I press the phone against my chest and force myself to breathe.
War room. Now. Time to find out exactly how bad this has become.
9
STRYKER
The war room fills with bodies and tension in equal measure.
Kane stands at the tactical display, already pulling up satellite feeds and communications intercepts. Tommy hunches over his laptop at one end of the conference table. Sarah settles into her usual position near the communications console. Mercer leans against the far wall with crossed arms and the expression of a man calculating angles of fire.
Rachel enters behind me, and every set of eyes in the room tracks her movement. I position myself slightly between her and the team, a statement without words that she's under my protection.
Kane catches the positioning and his mouth quirks slightly. Point received.
"Where's Lucas?" Kane asks Rachel directly.
"With Khalid and Odin in the communal area," Rachel says. Her voice stays steady despite the attention focused on her. "Khalid offered to keep him occupied."
"Good." Kane gestures to the empty chairs. "Sit. Both of you. Tommy's got updates that change our timeline."
We settle into chairs on opposite sides of the table. Rachel's hands rest flat on the surface, fingers pressing down as she steadies herself.
Tommy pulls up a three-dimensional model on the main display. The tracker we pulled from my truck at the safe house rotates slowly, labeled with technical specifications.
"Military-grade surveillance technology," Tommy says. "Defense contractor that only sells to government agencies. Signal strength penetrates most standard shielding, battery life extends for months of continuous operation."
"Long operational window," Mercer observes.
Tommy highlights internal components. "I analyzed the activation timestamp. It went active before you even left Tucson. They tracked you all the way to the safe house."
Silence drops over the room. The Committee tracked us the entire way. That's how they found the safe house so fast.
"How?" Kane cuts in sharp. "Stryker's vehicle should have been clean when it was delivered."
"They probably had an opportunity to plant it before it was delivered," Tommy says. "Professional work. By the time you got to Rachel's house, it was already transmitting."
The realization sits like acid in my gut. "We led them straight there."
"But you switched to clean vehicles when you evacuated," Kane says. "Left the truck behind. Which means the Committee lost your trail the moment you left the safe house."
"Exactly," Tommy says. "The Committee has no idea you drove to Tucson, no idea you flew out. The trail went completely cold."
"Which is why Kessler's mobilizing assets," Mercer says. "He knows you escaped the safe house, but he doesn't know where you went."
Rachel's fists curl on the table. "This is my fault. If I'd been watching Lucas at the grocery store?—"
"You couldn't have known," I cut her off. "You were handling a work call. Lucas wandered off like kids do. There's no way you could have predicted he'd witness a Committee execution. This isn't on you."
"Stryker's right," Kane says. The Committee has known for a while now that Echo Base was somewhere in the general vicinity, but not a location. Echo Base security has held for years against active Committee searches."
Tommy pulls up another display. "But there's more. After Lucas witnessed the murder, the Committee ran facial recognition through every security camera in a three-block radius. They built a profile on him in under a week."
A timeline appears, showing the Committee's search pattern expanding outward from Martinez Grocery.
"Once they identified Lucas, they shifted to building a target package," Tommy continues. "Where he goes to school, where Rachel works, where you shop. Your sister's address, your coworkers' schedules. They mapped your entire life to find the best approach vector."
"Standard elimination protocol," Mercer says. "Identify the witness, map their network, exploit their vulnerabilities."
