Chapter 16 - THE NIGHT THE COAST WENT DARKThe blackout did not arrive like darkness.
It arrived like silence.
One second the lighthouse was shaking beneath alarms, gunfire and the low mechanical roar of the vessel offshore.
The next, everything died.
No navigation lights.
No emergency beacons.
No radio traffic.
Even the distant coastline vanished.
Commander Mara Vance stood inside the ruined lighthouse with her weapon raised, staring at the woman climbing through the floor hatch.
The stranger claimed to be her mother.
Her father claimed the woman had ordered his death.
And offshore, a stolen missile system was beginning its launch sequence.
Mara made her decision.
Not about which parent to trust.
About what mattered first.
“Everybody lowers their weapon.”
Neither parent moved.
“I said lower them.”
Her brother Nathan stared at her.
“Mara, that missile—”
“I know.”
She pointed toward Inspector Reyes.
“Get Nathan to the transmitter room. Find any frequency still alive.”
Then to Chief Alvarez.
“Take the eastern window. I want eyes on that ship.”
Her father finally lowered his pistol.
The woman in the tunnel did the same.
“My name is Eleanor Vance,” she said.
Mara's expression did not change.
“My mother’s name was Eleanor Vance.”
“I know.”
“Because you stole it?”
The woman looked directly at her.
“Because it was mine.”
A violent flash illuminated the ocean.
Alvarez shouted from the window.
“Commander!”
The stolen missile had lifted from the vessel.
But it was not flying toward land.
It turned north.
Toward the Atlantic shipping corridor.
Nathan looked at the trajectory calculation.
“There are civilian ships out there.”
“How many?”
“Thousands of people.”
Mara turned to both of her parents.
“Family reunion is over.”
She picked up the black folder.
“Tell me how to stop it.”
May you like
And for the first time, both Thomas and Eleanor gave exactly the same answer.
“You can't.”
