Chapter 16 - The Ghost Convoy
Tracking an unmarked extraction team across state lines required resources normal citizens couldn't fathom, but Evelyn wasn't a normal citizen. She contacted Miller "Sully" Sullivan, her former platoon sergeant from Afghanistan, who now ran an off-the-books private tactical firm in Maryland.
Within ninety minutes, Sully met her at a disused grain silo outside Culpeper, bringing an armored SUV, thermal imaging drones, and two former Rangers who owed Evelyn their lives from a firefight in Helmand Province.
"Good to see you breathing, Captain," Sully grunted, tossing her a black tactical vest and a modified MK18 carbine. "We tracked the signal of that private ambulance. They didn't take the highway toward Richmond. They headed west into the Blue Ridge Mountains, toward an abandoned cold-war continuity-of-government bunker near Mount Weather."
"What's in that bunker?" Evelyn asked, strapping the Kevlar tightly around her ribs.
"During the sixties, it was designated Site-9," Sully explained, unfurling a satellite schematic on the hood of the truck. "It’s completely blast-proof, shielded by three hundred feet of solid granite, and has its own geothermal generator. Meridian bought the land through a conservation trust eight years ago. If they get Richard inside those blast doors, an artillery strike wouldn't be able to dig him out."
"How far ahead are they?"
"Twenty-five minutes. But they made a detour," Sully pointed to a flashing red beacon on his GPS tablet. "They stopped at a secluded airstrip near Front Royal. They have a Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk waiting with rotors running. If that chopper takes off, your brother is gone forever."
"Mount up," Evelyn ordered, cocking her weapon. "We hit the convoy before it reaches the tarmac."
The two SUVs roared onto the winding mountain road, rain lashing against the windshields as the engines screamed at maximum torque. The narrow asphalt wound dangerously close to sheer cliff drops, fog settling thick into the hollows.
Five miles from the airstrip, Evelyn spotted the flashing hazard lights of the ambulance, flanked by two black armored escort trucks.
"Take the rear escort out!" Evelyn shouted through the radio.
Sully didn't hesitate. His heavy armored truck accelerated, ramming the lead corner of the rear escort vehicle at sixty miles per hour. The violent collision sent the black truck spinning out of control, tires screeching against wet rock before it smashed into the mountain embankment, flipping violently onto its roof in an explosion of steam and glass.
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The ambulance driver panicked, swerving across the center line as the remaining escort truck opened fire, automatic rounds peppering the hood of Evelyn’s vehicle with deafening, metallic impacts.
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