Chapter 11: The Digital Counter-Offensive
The deputy’s cruiser idled at the edge of the gravel driveway while he waited for the supervisor to arrive with the paperwork. Inside his Seattle office, David saw the cruiser lights flashing against the drawn shutters through the exterior security camera feed. He knew he only had a narrow window of time before a judge signed the warrant and the police forced their way into the house.
"Evelyn," David spoke through the encrypted audio channel, his voice crisp and devoid of emotion. "Listen to me very carefully. The police are waiting for a warrant. That gives us roughly forty-five minutes. You need to extract Leo from the cellar and get him into the utility trailer behind the barn right now."
Evelyn, still standing in the damp darkness of the root cellar with Leo, wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. "The trailer? David, if we move him across the yard in daylight, the deputy might see us—"
"The deputy is parked at the front of the house facing south," David interrupted, his fingers flying across his keyboard as he executed a remote override on the property's automated security diversion systems. "I am going to trigger the irrigation sprinklers in the front yard and sound the remote livestock alarms near the southern fence line. That will draw the deputy away from the driveway and toward the pasture."
Down in the cellar, Leo looked up at Evelyn with hollow, defeated eyes. He didn't have the strength to fight anymore. The constant cycle of terror, surveillance, and confinement had drained every ounce of fight from his eight-year-old body.
"Up," Evelyn muttered, hauling him roughly to his feet by his arm. "Move."
Outside, the sudden, deafening roar of the automated livestock alarms began blaring from speakers mounted high on the barn poles. Simultaneously, the high-pressure irrigation sprinklers clicked on, shooting massive arcs of water across the front lawn and the driveway.
Deputy Miller jumped out of his cruiser, startled by the sudden mechanical chaos. He cursed under his breath, shielding his face from the cold water spray as he walked toward the control box near the southern fence to shut off the alarms.
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It was the opening David had engineered. "Go now!" David shouted through Evelyn’s earbud.
Evelyn shoved Leo ahead of her up the cellar stairs, bursting out into the rear mudroom. Grabbing a heavy canvas tarp to throw over his head, she pushed him out the back door toward the waiting utility trailer, executing the first phase of their desperate escape before the police could return with a warrant.
