Chapter 4 - The Ringing Phone
The loud, shrill ringing of the desk phone echoed through the dispatch control room like a siren. Every dispatcher on duty turned to look at Ethan. Janet took a sharp step back, her hands flying to her mouth.
Ethan stared at the flashing red line on his console. The caller ID displayed an encrypted, routed VoIP number.
He took a slow, deep breath, centered himself, and pressed the button to accept the line, routing the call through his headset while keeping Cordero patched in on the secondary channel.
"Lake County 911," Ethan said, his voice steady, devoid of emotion.
"Hello, Ethan," a smooth, gravelly voice echoed through the earpiece. The background sound was thin, accompanied by the whistle of gathering wind. "Or do you prefer Officer Miller?"
Ethan recognized the voice immediately from the prison interview tapes in Vance's file. Marcus Vance.
"Marcus," Ethan said calmly. "You’re making a mistake. The whole county is locked down. Federal marshals are setting up perimeters on every major highway. You have nowhere to go."
A low, dry chuckle vibrated down the line. "You think I care about highway perimeters? You think I spent four months under that sterile, disgustingly quiet neighborhood without a contingency plan?"
"What do you want, Vance?"
"I want the little girl," Vance said softly.
Ethan felt a surge of cold fury, but he kept his voice completely flat. "That’s not going to happen."
"You see, Ethan, my crew and I spent sixteen weeks living in the dark," Vance explained, his voice dipping into a dangerous, hypnotic cadence. "Sixteen weeks listening to that family live their little perfect, soft suburban life. We knew when they ate dinner. We knew when the father fought with his wife about money. We knew when the mother cried in the bathroom. And we knew that little girl was listening to us. We thought she was just a ghost in our heads. A harmless noise."
"She’s smarter than you," Ethan said.
"She ruined four months of work!" Vance snapped, his composure breaking for a fraction of a second, revealing the raw, violent lunatic underneath. "We were three days away from pulling off a ninety-million-dollar extraction from the regional bank vault during the power grid fail! Three days! And now I’m standing in a ditch with state police helicopters buzzing overhead like flies!"
"Give yourself up," Ethan urged, signaling Janet to trace the VoIP signal, though he knew Vance was likely bouncing it through multiple proxy servers. "You can walk out of this alive."
"I’m not going back to a six-by-eight cell, Ethan," Vance snarled. "And I’m not leaving this county empty-handed. You tell Sergeant Cordero that if he takes one more step toward that abandoned truck, the pipe bomb packed with four pounds of commercial nails wired to the driver-side door handle is going to tear him to pieces."
Ethan’s heart dropped into his throat. "Ray! Freeze! Don't touch the truck!" Ethan screamed into the radio channel.
On the radio feed, Cordero halted instantly, his hand inches from the truck's door frame. "Copy! Backing away now!"
Vance laughed on the phone line. "Quick on the trigger, aren't you, Ethan? Good boy. You saved your buddy. But here’s the reality of your situation: the storm is forty minutes away. When it hits, the power goes down. When the power goes down, the backup generators at the regional grid sub-station on West Avenue are going to fail, because my associate Victor set three incendiary charges on the fuel lines two hours ago."
Ethan’s eyes widened. "Janet! Get fire dispatch on West Avenue substation now!"
"Too late," Vance purred. "You’re playing catch-up, Ethan. You’re reacting. I’m executing. I don't care about the money anymore. I care about lesson teaching. You tell the Jenkins family that their little girl made a very loud mistake. And before this night is over, she’s going to hear me whisper again—and this time, it won't be from under the floor."
*Click.*
The call went dead.
"Ethan!" Cordero’s voice blasted through the radio. "I’m clear of the truck! What’s the play?!"
"Vance targeted the sub-station on West Avenue!" Ethan barked, his calm dispatcher persona completely stripped away as adrenaline flooded his system. "He’s trying to cut power to the entire county before the storm hits! And Cordero... he’s coming for Mia!"
"Rayden!" Cordero shouted over the tactical comms. "Lock down the safe house! Lock it down NOW!"
May you like
Through the safe house comms, Officer Rayden’s voice came back, strained over sudden radio interference. "We’ve got a problem! Power just cut out at the safe house! Backup lights aren't kicking in! The perimeter fence gate just lost primary power and swung open!"
Ethan slammed his desk. "They didn't just target the sub-station—they compromised the local grid node near the safe house! Rayden, get the family into the interior panic room! Vance is already on site!"
