Chapter 23
Ethan stood in the snowy parking lot for a long, agonizing moment, staring at his wife through the glass.
Tears welled in his eyes as he slowly lifted his hand, blowing her a silent, heartbroken kiss that she couldn't see.
He turned his back on the diner, walking slowly toward the rear of his Ford truck.
He popped the tailgate, reaching into the trunk compartment.
Lying on top of his duffel bag was a heavy leather diplomatic pouch stamped with a black classified seal.
Ethan opened the pouch, pulling out a encrypted tablet and a dossier containing satellite photos of an underground fortress in the Swiss Alps.
Tucked beneath the file was a handwritten note in General Thorne's handwriting:
"Welcome back to the shadows, Specter. The real war is just beginning."
Ethan looked at the red sedan across the street; the sniper rifle lasers remained trained unwavering on the diner window.
He knew if he walked back inside, Clara would die instantly.
If he complied, he would become a puppet once again for the dark military organization that had ordered the attack on his family.
Ethan stared down at the tactical transmitter in his palm, his jaw setting into a hard, dangerous line.
He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, feeling the cold, familiar grip of his customized Sig Sauer.
He looked up at the winter sky, his eyes burning with an intense, terrifying fire.
Ethan didn't get into the truck to drive to the airport.
Instead, he slowly reached into his vest, pulling out a signal jammer device he had built during his special forces days.
He pressed the arming switch, a small green light flickering to life as the device began radiating a high-frequency jamming wave across a five-hundred-yard radius.
Across the street, the thermal scopes on the snipers' rifles suddenly burst into blinding static.
Inside the diner, Clara looked up from her table, sensing something deeply wrong as the lights flickered.
Ethan took a deep breath, stepping into the shadow of the diner overhang, drawing both sidearms silently from his holsters.
May you like
The war wasn't over.
He wasn't going to run. He was going to kill them all.
