Captain Kate’s Tracker Kept Moving After the Fall

I thought of Colonel Whitaker, who had heard enough to be certain, and of the inbound team that needed a precise location. My tracker had reported my position, but a beacon would announce the whole building and everyone in it. It would turn a rescue into a siege, and a siege would turn the sergeant desperate.

Desperate men did unpredictable things. But the alternative was being found by them first.

“Go,” I whispered. “I’ll draw their light.”

I stood, one hand pressed against the cracked casing of my useless handset, and threw it as hard as I could toward the far wall.

It clattered across the concrete, and every flashlight swung toward the sound.

“There!” Voss shouted.

Harlan moved. I could hear him, soft footsteps on the floor, a man in his fifties crossing open ground in the dark as if he were twenty.

Price’s beam cut back toward me.

“Lieutenant.” His voice was almost gentle. “You are not going to win this.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then step out.”

I did. Slowly, with my good hand raised and my injured arm hanging at my side, I stepped from behind the crate into the pale circle of his flashlight and stood there looking at him.

He lowered the rifle an inch, perhaps out of curiosity.

On the roof, something began to chirp.

A thin electronic trill, repeating every two seconds, rose faintly through the ceiling. Price’s head tilted. His face drained slowly of color.

“What is that?” Voss whispered.

“A standing beacon,” I said. “Every aircraft within thirty miles can hear it.”

Price stared at the ceiling. When he looked back at me, the calm was gone completely, and what stood behind it was a cornered man with a loaded weapon.

“You stupid girl,” he said, and lifted the rifle to his shoulder.

Chapter 5 – What the Water Gave Back

The shot never came.

Reed hit Price from the side with his whole weight, and the rifle swung upward and discharged into the ceiling. Dust and chips of concrete rained down in the flashlight beams. Price grunted, twisted, and drove an elbow into Reed’s ribs, but Voss had already dropped his own weapon and thrown himself onto Price’s back, and for a few long seconds the three of them thrashed in the gloom like men fighting inside a single body.

I did not wait to see who would win. I crossed the floor, pinned the sergeant’s rifle with my boot, and dragged it out of reach with my good hand.

“Stay down!” I shouted. “All of you, stay down!”

Price tried to rise. Reed locked both arms around his neck, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry,” he kept saying. “Lieutenant, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Stop talking, Caleb,” I said, and leveled the sergeant’s rifle at Price’s chest. It hurt to hold. “Nolan, it is over.”

He glared up at me, breathing hard, blood on his lip. “You think so?”

“The beacon is transmitting. The colonel has heard everything. And you have two witnesses sitting on your back.”

His eyes shifted to Voss, who was still holding his arm across Price’s shoulders, shaking.

“Eric,” Price said hoarsely. “Think about your daughter.”

“I am,” Voss said. His voice was barely audible. “That’s the only reason I’m doing this.”

Price sagged. The fight went out of him all at once, the way air leaves a punctured tire. He lay on the concrete with his cheek against the floor and said nothing else.

Harlan came back from the dark corner and stood over us, breathing like a man who had just run a mile. “The beacon’s solid,” he announced. “I checked the panel. It’s pinging the whole network.”

I allowed myself, finally, to lower the rifle.

The forty minutes that followed were the longest I had ever lived.

We sat in that dim room with the smell of gunpowder and burned wiring around us, and nobody spoke. Reed cried quietly against the wall. Voss stared at his hands. Harlan found a first aid kit and wrapped my shoulder without asking permission, and when I winced he muttered an apology so gentle that I nearly cried myself.

The helicopters arrived first.

I heard them before I saw them, the low pulse of rotors rolling over the reservoir, and then a wash of downdraft shook the door on its hinges. Floodlights poured through the gap. Boots pounded outside.

“Military police!” a voice boomed. “Everyone inside, hands where we can see them!”

I stepped into the doorway with both hands raised, the injured one trembling, and squinted into the glare.

“Lieutenant Mara Quinn, Delta Company,” I called. “Three armed soldiers in custody. One civilian contractor, unharmed. Evidence in the crates.”