It was time to kill a ghost.
For illustration purposes only
Chapter 5: The Resurrection
The GPS coordinates led me two hours north of Denver, deep into the desolate, snow-blind plains. The blizzard had reduced the world to a chaotic swirl of white and gray. The heater in the military SUV blasted at full force, but I was freezing from the inside out.
The location was an old, decommissioned Cold War-era auxiliary airfield. Long forgotten by the public, it was the perfect staging ground for a ghost.
I cut the headlights a mile out, relying on the ambient glow of the snow and my tactical night-vision goggles to navigate the treacherous access road. I parked the SUV behind a rusted, collapsed radar tower and proceeded on foot.
The wind tore at my tactical jacket. The snow crunched loudly beneath my boots, a sound that made me hyper-aware of my vulnerability. I moved methodically from the cover of a dilapidated barrack to the edge of the massive, corrugated steel hangar sitting at the end of the cracked tarmac.
Faint slivers of light bled through the rusted seams of the hangar doors.
I drew my M17, checking the chamber. One round ready. Fourteen in the magazine. It felt absurdly inadequate for what I was about to face, but it was all I had.
I found a side maintenance door. The lock had been recently shattered. I slipped inside, the sudden absence of the howling wind making the silence inside the hangar feel deafening.
The interior was massive, lit by portable industrial halogen lamps that cast harsh, blinding glares and deep, impenetrable shadows. In the center of the vast space, idling quietly, was a twin-engine cargo plane, its rear ramp lowered. Men in dark tactical gear were loading the last of the black crates—the same crates that had detonated on the highway.
And in the middle of the loading zone, tied to a metal chair, was Jason.
He looked terrible. His face was swollen, his eyes darting frantically around the room. Standing next to him, holding a suppressed pistol, was Erica Whitmore.
But my eyes did not stay on them. They drifted past the armed mercenaries, past my beaten stepbrother, to the figure standing at the base of the plane’s ramp.
She was wrapped in a heavy, dark wool coat. Her hair, once a vibrant chestnut, was now streaked with silver and cut ruthlessly short. The posture was impeccable, the stance commanding.
She turned, sensing my presence in the shadows before she could even see me.
“Step into the light, Rebecca,” the voice echoed across the hangar. It was older, harder, but unmistakable. “You’re late.”
I stepped out from behind a stack of rusted oil drums, keeping my weapon raised, the laser sight painting a red dot directly on her chest.
My mother.
Evelyn Hale. Dead for twenty-six years. Alive, breathing, and looking at me with the cold, assessing gaze of a general inspecting a disappointing recruit.
“Drop the gun, Becca,” she said, her tone conversational, as if we were discussing the weather. “You’re outnumbered, outgunned, and out of your depth.”
