Chapter 11 - The Decoy Signal
Claire pressed her thumb against the small reset button on the side of the flash drive. The blinking green LED instantly shifted to a rapid, pulsing amber light.
“What are you doing?” Marcus demanded, grabbing her wrist. “If you trigger the master beacon, they’ll lock onto our exact GPS coordinates within thirty seconds!”
“Exactly,” Claire replied, her voice eerily calm. She pulled a spare tactical pouch off her belt, slipped the flash drive inside, and tossed it hard into the thick brush twenty yards down the opposite ravine.
The amber light continued to pulse through the dark ferns like a glowing ember.
“Move! Now!” Claire ordered, sprinting toward the dense rock formations flanking the river bed.
Marcus didn't hesitate. He shoved the Director forward, and the entire group scrambled up the steep, muddy embankment just as a low, whistling sound tore through the air above the canopy.
BOOM.
A kinetic strike tore into the ferns where Claire had tossed the pouch. The resulting explosion obliterated the brush, sending a geyser of earth, smoke, and burning debris fifty feet into the air. The shockwave rattled the trees, showering them with broken branches and ash.
They threw themselves flat against the cold stone face of the cliff as the shockwave washed over them. Dust and dirt rained down on their backs.
Sheriff Vance coughed violently, wiping soot from his face. “They just dropped a Hellfire missile on an empty ravine!”
“They dropped it on a designated signal,” Claire said, pulling herself up from the mud, her breath coming in ragged gasps. She glanced back down at the smoking crater. “And as far as the command center in Washington is concerned, the rogue agent carrying the drive was just vaporized.”
The Director stared at Claire in stunned silence, all the arrogance completely drained from his pale face. “You... you burned your own backup data.”
“I burned the decoy,” Claire corrected him, patting her left breast pocket where a second, identical flash drive rested safely against her heart. “The real ledger was backed up to an encrypted satellite phone in my locker three hours before we hit the cabin.”
Marcus let out a sharp, breathless laugh, shaking his head in reluctant admiration. “You son of a gun, Claire. You played the long game.”
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“We aren't out of the woods yet,” Deputy Miller interrupted, pointing down the trail toward the sound of approaching helicopter rotors cutting through the canyon walls. “That strike didn't sound like a ghost operation. That sounded like the National Guard.”
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