PART 4: THE TRAP TURNS

PART 4: THE TRAP TURNS

Elena sat motionless on the rocks for exactly ten seconds, staring at the blinking green light the way one stares at a venomous snake. Three years of special operations had taught her one thing: when you have fallen into a trap, do not run. Turn the trap into your weapon.

The tracking signal was a double-edged blade. It led her enemies to her, but at the same time it proved a truth that could not be denied: this case was real, it was active, and it had just been taken from beneath Colonel Voss's ship. If she vanished with the case, he would call her a thief. But if the whole world could see this signal coming from his ship, then who the thief really was would no longer be his decision to make.

She opened her tool belt and took out the single-use emergency transmitter every special operations diver carries. With fast, practiced movements, Elena connected the transmitter to the case's secondary data port, the one she herself had soldered in three years ago for a situation she had hoped would never come. The satellite core's registration data, its serial number, and most importantly, the secret compartment's access log for the past three years, began transmitting straight to Fleet Command's emergency channel.

In the sky, Voss's helicopter had arrived, its white searchlight sweeping across the rocks. A loudspeaker roared for her to surrender. Reed's boat circled in from the east, cutting off her path to the sea. Trapped between two guns and a cliff, Elena did the one thing no one expected: she stood up straight, raised both hands to the sky, and smiled.

"Shoot," she shouted over the roar of the rotors. "The data is already gone. In five minutes, the Admiral will know whose ship this box has been hiding under for three years."

The silence lasted exactly four seconds. Then a voice came through the helicopter's radio, the voice of Fleet Command: ordering all of Voss's forces to lower their weapons and hold position immediately. The helicopter lurched, turned to flee toward open sea, but two fighter jets from a nearby carrier closed in on both sides and forced it back, helpless. Reed's boat sped away, but this time Elena did not chase him. She knew her old teacher would have many questions to answer, somewhere else, another day.


When the Fleet's boat touched the rocky shore, the young commander stepped down and looked at the soaked woman in front of him, her shoulder still bleeding, holding the case that an entire conspiracy had been built around. He asked, "Who are you?"

Elena looked toward the distant warship, its lights still burning like a city that never sleeps. She answered simply: "The only person on that ship who never betrayed anyone."

But as she stepped onto the boat, the commander received a new order through his earpiece. He looked up, his face uneasy. "Miss Marlow, I'm sorry. Until everything is verified, you still have to be detained. The Admiral's orders."

Two cold handcuffs closed around her seawater-wet wrists.