Chapter 5 - Fire in the Woods
A high-caliber sniper round tore through the kerosene lantern on the table, instantly detonating the fuel in a blinding blossom of orange fire.
Hannah threw herself across the floor as the cabin erupted into chaos. Burning oil splashed across the walls, catching the dry, rotted timber instantly. Heat blasted against her face, thick black smoke filling the room.
Through the shattered window, heavy automatic gunfire began tearing the structure apart. Splintered wood and plaster rained down like shrapnel.
Vance didn't dive for cover like an old man; he rolled behind an overturned iron woodstove, pulled a compact machine pistol from beneath his vest, and fired blindly toward the door.
Hannah realized immediately: the shooters outside weren't Vance's men.
""Drop your weapon, Reyes!"" a booming voice echoed through an exterior megaphone over the gunfire. ""This is the Federal Tactical Response Unit! The building is surrounded!""
Hannah crawled through the choking smoke toward the rear door of the cabin, the floorboards burning her knees through her uniform. Fire roared around her, the roof beams groaning under the structural collapse. She kicked open the warped back door and tumbled out into the muddy grass of the lake shore just as the cabin's roof caved in with a thunderous roar of flame and sparks.
She scrambled behind the stone pier, her weapon raised, mud caking her arms and face.
Standing fifty yards away in the pouring rain, flanked by a dozen heavily armed federal marshals, was General Gideon Ward.
He was pale, his uniform soaked in blood from his wounded leg, leaning heavily on a tactical crutch, but his weapon was holstered. Beside him stood an older woman wearing an FBI tactical windbreaker, speaking urgently into a satellite radio.
""Hannah!"" Ward shouted, his voice hoarse, coughing violently against the smoke. ""Stay down! Don't engage!""
From the burning wreckage of the cabin, Vance burst through the flames, his clothes scorched, spraying automatic fire toward the federal perimeter. Two federal marshals returned fire instantly. A precision burst took Vance in the chest, dropping him face-first into the shallow, muddy water at the lake's edge.
Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the crackle of the raging fire and the hiss of rain hitting the burning timber.
Hannah slowly rose from behind the stone pier, her hands raised away from her weapon, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath.
Ward limped toward her through the mud, waving off two medics who tried to support him. He stopped ten feet away, breathing heavily, looking at her with eyes sunken by exhaustion and sickness.
""You're alive,"" Ward breathed, a weak, genuine smile touching his gray lips. ""Thank God.""
Hannah stared at him, the rain washing the soot from her face. ""You have pancreatic cancer.""
Ward paused, startled, then looked down at his boots. ""I see Vance talked before the roof came down.""
""He said you protected my dad for eighteen years,"" Hannah said, her voice shaking with raw emotion. ""He said you kept him alive to hold back Orion.""
""I kept him alive because he was my friend,"" Ward said quietly, stepping closer, his voice cracking with emotion. ""And because I owed him your life. Black Harbor was a trap from day one, Hannah. Thomas knew they were coming for his family. He agreed to vanish, to let the world think he was dead, so Orion would never look in your direction. But I swore to him that before I died, I would bring him home to you.""
""Is he really alive?"" Hannah choked out, the tears finally breaking through her resolve, hot against her cold cheeks. ""Or was that another lie?""
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Ward reached inside his tactical vest and pulled out a small, laminated slip of paper with a set of GPS coordinates printed across the bottom.
""He's waiting for you, Specialist Reyes,"" Ward said softly. ""In a safehouse forty miles west of the Shenandoah valley. Let’s go bring your father home.""
