Chapter 8 - The Forest Depot
The station wagon crept through the dense canopy of trees, running entirely on parking lights. The rough dirt path was littered with fallen limbs and deep mud ruts that scraped against the undercarriage of the low-clearance car, but Marcus kept moving forward until the overgrown gravel gave way to a rusted chain-link gate swinging open in the darkness.
Behind the gate stood an old corrugated-iron ranger station, abandoned by the Department of Forestry a decade prior. Moss crawled across the cracked concrete apron, and weeds stood waist-high around a derelict water tower.
Marcus pulled the car behind the maintenance shed, completely concealing it from anyone looking down from the highway above. He cut the engine. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the ticking of the overheated radiator and Lily’s quiet, exhausted whimpers.
""Is everyone in one piece?"" Marcus asked, turning around in his seat.
Sarah nodded numbly, her face pale in the faint moonlight filtering through the cracked windshield. She reached back to undo Lily’s harness, pulling the shivering toddler onto her lap. ""They tried to kill us, Marcus. On an American road. They tried to run us off a cliff.""
""They're private contractors working on government defense indemnities,"" Marcus said, stepping out of the vehicle and scanning the dark perimeter. ""To them, this isn't murder; it's asset retrieval and risk mitigation.""
He unlocked the rear hatch, pulled out his canvas deployment duffle, and unzipped the bottom lining. Beneath a layer of clean undershirts and wool socks lay a heavy, oil-cloth package. He unwrapped it swiftly: a suppressed civilian variant of a tactical carbine, three loaded magazines, and a satellite encrypted relay tablet he had purchased off-grid two years ago as a contingency.
Sarah stared at the weapon in his hands, horror dawning in her eyes. ""You planned for this? You knew this might happen?""
""A soldier who doesn't keep a contingency doesn't come home to his family,"" Marcus replied grimly. ""I hoped I would never have to unwrap this canvas. But Miller forced the timeline.""
He walked over to the rusted metal door of the maintenance shed, broke the corroded padlock with the butt of his weapon, and waved Sarah inside. ""Get in. Out of the wind. There's an old wood stove in the corner. Don't light it—smoke will give away our thermal signature.""
He sat down on an overturned crate, pulled the micro-SD card from his collar, and slotted it into the side of the tactical tablet. The screen flickered to life, its blue glow illuminating the deep, exhausted lines carved into Marcus’s face.
A series of directories populated the display, followed by a live surveillance feed with a timestamp that was updating in real time.
May you like
Marcus leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as he read the server destination header at the top of the screen: PENTAGON OVERSIGHT SUB-COMMITTEE / VAULT 9.
The system wasn't just recording communications—it was tracking specific military families across five states. And at the top of the active priority list was a live GPS ping pinned directly to his current coordinates.
