Page 8 of Echo: Spark
The distinctive whump-whump-whump of rotor blades cuts through the morning air like an approaching storm. Not civilian traffic or medical evacuation. Black Hawks, at least two, approaching fast from the southeast with the purposeful vector of military precision. My perimeter sensors start triggering in sequence—motion detected at markers seven, four, and two. Ground teams moving in coordination with air support, professional deployment that speaks of significant resources.
"How many?" Kane's already checking his weapon with the automatic movements of someone who's been in too many situations like this.
"Three teams of four, minimum." I'm moving before the words finish, grabbing my carefully packed bug-out bag, slingingthe medical kit that's saved my life twice. "Plus whatever's in the birds. Could be forty operators total."
Sarah tries to stand, fails as her legs buckle. I make the calculation in a heartbeat—she weighs maybe one-twenty soaking wet, but the intelligence she's carrying weighs infinitely more than her physical mass. My arms slide under her with practiced care, lifting her against my chest while avoiding the shoulder wound.
She’s too light. Not just in weight but in the way she clings to consciousness. I’ve carried ruck sacks that were heavier, but none that felt this fragile or this necessary. She gasps but doesn't cry out. Tough. Good. She'll need to be if we're going to survive the next hour.
"The creek bed," I tell Kane, already moving toward the cabin's concealed back exit. "Stay exactly in my footprints. One step wrong and you'll set off enough explosives to level half this hillside."
"We die," the younger one—Stryker—finishes with gallows humor. "Got it."
We burst from the cabin into filtered sunlight that seems too bright after the dimness inside. The rotors are louder now, maybe two minutes out, close enough that I can feel the approaching vibration through the ground. Sarah's heartbeat pounds against my chest, rapid but steady, her breathing shallow but controlled. Kane follows close behind, Stryker covering our six with professional competence despite his obvious injuries.
The creek bed lies forty meters away through dense Montana pine, each tree positioned by nature to provide perfect concealment. I know every root, every hidden rock, every pressure plate concealed beneath innocent-looking leaves and forest debris. Sarah's weight changes my balance but muscle memory guides my feet along the safe path. Behindus, voices carry on the mountain wind. Professional tactical communication, coordinated movement. They're good, well-trained, well-equipped.
They're not good enough.
My thumb finds the detonator in my pocket, the device worn smooth by months of nervous handling. Eight months of work, eight months of perfect solitary defense, about to disappear in calculated destruction. The cabin represents everything I've built since going dark, everything I've become in isolation. Letting it go feels like cutting off a limb, abandoning part of my soul to the flames.
But the woman in my arms carries proof that isolation is just another form of death. That my successful defense has been their successful operation, turning me into an unwitting asset in their systematic purge.
The first team breaches my cabin perimeter with tactical precision. I feel the trip wire activate through ground vibration that travels up through my boots, followed immediately by screams that echo off the surrounding peaks. The others will be more careful now, but careful takes time they don't have.
The blast wave carries the stink of burned fuel and hot copper. My ears ring with the metallic shriek of nails pulled from beams, a sound more like an animal dying than wood tearing. Ash rains through the pines, stinging eyes and skin.
We reach the creek, icy mountain water soaking through boots immediately, the cold shocking after the warmth of the forest floor. I turn upstream against instinct and tactical doctrine, using the flowing water to mask our heat signature and scent trail. Sarah shivers against me but stays silent, proving the kind of discipline that keeps intelligence analysts alive in dangerous situations.
"Mercer." Kane's voice carries an urgent warning but remains controlled.
I don't need to look back. The sound tells me everything—helicopters positioning for dust-off, which means they've found the cabin, established a perimeter, realized we're not inside. Which means they'll start methodical expansion, professional search patterns that will eventually find our trail.
My thumb presses down on the detonator.
The explosion shakes the entire mountain, a percussion wave that travels through solid rock and rattles my teeth. Eight months of accumulated ammunition, fuel, and carefully crafted improvised explosives turning my sanctuary into a pillar of fire and destruction that rises above the treeline. The pressure wave hits us even at this distance, popping ears and stealing breath. Sarah flinches against me. I hold her tighter, feeling her blood warm and wet against my jacket.
Through the trees, I catch glimpses of the fireball mushrooming skyward, beautiful in its terrible perfection. Perfect destruction of perfect defense, months of preparation erased in seconds. At least one helicopter pulls up sharply, caught by surprise at the scope of the explosion. The ground teams will assume we're dead in the blast—standard tactical assessment for maybe five minutes until they realize there are no bodies in the debris.
"This way." I shift direction, heading for a game trail I've kept deliberately unused, saving it for exactly this situation. "Three miles to the vehicle cache. We move fast, stay quiet, disappear before they figure out we're ghosts."
"You have vehicles?" Stryker sounds impressed despite our desperate situation.
"I have contingency windows for contingency windows."
We move through the forest like smoke, using terrain and natural cover while the sounds of confusion and reorganization echo behind us. Professional voices calling tactical updates, officers trying to maintain command and control in theaftermath of the explosion. They'll figure it out soon enough, realize the blast was too perfect, too complete, too conveniently timed. But by then we'll be gone, dissolved into the Montana wilderness like morning mist.
Sarah's breathing grows shallower against my chest, shock setting in properly now as adrenaline fades. The field dressing is completely soaked through, blood seeping steadily onto my jacket in a spreading stain. She needs real medical attention, not whatever battlefield patch job she's running on. Hospital would be suicide, but there are alternatives.
"There's a veterinarian in Whitefish," I say, surprising myself with the admission. "Former Army medic, works off the grid. Owes me a favor from when I kept some very bad people away from his clinic."
Kane glances at me with something like approval in his eyes, recognizing the significance of the offer. "You're coming with us then."
Not a question. An observation. He's read the situation correctly—I've already made my choice, made it the moment I picked up Sarah instead of disappearing solo into the forest depths. Eight months of perfect solitude, traded for uncertain alliance with damaged operators and a bleeding analyst carrying intelligence that could change everything.
The helicopter rotors grow distant, searching in the wrong direction, following false trails and phantom heat signatures. We ghost through the trees like the special operations veterans we are, three burned operators and one woman who might hold the key to understanding why we're all being systematically hunted. My finger traces the crossbow's trigger guard, the familiar comfort of a weapon that's never failed me.
Alone, I was surviving. Together, we might actually accomplish something meaningful.
