Chapter 7: The Ghost in the Machine
The satellite phone emitted a series of soft, rhythmic clicks before a gravelly, tired voice answered on the other end.
"Vance? I heard you were burying your wife today. You shouldn't be calling this number."
"General Travis, I don't have time for protocol," Daniel said, his voice hard and uncompromising. "My house was just hit by an extraction team operating under Marcus’s Oversight Compliance Group. They killed Clara, General, and they’re hunting me and an analyst named Miller."
A heavy sigh echoed over the secure line. General James Travis had been Daniel’s division commander during his third tour in the Middle East before retiring to a quiet advisory role in Washington. He knew the inner workings of the defense apparatus better than almost anyone alive.
"Marcus is operating outside the chain of command, Daniel," Travis said carefully, his tone grave. "I suspected as much when they reclassified Project Aegis under a tier-one black budget three months ago. I tried to pull the file, and my clearance was blocked by the Joint Chiefs' office."
"They’re weaponizing domestic financial infrastructure, General," Daniel stated, holding up the microchip so Miller could see he was transmitting vital intelligence. "Clara extracted the source code before they silenced her. I have it here."
"If you have that chip, Daniel, you are holding a nuclear weapon," Travis warned, his voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Marcus and his backers will pull every string in the intelligence community to retrieve it. They won't just send private contractors next time; they’ll bring down the full weight of federal law enforcement on your head."
"Let them try," Daniel replied without hesitation. "I want a secure drop. I want to hand this data directly to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence—specifically Senator Harrison. He’s clean, and he has jurisdiction over black-budget oversight."
"Harrison’s committee room is bugged from floor to ceiling," Travis countered immediately. "You can't walk into Capitol Hill with this. You need a neutral site where the data can be authenticated without being intercepted by the Department of Defense."
"Where?"
"An independent naval research facility off the coast of Maine," Travis said after a brief pause. " My old communications officer, Commander Sarah Lin, runs a secure deep-sea telemetry station there. It operates on an isolated analog network that Marcus’s people can't hack remotely. Bring the chip there. I’ll meet you personally."
May you like
Daniel looked across the dim room at Miller, who nodded slowly in agreement. "We’ll be there in twelve hours. Don't tell anyone else, General. If Marcus finds out we’re heading north, we won't make it past the state line."
"Godspeed, Daniel," Travis said before the line clicked dead.
