Chapter 6 - Protocol BrokenThe line went dead with a soft click.
“He knows,” I said, looking up at Daniel.
“He’s threatening us,” Daniel said, his eyes darkening. “He knows I took the drive, and he knows I used my flight route today to find you.”
“He doesn't know we’ve decrypted the telemetry yet,” I corrected him, standing up and closing the laptop. “If he thought we had the raw voice logs of his command track, he wouldn't be calling me on a personal line—he’d have military Marshals waiting outside this hangar.”
“What’s the move, Night Fury?” Daniel asked. It was the first time he had used my old Air Force call sign in plain conversation. It carried the weight of a pledge.
“We don't play their game,” I said, packing the laptop into my flight bag. “Vance thinks we’re going to run or try to go to the media, where he can suppress the story behind national security injunctions. We go to someone who has equal rank and no love for Vance.”
“Who?”
“General Marcus Cole,” I said. “Commander of Pacific Air Forces. Ethan’s old flight instructor and the only man in the Pentagon who ever told Vance to go to hell to his face.”
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Daniel hesitated. “Cole is based out of Hickam, Hawaii. We can’t take a commercial flight—Vance’s people monitor all FAA passenger manifests through the automated security network.”
“Then we don't take a commercial flight,” I said, looking out through the hangar doors at a sleek, privately owned Gulfstream G650 sitting on the tarmac, its engines idling low. “We borrow a ride.”
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