Chapter 11 - The Train at Cattleman's Spur
The switch at Cattleman's Spur had not been used in fifteen years.
The county said it was frozen.
Walt Jensen said otherwise.
"I grease that thing every spring," he told Ethan over the radio. "Railroad forgot it exists. I didn't."
Ethan could have kissed the old man.
Instead he said, "Move it to the spur and get clear."
"Already on it."
The unmarked train thundered through the darkness at forty miles per hour.
Three minutes before the commercial junction, the ancient switch diverted it onto the cattle spur.
Sparks flew.
Brakes screamed.
The locomotive tore through rotted fencing and finally stopped in a field beside hundreds of startled cattle.
Armed men opened fire from the rear car.
State tactical teams returned controlled fire from armored positions.
Ethan and Daniel approached from the flank using an irrigation ditch for cover.
"Still hate Montana?" Ethan asked.
Daniel grinned. "I hate cows less than I did an hour ago."
They reached the last car.
One gunman surrendered immediately. Another tried to flee and was tackled by Deputy Ortiz, who had insisted on joining the operation after Pike's shooting.
The middle cars were locked from outside.
Inside the first were medical supplies, restraints, surveillance equipment, and file cabinets.
Inside the second were six prisoners.
June Miller was one.
She slapped Ethan the moment he cut her restraints.
"I told you not to come charging in."
Then she hugged him so hard he could not breathe.
"Where's my father?"
June's face changed.
"I saw him."
Ethan stopped.
"Alive?"
"Alive."
The word broke something open in him.
"Where?"
"They moved him before they put us on the train. Travis took him."
"Cole was there?"
"Yes. And he wasn't in charge."
Daniel crouched beside her. "Who was?"
June looked at him.
"A woman. Sixties. Gray hair. Called herself Director Shaw."
Daniel went still.
"Impossible."
"You people say that a lot."
Ethan looked at him.
"Who is she?"
Daniel's voice was almost a whisper.
"Eleanor Shaw. She ran the task force that recruited me after Yemen. She's the one who arranged my death."
"Then she's Helix."
"Or she's hunting it. I don't know anymore."
The third locked car contained no prisoners.
It contained a command center.
Maps of Red Creek covered the walls.
Live feeds showed the diner, courthouse, Ethan's house, the hospital, and roadblocks.
On one screen, a camera showed Sheriff Cole driving a black SUV through a mountain tunnel.
Beside him sat an elderly man with gray hair and a bad left leg.
Thomas Hayes.
Ethan's father.
Alive.
Rachel arrived with Vega and saw the screen over Ethan's shoulder.
"Oh my God."
Thomas looked thinner than Ethan remembered, but there was no mistaking him.
Cole was shouting at someone over a radio.
The feed had audio.
"I did everything you asked!" Cole yelled. "I kept Hayes contained. I used the wife. I used the brother. Bell handled the county. You promised me extraction."
A woman's voice answered through the radio.
"You became noisy, Sheriff."
Cole's face went white.
"Don't do this."
"Bring Thomas to Site Blue. Come alone."
The screen changed to a map coordinate.
Daniel stared at it.
"Site Blue."
Ethan looked at him.
"You know it?"
"Yes."
"Where?"
Daniel swallowed.
"It's where I was buried."
On the drive to Site Blue, Thomas was still only a possibility on a screen, and Ethan allowed himself no fantasies.
He had learned long ago that hope could be weaponized just as easily as fear.
Still, memories came without permission.
His father teaching him to sharpen a chainsaw chain at thirteen. His father standing in the rain at Ethan's high school graduation because the bleachers were full. His father refusing to shake the recruiter's hand until Ethan promised he was joining the Navy for himself, not because Thomas expected it.
The last argument they ever had happened on a pay phone.
Thomas had told Ethan he sounded tired.
Ethan had snapped that he was busy.
Thomas had said, "Busy isn't the same as alive, son."
Ethan had hung up angry.
Two weeks later, the truck went over the mountain.
For twelve years, those had been the final words.
Now there was a chance they were not final at all.
Daniel drove behind them and used the encrypted radio once.
"You okay?"
Ethan answered, "No."
Daniel waited.
"Good answer," he finally said.
At the bunker perimeter, they found proof of recent excavation: fresh tire tracks, disturbed gravel, and a ventilation stack disguised as an old cattle-water pipe. Whoever maintained Site Blue had money, patience, and decades of institutional cover.
Vega photographed everything before entry.
"If we survive this," she said, "someone is going to spend the next ten years explaining how a private intelligence prison operated under federal land."
Daniel checked his weapon.
"If we survive this, the people explaining it will claim they just discovered it."
Ethan looked at him.
"Cynicism later."
"It's not cynicism if I'm right."
May you like
"Later."
They entered.
