Chapter 4 - The Sabotage
Elena didn't wait for the school board to fire her. She packed her locker, left her keys on the Headmaster’s desk, and walked out.
But as she walked to her old pickup truck in the faculty lot, her combat instincts, honed over two decades in the worst places on earth, began to itch.
Something about the crash wasn't right.
She remembered the logging truck. The way the tire blew. It wasn't a standard blowout. The rubber hadn't shredded; it had detonated. And the flatbed truck in front of the bus hadn't braked because of the crash—it had braked before the tire blew, effectively boxing the school bus in.
It was a classic ambush maneuver. The 'L-Shaped' block.
Elena didn't drive home. She drove to the county impound lot.
Flipping a hundred-dollar bill to the night watchman, she gained access to the wreckage of the logging truck. She pulled out a high-powered flashlight and crawled under the mangled axel.
There it was.
Scorched into the inner wheel well were the chemical residues of C4 explosive. It was a micro-charge, designed to look like a catastrophic tire failure.
They weren't collateral damage in a highway pileup. The crash was orchestrated. Someone had intentionally tried to force the Oakbridge bus over the cliff.
And looking at the passenger manifest, Elena knew exactly who the target was. Julian Vance. The sole heir to the Vance tech empire.
Elena pulled out her burner phone and dialed a number she hadn't called in three years.
"Pentagon Archives, clearance code required," a mechanized voice answered.
"Echo-Romeo-Actual," Elena said.
May you like
A moment later, a gruff voice came on the line. "Elena? I thought you were done with this life."
"I am, General," Elena replied, staring at the explosive residue. "But the life isn't done with me. I need you to run a deep-web trace on Richard Vance. I think his company is mixed up with a cartel, and they just tried to assassinate his son."
