Chapter 12 - The Man in the Lincoln
I left Geneva with the drive and the folder secured in a tactical courier bag strapped across my chest. The drive was encrypted with a twenty-four-character biometric key, something I knew our naval intelligence officers at Great Lakes could crack, but it would take time. Time we didn't have.
As I pulled out of the bank parking lot onto Route 38, my rearview mirror caught the reflection of a dark gray Lincoln Navigator pulling out from the opposite curb, two car lengths back.
They weren't hiding anymore.
I took three erratic turns through the residential brick streets of downtown Geneva—left onto Campbell, right onto Third, another sharp left down an alleyway behind the historical courthouse. The Lincoln matched every maneuver with chilling precision, hanging back just far enough to avoid a direct confrontation while maintaining visual contact.
I grabbed my hands-free radio connected to Marco.
"Marco, we’re compromised. The tail is active. Dark gray Navigator, Illinois plates ending in Echo-Seven. How is the house?"
"House is secure, Mark," Marco’s voice crackled through the speaker, calm and steady. "I’ve got Master Sergeant Ramirez covering the front, Cooper on the back alley. The kids are eating dinner. Clara knows the drill. Where are you?"
"I’m leading them away from the base," I said, accelerating as the road opened up toward the expressway. "They want whatever Tommy hid with the kids. Evelyn was just the front woman. Julian Sterling is running this."
There was a sharp intake of breath over the line. "Sterling? Mark, Sterling sits on the Defense Logistics Oversight Committee. He’s practically untouchable in civilian court."
"Nobody is untouchable," I said grimly. "Tell Ramirez to keep his rifle off safety. If that Lincoln or anyone connected to Vanguard steps on my grass, treat them as hostile combatants."
"Understood. Watch your six."
I hit Interstate 88 heading east toward Chicago, pushing my truck to eighty-five. The Lincoln stayed glued to my rear quarter. Up ahead, the traffic began to thicken as the highway converged near Oak Brook.
Suddenly, the Lincoln accelerated aggressively, pulling up along my driver’s side. The tinted passenger window slid down.
Inside sat a man in a crisp charcoal suit, dark sunglasses, and a wireless earpiece. He didn't pull a weapon. Instead, he lifted an iPad against the glass.
Displayed on the screen was a live video feed.
My blood ran cold. The feed showed the playground across from Oakridge Elementary. But the camera angle wasn't from the street—it was from an elevated position directly overlooking the schoolyard, with crosshairs digitally overlaid on the red slide where Lily and Owen played every morning.
The passenger tapped the glass with his knuckles, signaled for me to pull over onto the shoulder, and let the window roll back up.
They weren't trying to run me off the road. They were demonstrating complete, terrifying reach. They were letting me know that locking my front door meant nothing if the kids had to live in the world outside it.
My jaw clenched until my teeth ached. Tommy had died protecting his country from enemies abroad, only for his children to be hunted by monsters in tailored suits at home.
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I didn't pull over. Instead, I yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, cutting across three lanes of traffic onto the immediate ramp for Route 83, forcing a semi-truck to blare its horn in protest as the Lincoln found itself trapped behind a wall of rush-hour commuters.
I bought myself twenty minutes. But in this game, twenty minutes was just a stay of execution.
