Chapter 56 - The Ghost Fleet's Dawn
I twisted the cap of the flare and struck the igniter.
A searing, blinding magnesium glare erupted into the night, spewing brilliant white and red flame. With a full underhand toss, I hurled the burning flare fifty feet up the ridge directly behind the remaining shooter's position.
In an instant, the contractor’s night-vision tubes were overwhelmed by the sudden wash of intense thermal light. The shooter gasped, involuntarily jerking his head away to pull the blinded optics from his face.
That single second of disorientation was all I needed.
I vaulted over the lower granite shelf, closing the distance in five explosive strides. The contractor frantically swung his carbine toward me, but I grabbed the hot barrel with my left hand, driving it upward into the trees while driving my right elbow straight into the side of his tactical helmet. The impact cracked the composite shell, staggering him backward. I swept his front leg, bringing him hard onto the jagged rocks, and stripped the rifle from his grip with a sharp twist of the sling.
Before he could recover, I drove the butt of the rifle into his sternum, neutralizing the threat.
Silence settled over the ridge once more, broken only by the crackle of the dying flare and the distant, rhythmic thrum of diesel engines out on the lake.
I turned back to the shoreline, breathing heavily, steam rising from my soaked combat shirt. Charles was still cowering by the boulder, shivering uncontrollably as he stared at me like I was an apparition from another world.
Across the water, the first gray light of dawn was beginning to bleed over the jagged peaks of the Nevada range, casting long, pale shadows across Emerald Bay.
Out in the deep channel, two low-profile, black-hulled patrol craft emerged from the morning mist. They carried no standard coast guard insignias, no flashing law enforcement strobes. Mounted on the bow of the lead vessel was an automated heavy weapons turret, its optics panning slowly across the shoreline until they locked squarely onto our position.
My radio clicked.
"Ghost-One," Sarah’s voice cut through the static, but this time her tone was different—hollow, strained, and filled with a dread that ran deeper than the cold water beneath us. "Ethan... do not respond to those vessels. Step away from the water. Step away from the case."
I touched my earpiece. "Sarah, who owns those cutters? Are they Vanguard?"
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"They aren't Vanguard, Ethan," she whispered, her voice trembling. "I just checked the naval registration numbers that just popped on the transponder. The orders deploying those boats didn't come from Carson City. They came directly from the Pentagon’s Special Programs Directorate... signed by the Admiral you reported to five years ago."
On the deck of the lead patrol craft, a figure in a heavy winter parka stepped onto the forward platform, raising a set of electronic binoculars toward the rocks where Charles and I stood trapped between the cliffs and the freezing deep.
