Parker raised his weapon again, aiming directly at my heart. “Final warning. Submit for processing.”
I looked into those empty eyes that had once belonged to a good man, a decent sheriff who’d brought popsicles to Sophia’s class on hot days. Whatever they’d done to him, whatever Langston had done to this town, I wasn’t letting it happen to anyone else. I wasn’t running anymore.
“I’m not Evelyn Winslow,” I said, feeling the lie I’d lived under for years fall away like a shed skin. “And I’m through submitting to anyone.”
I raised Dutch’s rifle just as Parker’s finger tightened on the trigger.
CHAPTER 17
TRENT
I countedguards as we approached the cell tower installation. Four visible, rotating in a loose diamond pattern in the shadow of the rimrock. Flynn moved at my shoulder, silent in the scrub brush.
“Standard rent-a-thugs,” Flynn whispered. His breath fogged in the cold Montana air. “Not even thermal gear.”
“Don’t get cocky.” But he was right. After the heavy security we’d spotted at the mining facility, this felt almost too easy.
Rafe slid up beside us. He passed me night vision goggles, the weight familiar in my hands.
“Perimeter’s clear beyond those rocks.” He nodded toward a limestone outcropping fifty yards left. “No motion sensors, no trip wires. Just those four gentlemen enjoying their cigarettes and minimum wage.”
I scanned the installation through the goggles. The cell tower itself looked ordinary at first glance. Standard lattice structure, about two hundred feet tall. But additional equipment hung from its frame. Directional antennas pointing toward town.Small satellite dishes. And something at the base that hummed faintly, the sound carrying through the still night air.
“That’s not AT&T hardware,” I said, pointing to the base unit.
Rafe nodded. “Neural signal amplifier, if Kate’s intel is right. Same tech they’re using at the mining facility, just smaller scale.”
I checked my watch. 0134 hours. Almost ninety minutes since we’d split off from the main team. Ninety minutes since I’d seen Evelyn, since I’d promised Sophia I’d make it back. The mission parameters scrolled through my head automatically: disable tower, secure intel, prep for demolition. Simple. Clean.
Except nothing about this felt simple or clean. Not with everything at stake.
“Alpha Outlaw, moving to position one,” Flynn said, already sliding away through the scrub brush.
Rafe and I waited, counting silently as Flynn disappeared into the darkness. On seven, a guard at the northwest corner stumbled, a hand reaching for his throat where Flynn’s arm now wrapped in a textbook blood choke. Five seconds later, the guard crumpled to the ground without a sound, zip-tied and unconscious.
“That’s one,” Rafe said. He tapped his earpiece twice, sending the go signal to Flynn for the next target.
We moved in formation, three points of a triangle, as we closed on the installation. My suppressed M4 felt like an extension of my body as I tracked the eastern guard through my sights, waiting for Rafe’s signal. The guard paused to light a cigarette, cupping the flame against the wind. The brief flare illuminated a young face, probably some ex-military kid who thought he’d landed an easy security gig.
Sorry, kid.
The signal came, and I squeezed the trigger once. The round caught him in the meat of his shoulder, designed to incapacitate without killing. He dropped with a muffled grunt, clutching atthe wound, his rifle clattering to the gravel. I was on him before he could make another sound, pressing a sedative autoinjector to his thigh. His eyes rolled back within seconds.
“Two down,” I said into my comm.
Flynn’s voice crackled in my ear. “Three.”
Rafe took the final guard, and suddenly the night was quiet again, just the soft hum of electronics and the cold wind whistling through the tower’s metal frame.
“Thirty minutes till shift change, based on their patrol pattern,” Flynn said, materializing beside me. “Let’s make this quick.”
Rafe jogged toward the equipment building, already pulling breaching tools from his pack. His hands moved through the familiar routine of checking charges and connections, measuring distances.
“Building’s reinforced,” he noted. “Definitely not standard. Good news is the door’s only got a basic electronic lock.”
“Override it,” I said. “Quiet entry if we can.”
Flynn moved to cover Rafe while I approached the tower base itself. Up close, the strange equipment became clearer: weather-sealed boxes with Innovixus logos, heavy-duty power cables, and cooling systems far more substantial than normal cellular equipment would need. At the base, concrete footings anchored the tower deep into the rimrock.
