Chapter 17 - Black Site Chicago
The smell of natural gas flooded the cellar within three seconds of me snapping the brass valve with an iron pipe wrench.
I waited until I heard Clara’s boots clear the frozen metal chute outside, followed by the soft rustle of dry weeds. The floor above me splintered violently as a 12-gauge slug punched through the oak pantry floor, showering dust over my head.
"Open it up!" a man shouted.
I didn't give them the chance. I tossed a lit magnesium flare straight onto the damp dirt floor beneath the gas line, dove through the narrow coal chute, and kicked myself out into the freezing mud just as the pilot light on the old water heater caught the vapor cloud.
The shockwave blew me face-first into the snowbank.
A subterranean *THUMP* vibrated through the earth, followed by the deafening roar of orange fire bursting through the living room windows of the farmhouse. The front porch collapsed in a fountain of burning beams and shattered glass. Julian’s men were thrown back into the gravel, screaming as the structure was enveloped in an inferno.
I didn't look back. I scrambled through the dense buckthorn, my hands numb from the ice, catching up to Clara and the twins near the frozen creek bed half a mile east.
Owen was shivering violently, but he didn't cry. Lily held his hand with an iron grip that belonged to a seasoned soldier, not a five-year-old child.
"Car's parked behind the abandoned feed mill on County Line Road," Clara said through chattering teeth, her eyes sweeping the perimeter. "We have twenty minutes before local fire and county sheriffs swarm the area. And Sterling’s survivors won’t be far behind."
We reached the car—an old, unregistered Ford sedan Tommy had stashed in a rusted grain silo two years before his deployment. Clara strapped the children into the back seat, wrapping them in wool utility blankets, while I brought the engine to life.
As we tore down the icy backroads heading toward the lake, my burner phone buzzed against the dashboard.
It was an unlisted satellite number. There were only three people alive who had this frequency: myself, Clara, and the emergency transponder on the carrier deck.
I hit speakerphone.
"Mark?"
The voice on the other end was rough, cracked with exhaustion, and undeniably female.
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned ivory. "Evelyn."
A dry, bitter laugh came through the speaker. "I saw the news alerts. The house in Lake Forest is on fire. Did Julian find the kids?"
"The kids are with me," I snarled, fury surging through my veins. "The kids you left behind at Gate 17 like luggage on a carousel. You walked away without even looking back at them, Evelyn. Owen spent three days staring at the security exit waiting for your coat to come back through."
There was a heavy, suffocating silence on the other end of the line. The sound of waves crashing against steel could be heard in the background.
"You think I wanted to leave them?" Evelyn’s voice suddenly broke, the polished, cold mask she had worn for years cracking down the middle. "You think walking down that terminal corridor was my choice, Mark? Look behind your rearview mirror. Look at the registration sticker on that Ford."
I glanced up. On the corner of the windshield was a tiny Vanguard asset tracking tag, deactivated months ago.
"Julian had three snipers positioned in the terminal garage overlooking the glass walkway at O’Hare," Evelyn whispered, her voice trembling with raw, unadulterated venom. "He told me if I touched their hands, if I kissed their foreheads, if I showed even a shred of motherly hesitation... his men would drop both twins right onto the linoleum before I reached the revolving door."
The car fell dead silent. Even the twins stopped moving under their blankets.
"I had to walk," Evelyn sobbed quietly. "I had to make Julian believe I didn't care about Tommy's legacy, that I was just a greedy coward running away from the mess. It was the only way he’d let the state take custody instead of executing them on the spot."
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"Where are you, Evelyn?" Clara demanded, leaning over the console.
"I’m where Tommy told me to go when the fire started," Evelyn replied, the wind howling around her microphone. "I’m at the Iron Maiden. And Julian’s private security cutter just cleared the Chicago harbor locks."
