Chapter 13 – The Ghost Training Ground
Chapter 13 – The Ghost Training Ground
The coordinates burned across Daniel's phone.
I didn't need a map.
I knew every inch of that place.
The abandoned military training facility sat deep inside the Black Pine Forest, nearly forty miles north of the city.
Officially, it had been closed for more than twenty years.
Unofficially...
Very few people even knew it existed.
My mother had.
She brought me there every summer when I was a teenager.
She never called it training.
She called it thinking.
"The woods never lie, Evie."
"People do."
The memory hit me like a wave.
Daniel watched my expression.
"You know the location."
"I grew up there."
Grant looked confused.
"You never told me."
"There were a lot of things I never told you."
He lowered his eyes.
"I earned that."
No one argued.
Daniel handed the phone to the cyber analyst.
"Can you trace the message?"
The analyst worked quickly.
His fingers flew across the keyboard.
Thirty seconds later, he looked up.
"No chance."
"Military-grade encryption."
"Multiple international relays."
"The signal self-erased three seconds after delivery."
Victor.
Or whoever stood above him.
They were always one step ahead.
Nora unfolded a topographic map of the forest.
"There are only three roads leading into the facility."
Daniel shook his head.
"Wrong."
I pointed to the map.
"Four."
Everyone looked at me.
"The fourth isn't on any public map."
"My mother showed it to me."
"It runs through a dry creek bed."
Daniel nodded slowly.
"If she wanted you to come..."
"She wanted you to remember."
I wasn't sure.
Was it really my mother?
Or someone using her past against me?
The question refused to leave my mind.
A young FBI analyst hurried into the room carrying a tablet.
"Sir."
"We recovered deleted files from Grant's laptop."
Grant looked up in surprise.
"I deleted those months ago."
The analyst ignored him.
"The recovery software found fragments."
Daniel accepted the tablet.
"What did you get?"
"Financial ledgers."
"Encrypted emails."
"And one video."
He pressed Play.
The footage showed Grant sitting inside a private conference room.
Victor Soren sat across from him.
Neither man knew they were being recorded.
Victor pushed a folder across the table.
Grant hesitated.
"I can't keep doing this."
Victor smiled.
"You don't have a choice."
Grant shook his head.
"There has to be another way."
Victor leaned forward.
"You have a daughter."
Grant's face immediately changed.
Victor continued.
"Beautiful little girl."
"Blue eyes."
"Just like her mother."
Grant whispered,
"Leave Lily out of this."
Victor's smile disappeared.
"Then sign."
Grant stared at the papers for several seconds.
His hand trembled.
Finally...
He signed.
The video ended.
Silence filled the room.
Grant covered his face.
"I tried to protect her."
I looked at him.
"No."
"You tried to protect yourself."
His shoulders collapsed.
"I was afraid."
"So was Lily."
The words hit him harder than anything else I had said.
He didn't respond.
Because he couldn't.
Daniel handed the tablet back to the analyst.
"Send this to the U.S. Attorney."
"Immediately."
The analyst nodded and left.
Nora folded the map.
"If this is a trap..."
"It is."
I answered.
Daniel looked at me.
"But it's also our only lead."
He didn't disagree.
A tactical commander entered the room.
"My teams are ready."
"Twelve agents."
"Two armored vehicles."
"Air support on standby."
I shook my head.
"No."
The room turned toward me.
"The message said alone."
Daniel frowned.
"We're not sending you by yourself."
"They'll know if I'm not."
"We can stay back."
"They'll know."
I looked at the map again.
"My mother trained me there."
"Every hill."
"Every bunker."
"Every tunnel."
"If she really sent that message..."
"She expects me to remember the rules."
Daniel crossed his arms.
"And those rules are?"
I met his eyes.
"Never walk into an ambush."
He smiled slightly.
"So what's your plan?"
I pointed to the northern ridge.
"They'll expect me to use the main road."
"I won't."
"Then?"
"I'll use the creek."
Nora nodded.
"The hidden entrance."
"Exactly."
Another agent rushed into the room before anyone could speak again.
"Sir!"
"What is it?"
"We've identified the woman who delivered the stuffed rabbit."
Everyone turned.
The agent placed a printed photograph on the table.
A woman wearing a brown delivery uniform smiled into a security camera.
I stared at the image.
She wasn't a courier.
She wasn't a trafficker.
She was a decorated former Army intelligence officer.
Officially retired eight years earlier.
Officially.
Her personnel record ended with one disturbing note.
Missing during Operation Phoenix.
The same operation connected to my mother.
Daniel slowly looked at me.
"This organization has been infiltrating federal agencies for years."
I nodded.
"Longer than we imagined."
Before anyone could continue, every light inside the command room suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Emergency generators failed to activate.
Someone had cut the power.
A single red emergency light flickered to life.
Then another.
The building became eerily quiet.
A voice echoed through the hallway.
Calm.
Confident.
And impossibly familiar.
"Evie..."
Only one person had ever spoken my name that way.
My mother.
May you like
She wasn't calling from the forest.
She was already inside the building.
