Chapter 24 - Eleanor’s Final Escape
Federal authorities changed the transport route.
They moved Eleanor before dawn inside an armored convoy.
She anticipated the change.
A fake ambulance struck the lead vehicle on a mountain road.
Armed mercenaries attacked.
Two federal officers were wounded.
Eleanor escaped into the forest.
Before disappearing, she transmitted an encrypted signal.
The integrity task force traced it to a decommissioned Vance Maritime satellite.
Arthur had built it twenty years earlier.
Its public purpose was ocean mapping.
Its hidden purpose was command relay for Meridian assets.
The signal activated dormant systems aboard six commercial cargo ships.
Each vessel carried unregistered military components.
One carried a chemical dispersal system powerful enough to contaminate a major harbor.
Eleanor sent a message to the government.
Release $2 billion in frozen Meridian funds and provide safe passage.
Or she would activate one ship every twelve hours.
I led the task force response.
Some officials wanted to pay.
Others wanted to destroy the vessels from the air.
Thousands of civilian crew members were aboard.
I proposed boarding operations coordinated across three oceans.
It was the largest maritime interdiction mission since my return.
Before launch, Audrey called from prison through an approved line.
“I know where she is.”
Eleanor had taken her to a hidden mountain lodge as a child.
She called it Northstar.
The location never appeared in company records.
Audrey remembered flying forty minutes north from a private airstrip in Vermont.
Satellite imaging located a camouflaged compound near the Canadian border.
Eleanor was there.
I requested permission to join the capture team.
Commander Ellis objected.
“She wants you personally.”
“That is why she will stay long enough for us to reach her.”
The cargo ship operations began simultaneously.
Navy and allied teams boarded five without casualties.
The sixth vessel stopped responding.
It was approaching Boston Harbor.
The chemical system began pressurizing.
At Northstar, Eleanor watched the same countdown.
When I entered the command room, she smiled.
May you like
“You finally came home.”
📖 Clarissa reached Eleanor’s final headquarters while an armed cargo ship raced toward Boston with minutes remaining. 👇
