Page 15 of Echo: Spark
"Supply run before we move," I announce. "Weapons, medical, communications gear. Morrison's money will buy us whatever we need."
"Shopping list from hell," Stryker grins, that dark humor surfacing.
"Gear up for winter operations," I continue. "This war won't pause for weather."
The team begins breaking down into mission operational planning, each man gravitating toward his specialty. Tommy works on electronic surveillance packages. Mercer sketches approach routes. Rourke and Khalid inventory weapons. Stryker makes lists of required supplies.
I stand and return to the cave mouth, looking out at the world we're about to shake. The weight of command sits familiar on my shoulders now, different from military leadership but carrying the same ultimate responsibility. These men will follow my tactical decisions. Some might die because of choices I make.
But this time, the cause is ours. The mission is personal. The brotherhood is real.
Behind me, I hear them working, operational planning, preparing. My brothers in this shadow war we've declared. Each one dangerous alone—together, we're something the Committee never imagined could exist.
Operators who've slipped every leash, broken every chain, and chosen their own war.
Morrison died believing he controlled the shadows.
He never understood that shadows belong to those who live in them. And we've lived in the darkness so long, we've become a part of it.
The Committee calculates they're hunting six rogue operators.
They're wrong.
They're being hunted by Echo Ridge.
General Marcus Webb
The briefing room smells like burned coffee and printer toner. I sit and listen while a junior briefer tries not to shake his way through the morning sitrep: Morrison dark for eleven hours, assets in Crete and Whitefish off the net, and a cave uplink pinged with a signature that looks too much like someone spoofing her credentials.
I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in budgets, pressure, and the simple arithmetic of survival.
“Protocol Seven,” I say, my voice steady. “Compartmentalize tasking, move our Montana assets west, and flush any disavowed operators still foolish enough to think they have friends.”
Procurement shells and cutouts will take the hit. None of this ever touches the Committee. It never does.
When the door closes behind them, I rub the scar at my collar and wonder how many more fires I can smother before someone notices the smoke.
And the Committee’s work has only just begun.
6
WILLA
First Contact
The windshield wipers lose their battle against the Montana blizzard somewhere between prayer and panic. I grip the steering wheel hard enough to leave an impression in the leather, squinting through the white wall that used to be Highway 93. Odin whines from the passenger seat, his massive head swiveling toward something I can't see through the storm.
“Almost,” I tell Odin, the Belgian Malinois who chose me for his own. My hands are steady even if my insides aren’t. Home is twenty miles and an avalanche of trouble behind me. The veterinary truck's headlights barely penetrate ten feet of swirling snow.
Odin's whine shifts to a growl, deep and warning. His hackles rise as he stares into the white nothing ahead.
Then the world explodes in light.
Muzzle flashes strobe through the curtain of snow—three, four, five points of fire painting the storm in lethal bursts. My headlights catch a man diving behind a snowbank, his bodytucking and rolling with practiced precision as bullets stitch the ground where he'd been. Dark figures advance through the blizzard, tactical formation perfect despite the conditions.
My foot slams the accelerator before my brain processes the decision. Dad's voice echoes from a lifetime ago, teaching his little girl lessons meant for Marines: "Get behind cover, stay low, and never leave a man behind."
The truck surges forward, engine roaring. The nearest gunman turns too late. Two tons of Detroit steel catches him center mass, the impact shuddering through the chassis as his body disappears under my bumper. His weapon sparks against the hood before spinning away into the night.
