Chapter 4 - THE FIRST BULLET
“Down!”
Harlan slammed Eli behind the storage case.
A suppressed shot snapped through the darkness.
The bullet hit the metal door behind them.
Harlan drew the handgun from the case.
Another shot.
Concrete dust exploded beside his head.
Eli crawled low.
“Back wall!”
“What?”
“There’s a service gap!”
“How do you know?”
“I checked when we came in.”
Harlan almost laughed despite the bullets.
Definitely Daniel’s kid.
They moved behind the lockers.
A third shot struck the case.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Confident.
Harlan whispered, “Stay behind me.”
Eli whispered back, “Dad says that’s what people say right before they get shot.”
“Your father talks too much.”
A shadow appeared.
Harlan fired once.
The shadow disappeared.
They ran.
Eli found the maintenance door and kicked it open.
An alarm screamed.
Sunlight poured in.
They reached Harlan’s SUV.
“Get in!”
The engine roared.
As Harlan pulled away, a black sedan shot out from behind another building.
“They’re following us,” Eli said.
“I noticed.”
Harlan accelerated.
“Who are they?”
“If Daniel’s message is right, people who’ve been waiting twelve years to clean up a mistake.”
Eli held the laptop against his chest.
“What mistake?”
“Your father surviving.”
The black sedan closed the distance.
Harlan turned hard onto an old county road.
The rear window shattered.
Eli ducked.
“Still think this is about a pendant?” he shouted.
“No!”
Another bullet hit the trunk.
Harlan took a sharp left through an abandoned construction entrance.
Dust swallowed both vehicles.
Ahead, the road ended at stacks of concrete pipe.
“General!”
“I see it.”
Harlan hit the brakes, spun the SUV sideways, then drove through a narrow gap between two barriers.
The sedan tried to follow.
It clipped a concrete block.
Metal screamed.
The sedan spun into a ditch.
Harlan didn’t stop.
Ten minutes later, they pulled into an old National Guard training compound.
Harlan had kept access to it through veteran security work.
Inside a locked office, he opened Daniel’s laptop.
Password screen.
Eli sat down.
“Let me.”
He typed three words.
SARAH AND ELI.
The laptop unlocked.
Harlan looked at him.
“He always used us.”
Folders filled the screen.
Weapons contracts.
Bank transfers.
Names.
Dates.
Drone footage.
Then one file appeared.
VIDEO_FOR_THOMAS.
Harlan clicked it.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Older.
Bearded.
Alive.
Thomas Harlan stopped breathing.
Daniel looked straight into the camera.
“Dad, if you’re seeing this, I failed to keep Eli out of it.”
Harlan gripped the table.
Daniel continued.
“Listen carefully. Adrian Knox didn’t just betray my unit.”
May you like
A pause.
“He ordered Mom’s death too.”
