Chapter 17 - The Burning Mountain
"Taylor!" Claire shouted, her voice breaking through her characteristic restraint for the first time in years. "Take custody of Vasiliev and Thorne! Load them into the transport! Move!"
"Ma'am, what about—"
"MY FAMILY IS ON THAT MOUNTAIN!"
The raw fury in her voice silenced the seasoned Navy SEAL commander instantly. Taylor snapped off a salute, his face turning deadly serious. "Go, General! We have the prisoners. Take the lead vehicle!"
Claire sprinted to the running transport truck, threw open the door, and climbed into the driver's seat. She slammed the heavy steel door shut, jammed the transmission into gear, and floored the accelerator. The heavy four-wheel-drive tires spun in the mud before biting into the gravel, launching the vehicle toward the quarry exit like a missile.
The five-mile drive back toward Mount Weather felt like an eternity through purgatory.
Rain lashed against the ballistic windshield, the wipers thrashing frantically against the downpour. Claire pushed the engine to its absolute redline, taking the winding mountain curves at eighty miles an hour, the tires screaming as they fought for traction against wet asphalt.
*Margaret. Daniel. Lily.*
The memories hit her in rapid, violent succession—not the tactical briefings, not the medals, not the ceremonies. She remembered Lily’s eighth birthday, when Claire had missed the party because she was trapped in an embassy lockdown in Jordan, sending home only a wooden music box that Margaret had quietly placed on the mantelpiece. She remembered Daniel’s law school graduation, watching from the very back of the auditorium in plain clothes, unable to have her picture taken because her face was classified.
She had spent her entire life staying away to keep them safe. And the moment she let them into her world, she had brought the war directly to their doorstep.
As she rounded the final hairpin turn onto the logging road, the canopy of trees glowed with an ominous, flickering orange light.
Smoke poured through the hemlocks, thick and suffocating.
Claire crested the ridge, and her heart seized in her chest.
The corrugated hangar was gone. In its place was a blackened crater surrounded by twisted, incandescent steel. Fires burned in small pockets across the clearing, fed by ruptured diesel fuel lines. The heavy timber trees surrounding the compound had been snapped like toothpicks by the blast wave of high-explosive ordnance.
"No," Claire whispered, the truck sliding to a halt in the smoldering ash. "No, no, no..."
She kicked the door open and hit the ground running, her boots kicking up showers of gray soot and embers. She ignored the blistering heat radiating from the wreckage, sprinting directly toward the mound of earth where the concrete bunker entrance had been.
The steel bulkhead had taken a direct hit. The heavy hatch was buckled inward, wedged tightly into the concrete frame, sealed under two tons of collapsed stone and molten rebar.
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"DANIEL!" Claire screamed, falling to her knees in the ash, clawing frantically at the jagged blocks of concrete with her bare hands. "MOM! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!"
Only the hiss of rain hitting hot steel answered her.
