Chapter 51
The stealth cargo plane carved through the freezing stratosphere, an invisible predator fleeing the collapsed tomb of the Omega Vault. The cabin was bathed in the dim, red glow of emergency lighting. Cole Bennett sat on a metal bench across from Ava, who was gently rocking Nora in her arms. The little girl was finally asleep, exhausted by terror and the biting cold.
Cole didn't relax. The heavy tactical vest pressed against his chest, specifically over the small pocket where he had secured the glowing vial of Nora’s extracted genetic data. The key.
"The transmission," Donovan said, her voice cutting through the steady drone of the engines. She sat next to Cole, a heavy bandage wrapped around a nasty gash on her forearm. "Did you hear it before we cleared the interference?"
"I heard it," Cole replied, his voice a low, vibrating hum of absolute zero emotion. "The Architect was a regional manager. Vanguard, Lazarus... they are all just brand names for the same hydra. We cut off a head, and two more are already hunting us."
"They said the locks are everywhere," Ava whispered, looking up. Her hazel eyes were hollow, rimmed with dark circles, but the fierce, unyielding maternal fire still burned within them. "What does that mean, Cole? What did Ethan hide in her?"
Cole pulled the glowing vial from his vest, holding it up in the red light. "Ethan didn't just hide a decryption sequence for blackmail files, Ava. If they were willing to build a subterranean fortress in Svalbard and develop a targeted biological extraction protocol, this data is infinitely more dangerous. It’s an activation code."
"Activation for what?" Donovan asked, narrowing her eyes.
"I don't know," Cole admitted, slipping the vial safely away. "But Sarah is going to find out."
"Ghost-Actual, this is Overwatch," Sarah’s voice crackled through the comms. She sounded incredibly weary, broadcasting from the secure terminal in Montana. "I’m tracking your flight path. You’re clear of European radar. But Cole, we have a massive problem state-side."
Cole’s posture instantly went rigid. "Status."
"It’s Director Vance," Sarah reported. "Ten minutes ago, she issued a priority-one burn notice across all federal intelligence channels. She declared Task Force 9 rogue. She’s claiming you assassinated Admiral Sterling in Dubai and stole a classified biological weapon from a NATO research facility in the Arctic."
Donovan swore loudly. "That treacherous bureaucrat. She sent us to Dubai to do her dirty work, and now she’s using the global intelligence community to clean us up."
"She’s isolating us," Cole deduced coldly. "If we touch down at any recognized airstrip in North America, we’ll have a battalion of federal agents waiting to put bullets in our heads and take the vial back to Washington."
"So where do we go, Cole?" Ava asked, clutching Nora tighter. "We can't fly forever."
Cole looked at the digital map glowing on his wrist monitor. He stared at the vast, dark expanse of the North Atlantic Ocean.
"We don't go back to the States," Cole said, his tactical mind spinning a desperate, brilliant web. "Sarah, divert the flight plan. Reroute us to the coordinates of the old Navy Pier warehouses in Chicago."
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"Cole, you just said we can't land in the US!" Sarah protested.
"We aren't going to land," Cole smiled—a dark, terrifying expression of pure malice. "We are going to disappear into the water. Contact Don Castalano."
