Chapter 27 - The Ghost on the Wire
Jax lunged forward, not with his usual high-speed airborne leap, but in a low, furious rush that kept his body six inches beneath the sightlines of the service counter.
The lead gunman raised his weapon, expecting a concussed, incapacitated animal.
Jax hit him at the knees. The impact tore the man’s footing from beneath him, sending him crashing backward against the fire doors as his submachine gun rattled across the floor. Jax didn't wait to pin him; he swiped his heavy jaw across the man’s headset, tearing the protective ear cup away.
The moment the gunman’s bare ears were exposed to the acoustic wash bouncing off the walls, the man let out a high-pitched scream, dropping his hands to his temples, paralyzed by the sheer concussive pressure of his own weapon.
"Down! Everybody down!" I shouted, rounding the partition with my service weapon up, engaging the second operator with two rapid shots to the shoulder and thigh.
The remaining two mercenaries realized their tactical surprise had been blown. They abandoned their equipment case on the floor, shoved their way into the emergency stairwell, and bolted down toward the subterranean delivery docks.
"Floor four is secure!" Captain Tommy’s voice broke through the radio as the audio technicians finally killed the master speaker breakers.
The high-frequency whine vanished.
The sudden silence was deafening. Around the hall, the fallen police dogs lay exhausted, attended to by medics, while Jax leaned his heavy chest against my knees, his tongue lolling, his breath coming in hot, shallow gasps.
I pulled out a small sterile saline wash from my belt, gently flushing his ear canals, wiping away the small flecks of blood that had formed at the outer edges of his ear cartilage.
"Good boy," I whispered, my voice thick with emotion. "You took the hit, Jax. You held the line."
He leaned his scarred snout into my palm, giving my wrist one firm, grounding lick, his copper eyes clear again. The pain was gone; only the hunt remained.
Dr. Rebecca Shaw, who had been on site with the emergency veterinary response team, knelt beside him with a stethoscope. After two tense minutes, she let out a long breath. "His tympanic membranes are bruised, but intact. He pushed through an acoustic assault that would have caused permanent nerve damage in an ordinary animal. His pain tolerance is off the charts, Marcus. But don't push him into another acoustic trap."
"We won't have to look for them," I said, pointing down at the abandoned equipment case by the elevator.
The case was made of military-grade carbon fiber. Inside sat a high-output signal generator wired into an encrypted cellular bridge, stamped with an old industrial logo: Cascadia Grid-Systems.
Attached to the logic board was a fiber-optic jumper cable labeled: Pioneer Square Transit Vault - Sub-Level 4.
"They weren't trying to assassinate the delegates," Tommy said, staring at the circuit boards. "They were using the convention center as an acoustic diversion to draw every tactical unit in King County to the fourth floor."
"What’s in the Pioneer Square transit vault?" I asked.
Tommy’s face paled. "The master junction for the entire regional power grid. The automated switching station that controls the electricity for Seattle City Light, the harbor navigation buoys, and the municipal hospital generators. If they blow that vault, half the state goes dark within seconds."
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I unclipped Jax’s tracking harness, swapping it for his reinforced close-quarters combat rig.
"They used high frequencies because they're afraid of what a dog can do in the dark," I said, racking the slide of my Glock. "Let's go show them why they were right to be afraid."
