Static hissed in my headset, and Kate’s voice came back. “Update: Finnish authorities have lodged a formal protest with the U.S. State Department. NATO is being briefed. This is escalating rapidly.”
Ethan’s breath caught. “How rapidly?”
After a heartbeat-long pause: “The U.S. Ambassador to Finland has been summoned to Helsinki’s Foreign Ministry. They’re demanding our arrests.”
The helicopter shuddered suddenly, diving toward a ragged line of hills. My stomach flipped; Sophia screamed. My arms locked around her tighter than ever.
“Contacts,” Nolan reported with deceptive calm. “Two Finnish Air Force jets, tailing us—ETA four minutes.”
“In this bucket?” Nolan laughed, hollow and sharp. “We’re toast if they try to outrun us. But I can make them earn every inch.”
The chopper plunged again, wind roaring through gaps in the armor. Branches clawed at the underside as we skimmed the forest canopy—leaves snapping and showering the cabin with grit.
“Hold on,” Nolan warned. “It’s gonna get bumpy.”
Above us, the fighter jets’ engines screamed. The rotor blades trembled under the turbulence. Nolan yanked the cyclic stick, weaving between ridges, following the terrain to throw off the jets’ targeting.
“They’re not firing,” Decker observed, voice tense. “What gives?”
“They don’t want bodies floating in the Baltic,” Ethan replied. “They’re herding us down, not shredding us.”
Decker snorted. “How considerate.”
Another hard bank—right this time—so sudden that rifles and gear slid across the floor. Someone swore; Lyric grabbed a ceiling strap with white-knuckled hands.
“Two minutes to coast,” Nolan said, voice tight. “Almost there.”
Through a side window I caught sight of the fighters banking in unison, grey missiles glinting under their wings. They pressed us inland, cutting off any straight line to the shore.
“Not today,” Nolan muttered. The helicopter dropped again, branches scraping the belly plate, sparks flickering in the gloom. Then, at last, the trees fell away, and the cold gray expanse of the Baltic Sea yawned open beneath us.
I forgot to breathe for several long minutes before Nolan finally announced, “We’re clear. International waters. They won’t touch us now.”
The jets peeled off, slashing back toward Finnish airspace, but I watched their silhouettes shrink against the horizon until they were gone, not fully trusting they wouldn’t come back.
The cockpit fell silent except for the helicopter’s steady thump and the rush of wind against the fuselage. We weren’t safe yet, and we all knew it. We were fugitives now, but none of that mattered to me because I had Sophia. I had my daughter back in my arms.
And this time, I wasn’t letting go.
CHAPTER 27
TRENT
Eighteen hourssince the highway extraction, and I still hadn’t let myself sleep.
The abandoned farmhouse creaked in the Estonian wind, its weathered walls shuddering against the coming storm. I sat on an overturned crate, my rifle propped against my knee, watching Sophia’s chest rise and fall beneath a threadbare blanket. Evelyn curled around her like a human shield, one arm draped across her daughter’s small body even in sleep. Dark circles shadowed Evelyn’s eyes, her face finally slack after days of hypervigilance. They both needed the rest. So did I, but that wasn’t happening while the threat of discovery hung over us like the storm clouds gathering outside.
Sophia whimpered, her small fingers clutching at the blanket. Since the extraction, she’d barely spoken, clinging to Evelyn with a desperate intensity that broke something inside me. The researchers had kept her sedated for most of her captivity, but she remembered enough to know she’d been taken. Enough to be afraid it would happen again.
I checked my watch. Fourteen hours since we’d crossed the Gulf of Finland on a fishing boat that stank of mackerel and diesel, Sophia bundled between us as waves slapped against the hull. Ten since we’d abandoned the second vehicle on a rural road, switching to a battered delivery van with Estonian plates. Four since we’d reached this safehouse, a forgotten farmhouse twenty kilometers from the nearest town.
My back ached from the hard wooden crate. The coffee in my metal cup had gone cold hours ago. Outside, the first fat drops of rain began to hit the windows.
“Any update?” Flynn asked, moving silently into the room despite his bulk. His usual easy confidence had hardened into something wary and watchful. He kept away from windows, checked exits compulsively, scanned every shadow. Same as the rest of us.
I shook my head. “Kate’s still working the exfiltration. Says we should have transport by tomorrow evening.”
“They’ve upgraded the warrants,” he said, handing me a tablet. “Interpol now.”
