unseen operative directing her movements from thousands of miles away.
Michael.
A secure message appeared on the monitor.
No sender.
No routing information.
Only a video file.
I opened it.
Edmund Vale sat inside a dark room with his hands folded in front of him. He looked calmly into the camera.
“Michael Sarilla,” he began. “If you are watching this, then Agent Collins escaped the first containment attempt.”
First.
The word chilled me.
Vale smiled.
“Bring her to Alaska. Hide her behind the Silver Sword. Surround her with every man you trust.”
He leaned closer to the camera.
“It won’t matter.”
The screen split into twelve live images.
Airports. Hotels. Beaches. Tourist attractions.
Each one crowded with innocent people.
A seventy-two-hour clock appeared beneath them.
Vale’s expression remained calm.
“We don’t need to plant a single bomb,” he said. “Agent Collins already knows that. What she doesn’t know is whose voice the victims will hear when we tell them where to run.”
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