Chapter 7 - The Message From a Dead Engineer
The message included coordinates inside the depot.
Not outside the fence.
Not at a public meeting point.
Inside Building Four, an abandoned calibration warehouse scheduled for demolition.
COME ALONE.
Elena read the line over my shoulder.
“No.”
“I wasn’t planning to obey it.”
“Good.”
“I’m planning to make them believe I will.”
She looked at my splinted leg. “You cannot walk.”
“That may be why they sent the invitation now.”
Whoever controlled Rebecca Sloan’s account knew I was injured.
They knew Daniel’s storage card had been found.
They were watching events in real time despite the camera deletion.
I scanned the lane.
The official security cameras were dark, but the depot contained dozens of other optical systems: forklift sensors, inventory scanners, vehicle cameras, and maintenance drones.
Any one of them could provide a hidden feed.
Elena ordered a full wireless sweep.
The result came back almost immediately.
A small transmitter had been concealed inside Garrett’s tactical watch.
Garrett had entered the depot wearing it.
Whether he knew it or not, someone had seen and heard the entire ambush from his wrist.
We did not remove the device.
Instead, Elena brought the four attackers back within view while operators maintained their separation.
I raised my voice just enough for Garrett’s watch to capture it.
“I’ll go to Building Four,” I said. “No convoy. No escort.”
Elena played her role. “That is reckless.”
“The sender may have Nathan.”
Garrett’s eyes flicked toward me.
Cole stared at his own boots.
Marcus looked confused.
Travis looked frightened.
Only Cole seemed to understand the reference to Nathan, which meant he had probably seen the photograph before it was placed in his case.
I continued.
“Prepare a medical transport. I leave in ten minutes.”
The transmitter in Garrett’s watch pulsed once.
Signal sent.
We had our bait.
Elena arranged for an empty transport vehicle to move toward Building Four while a separate team entered through an underground utility corridor shown on old depot plans.
I remained beneath the canopy with two medics and a concealed response unit.
That was the plan.
It lasted six minutes.
Then the depot’s fire alarms activated.
Metal shutters dropped over the loading-bay entrances. Emergency locks sealed the vehicle gate. The overhead lights beneath the canopy died, though daylight still reached us from between the containers.
A recorded evacuation message ordered all personnel toward Building Four.
“They’re moving everyone to the same location,” Elena said.
“Or clearing everyone away from something else.”
Smoke began rising beyond the gray containers.
Not thick black fire smoke.
White suppression vapor.
Someone had triggered the warehouse fire-control system to blind the internal sensors.
At the same moment, the empty medical transport stopped responding.
Elena called the utility team.
No answer.
Then a burst of gunfire-like noise echoed from Building Four.
The background soldiers panicked.
“Training blanks,” I said after the second burst. “Wrong resonance.”
The sound was designed to force people away.
Toward the eastern storage lanes.
The same area where the empty return containers were staged.
I grabbed Elena’s sleeve.
“They’re moving the real cargo.”
She looked toward my leg.
“I know,” I said. “I’m not running anywhere.”
We repositioned to a low maintenance cart. One medic drove while Elena walked beside me, and two operators cleared the narrow lane.
As we turned past a blue container, we found Garrett on the ground.
His escort lay dazed beside him.
Garrett’s tactical watch was gone.
So were his restraints.
He had not escaped toward the gate.
He had headed deeper into the depot.
A smear of blood marked the edge of the container, but it did not belong to Garrett.
Elena’s radio crackled.
A voice came through, distorted electronically.
“Commander Mitchell, you wanted the real manifests.”
I recognized the cadence beneath the distortion.
Not the identity.
The speaker continued.
“Your deputy is alive. Private Ruiz is alive. You can keep one of them that way.”
Then a live video appeared on Elena’s tablet.
Nathan Hale sat restrained in one room.
Daniel Ruiz knelt in another.
May you like
A digital timer began counting down from nine minutes.
📖 Read how Sarah chose between Nathan and Daniel—and why the two hostage rooms could not both be real in CHAPTER 8. 👇
