Chapter 16 - Ghosts of Blackwood Ridge
Claire raised the tactical monocular to her eye. Through the falling snow, she zoomed in on the double glass doors of the brick elementary school.
A tall, broad-shouldered man in a tailored charcoal cashmere overcoat and leather gloves was standing by the school’s main administrative office. Standing beside him was Darby's local sheriff, chatting amiably and laughing at something Marcus Cole had said. And holding Cole’s gloved hand was Emily, wearing her bright yellow winter parka, swinging her small backpack, completely oblivious to the nightmare closing around her.
"No," Claire choked out, the first crack in her armor widening into a chasm of pure motherly agony. "No, God, no..."
"Cole is posing as a federal liaison," I said, panic rising like bile in my throat. "The sheriff doesn't know who he is! He thinks he’s a legitimate federal agent escorting family!"
Claire reached for the door handle, her pistol already drawn, but I grabbed her jacket with both hands, using all my strength to wrench her back into the seat.
"Let me go, David!" she snarled, her teeth bared, her eyes feral. "He has our baby!"
"Look at the perimeter, Claire! Look!" I screamed in her face.
She paused, chest heaving, then forced herself to scan the school perimeter.
Parked across the street were two black Suburbans with tinted windows. On the flat roof of the high school gymnasium adjacent to the playground, two spotters were positioned behind heavy tripods.
"It's an ambush," I said, my voice cracking. "Marcus Cole wants you to charge in. If you step out of this truck with a weapon, the snipers take you down, the sheriff files an incident report claiming a crazed local attacked a federal convoy, and Cole drives away with Emily legally under federal protective custody. You will die on that asphalt, and Emily will disappear forever."
Claire squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her forehead against the steering wheel until her skin bruised against the plastic. Her breath came in ragged, tearing sobs. She had faced down death squads, torture chambers, and deep-sea explosions, but seeing our little girl holding her executioner’s hand was tearing her soul to ribbons.
"Then what do we do?" she wept, looking at me with completely shattered eyes. "David, tell me what to do!"
"Cole thinks you are Helena Cross," I said, a strange, desperate clarity washing over my terror. "He has spent twenty years predicting Helena Cross's tactical reactions. But he doesn't know me. He thinks I'm just an ordinary husband who cowers in the basement."
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I grabbed the captured satellite radio from the console.
"We don't play Helena's game," I said, staring at the man in the cashmere coat. "We play mine."
