Chapter 7 - The Breached Perimeter and the EMP Trap
"Maya, wake up!" I whispered, rushing across the cabin floor and lifting her
into my arms.
Maya’s eyes fluttered open, instantly reading the urgency in my face. She didn't
scream; she clamped her arms around my neck and stayed silent.
"Sarah, grab the Pelican case and the satellite transceiver!" I ordered, pulling
Julian’s suppressed Glock from my waistband.
The four infrared signatures on the screen stopped ten yards from the front
porch. Through the cabin’s reinforced log walls, the heavy mechanical clank of a
tactical battering ram echoed into the night.
"They aren't knocking," Sarah said, sliding the heavy Pelican case containing
the stabilization vials into a tactical backpack and slinging it over her
shoulders.
"Julian built this cabin for a siege," I said, pointing to a heavy steel switch
mounted beside the geothermal control box. "He installed a localized
high-frequency electromagnetic pulse (EMP) emitter beneath the front porch
floorboards. It's wired to the primary backup battery bank."
"If you fire an EMP, it will fry their night-vision goggles, their weapon
optics, and their radio comms," Sarah realized.
"And it gives us three seconds of total confusion," I said. "Get behind the
steel workbench!"
Sarah ducked behind the reinforced metal table, pulling Maya down beside her.
BANG!
The cabin’s front door shuddered under the first strike of the battering ram.
The heavy steel deadbolts groaned against the reinforced timber frame.
BANG!
The wood around the hinges began to splinter.
I waited, my finger hovering over the heavy red switch on the wall.
BANG!
The front door blew inward with a deafening crash, tearing free from its upper
hinges.
Two mercenaries in full combat armor and advanced thermal-imaging goggles surged
through the breach, their assault rifles raised, laser sights cutting through
the dark cabin air.
"Breach! Secure the—" the lead operative shouted into his headset.
I slammed the EMP switch down.
A blinding, crackling flash of blue-white electrical energy erupted from beneath
the porch floorboards with a deafening SNAP!
The cabin lights exploded in a shower of sparks. The mercenaries' night-vision
goggles overloaded instantly with high-voltage feedback, blinding them with
blinding green glare. Their radio headsets screeched with ear-splitting static,
causing both men to drop their weapons and clutch their ears in agony.
I stepped out from behind the geothermal unit and fired four rapid, suppressed
shots.
Both operatives dropped to the floor, incapacitated.
"Out the back storm hatch!" I shouted.
Sarah kicked open the disguised trapdoor beneath the medical cot that led into
the underground geothermal maintenance tunnel.
I hauled Maya down first, then helped Sarah lower herself into the narrow,
concrete-lined pipe.
As I dropped down behind them and pulled the heavy steel hatch shut, the
remaining two mercenaries outside opened fire on the cabin above our heads.
High-velocity armor-piercing rounds ripped through the floorboards, tearing
through the furniture and smashing the laboratory equipment into dust.
"Keep crawling!" I yelled through the darkness of the pipe. "The tunnel vents
into the old logging road two hundred yards down the mountain!"
We crawled on our hands and knees through the damp, narrow concrete culvert, the
sound of gunfire fading behind us into the night.
After five grueling minutes, we reached the rusted iron grate at the end of the
drainage pipe. I kicked the rusted bars with both boots until the welds broke,
spilling us out onto the muddy embankment of an abandoned logging trail.
Parked beneath an overgrown tarp fifty yards down the trail sat Julian’s
secondary backup vehicle: a weathered, four-wheel-drive diesel pickup truck with
commercial plates and a heavy steel winch bumper.
I ripped the tarp off the truck, grabbed the magnetic key hidden inside the
wheel well, and unlocked the cab.
"Get in! Stay on the floor!"
Sarah and Maya scrambled into the extended cab, ducking beneath the heavy canvas
work jackets stored in the back seat.
I cranked the diesel engine. It roared to life with a deep, throaty rumble.
I slammed the transmission into four-wheel drive, spun the wheels through the
deep mud, and rocketed down the logging trail toward Interstate 90.
Chicago was sixty miles east.
We had thirty hours of stabilizer serum remaining.
As the truck hit the smooth asphalt of the empty interstate, Sarah opened
Julian’s satellite transceiver on her lap. The encrypted screen glowed green.
"David," she said, looking up from the monitor with a grim expression. "Sterling
just issued an emergency executive order through Vanguard’s corporate server."
May you like
"What order?" I asked.
"He knows we survived the cabin," Sarah whispered, her voice trembling with
rising dread. "He’s placed Vanguard Tower under mandatory Level 5 containment
protocol starting at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning. If we don't breach the building
before sunrise... they are purging all biometric research data—and sterilizing
the entire sub-level with chlorine trifluoride gas."
