Chapter 3 - The Ghost Protocol
Mark’s blood turned to ice water. The photograph trembled in his hands before his training kicked in, numbing his panic into lethal focus. He wasn't supposed to be tracked this quickly. The extraction team in Turkey had promised him forty-eight hours of radio silence before the agency realized his dossier had been scrubbed from the mainframe. They hadn't given him twelve.
He took the stairs two at a time, moving silently. In the master bedroom, Sarah was sitting on the edge of the bed with Leo tucked beneath a quilt, his exhausted eyes fluttering shut against his mother's hip.
Sarah looked up, reading the shift in Mark’s posture instantly. ""Who was it?""
""We need to pack,"" Mark said, keeping his voice a low, steady murmur. ""Essentials only. Cash, warm layers, no electronics.""
""Mark, you just walked through that door an hour ago!"" Sarah’s voice cracked in desperation. ""You told me the contract was finished. You said the military cleared your record!""
""I lied to keep you alive until I could get here,"" Mark confessed, his throat tightening. ""The men I worked for don't retire contractors. They bury them. And right now, they know exactly which window Leo sleeps under.""
Sarah pressed her face into her hands, suffocating a sob so Leo wouldn't wake. When she looked up, the softness had hardened into maternal resolve. She rose and grabbed a backpack from the closet, tossing in passports and medications with mechanical precision.
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Mark crossed to the air vent near the baseboard, pulled out a pocket screwdriver, and unscrewed the grate. Reaching deep into the metal shaft, his fingers closed around the cold grip of a Glock 19 and three spare magazines he had stashed three years prior.
Downstairs, the sharp, unnatural pop of the main breaker tripping plunged the entire house into pitch blackness.
