Chapter 9: Threads in the rain
514 Words
The rain hadn’t stopped for hours. It danced on the metal roof of the bunker like a warning, echoing through the walls, but Mira and Daine sat calm yet alert, their eyes fixed on the grainy footage flickering on the screen.
One of the external surveillance cameras fixed quietly along their route two days ago had finally picked up something.
Three men. Well dressed, confident, walking too comfortably through a place no civilian should be. A fourth person appeared briefly before vanishing behind the tall, soaked trees.
Mira leaned forward, narrowing her eyes.
“That one in the middle… he was on that magazine cover. Some renewable energy tycoon, right?”
Daine nodded slowly.
“Yeah.
And that’s not the kind of man you find walking through a restricted forest zone during a storm.”
He leaned back, thoughtful. “They knew this forest like it was theirs.”
A heavy silence fell between them before Mira whispered,
“So what are they doing here? Why this place? And who was the one we saw for just a second?”
Daine glanced at her, then turned toward the evidence board they had set up beside the main screen.
“Let’s assume something went wrong,” he began.
“What if… one of them wasn’t fully in? Maybe he tried to run, to ask for help. Maybe he knew about a patrolling officerone of us and thought this was the only way out.”
Mira’s eyes didn’t leave the screen.
“Then they would have chased him. And if a struggle happened… that explains the broken underbrush and the blood trail we found outside the restricted boundary.”
Daine added quietly, “Which also explains why they buried him so close to the zone. Heavy rain, panic, and they had no time to go deeper. They never thought anyone would trace it this far.”
Mira looked up at him.
“And now, with two officers showing up and setting up cameras… they got nervous.
Maybe even desperate.” “Which means,” Daine said grimly, “they’re watching us just as closely as we’re watching them.”
“You think they took our pictures?” Mira asked.
“I’d bet on it,” Daine said. “They’re high-profile. They have resources. Maybe they planned to threaten or bribe us if we got too close. But it’s too late for that now.”
Mira crossed her arms.
“And none of our systems were connected to the mainline when we first came. No access, no backup. We walked in blind. Maybe that was their plan to isolate any threat.”
Daine said slowly,
“But we aren’t alone now. We’ve got eyes. We’ve got the trail. And we’ve got each other.”
A beat of silence passed. The rain eased just a little.
“So,” Mira said, almost daringly, “we stay hidden. We keep watching. We let them think we’re still vulnerable.”
“And when they come out again,” Daine said, his voice like steel, “we make our move.”
- Writer
