A homeless seven-year-old girl found me crying alone in the freezing Chicago rain and offered me the last piece of bread she had, asking, “Mister, are you crying because you’re hungry too?”

I burst through the shattered entrance of Shelter 404 into the freezing downpour. The sleet had turned into hard, driving pellets that cut against my exposed skin like glass.

Fifty yards away across the open mud of the rail yard, Vance’s armored sedan was surrounded.

A tall, broad-shouldered man in a full-length cashmere military trench coat stood behind the open door of a black Cadillac Escalade, calmly smoking a cigar under a large black umbrella held by an aide. Around him, four private security operators in full assault gear were advancing on Vance’s vehicle, laying down suppressed fire against the bulletproof glass.

Inside the car, I could see Marcus Vance returning fire through the driver’s side firing port, his muzzle flashes illuminating the terrified silhouette of Emily huddled on the floorboards behind him.

The man with the cigar was Major General Victor Sterling.

“Cease fire!” Sterling called out, raising a leather-gloved hand. His deep, cultured voice carried easily over the howling wind. “Marcus Vance! Step out of the vehicle and surrender the girl! You are harboring an undocumented witness in a classified federal matter! Stand down, Sergeant, or I’ll have you buried in an unmarked ditch in Leavenworth!”

Vance’s voice cracked through the car's exterior speaker: “The only way you get this little girl, Sterling, is over my dead body!”

“A very acceptable alternative,” Sterling said coldly. He nodded to his lead operator. “Toss a thermite grenade through the undercarriage. Burn them out.”

The operator reached for his tactical belt.

He never touched the pin.

I stepped out of the shadow of a derailed boxcar, leveled my sidearm with both hands, and fired two rounds through the operator’s knees. The man collapsed into the mud with a howl of agony.

Sterling didn't flinch. He slowly turned his head, his silver hair plastered to his forehead by the storm, and looked at me across the thirty yards of sodden ground.

“Sebastian,” Sterling said, his voice dripping with smooth condescension. “You look dreadful. That uniform used to mean something before you dragged it through the Chicago sewers.”

“Call off your dogs, Victor,” I said, walking forward step by step, my weapon trained dead-center on the bridge of his nose. “The servers below are wiped. Eleanor is in zip-ties. I have the procurement ledgers, the Swiss routing numbers, and the contract kickbacks. Your career is finished. Your life is over.”

Sterling smiled, an ugly, arrogant twitch of his thin lips. He took a slow puff of his cigar and tossed the glowing butt into a puddle.

“You still think like a field commander, Sebastian. Always tactical. Never strategic.” He gestured toward the south canal. “Do you think I care about the ledgers? By tomorrow morning, the Senate will announce that General Sebastian Ross suffered a tragic psychological collapse following the loss of his son, murdered his ex-wife in a psychotic rage, and died resisting arrest. The media will eat it alive. And your little boy? He’s already floating past the outer harbor.”

A horrific realization hit me.

The launch at Slip 14 was never the plan. The drainage conduit was a decoy.