Page 36 of Love for Thea

“Wait,” Hurricane said, sniffing the air. “Maybe I can make room after all.”

Drawn forward, they entered the den, a glowing cave of blue monitors, where a table was already laid out with thick sandwiches, sides, and glasses of iced tea. Logan and Mace were deep in the digital hunt, unaware of their arrival.

“Logan, talk to me,” Grizzly said, leaning over his brother’s shoulder. “Thorne was on that ridge. How did he clear the valley that fast?”

“He didn’t use the facility pad,” Tex’s voice cut in over the speakers. “Thorne had a private express-lift to a hidden sub-pad on the summit. He was wheels-up in a modified AW-609 VTOL before you even hit the tarmac. He’s faster than you, but Wolf is closing from the north.”

“He’s pushing that VTOL to the limit toward the Cody strip,” Logan said at the same time, his eyes locked on the red blip. “He’s likely got a long-range jet fueled and idling. If he makes that transfer, we lose the drive and the data forever.”

Tex’s tired voice filled the room, sharp despite the sleepless hours at the computer. “It’s worse than that. I just finished scraping a ‘Dead-Drop’ file from Thorne’s private server. It’s titled ‘The Icarus Protocol.’ Mace, Logan, I’m pushing the decrypted handshake specs to your board now.”

Mace and Logan leaned in, their faces illuminated by the rapid, sickly green scroll of code.

Behind them, Carole paced the narrow confines of the hallway outside the den, her hands knotted together.

“I don't understand,” Carole said, her voice strained. “If he blows the mountain, he loses the facility. He loses the harvest. Why would he destroy the very thing he spent billions to build?”

Mace didn’t look up from the screen. “Because he’s not just harvesting energy anymore…”

“…he’s harvesting a payout,” Logan finished, his fingers flying in sync with his brother’s.

“Thorne isn't planning on answering a subpoena,” Mace added.

“He’s planning on leaving a crater,” Logan said. “The kinetic harvest happens in the first three seconds of the collapse: a massive energy spike he can siphon into his off-shore servers before the sensors melt.”

Mace nodded sharply. “And the explosion?”

“Buries the bodies,” Logan said tonelessly.

“Buries the illegal tech,” Mace countered.

“And buries the environmental crimes,” they said in unison.

“Under ten million tons of granite,” Carole went pale as she finished their thought. “Scorched earth.”

Logan’s head tilted, his eyes tracking a new line of telemetry. “He’s not leaving it to a timer or a remote trigger,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “That’s too unreliable for a man like Thorne. He wants to be certain he’s clear of the blast zone before the mountain exhales.”

“He’s tied the destruction to his flight envelope,” Mace added, tapping a glowing icon on the map. “The mountain won't move until he's reached his ceiling. It’s a platform-specific trigger.”

Mace’s voice tightened as the script finalized. “Thorne has an altitude-sensitive script embedded in the flight computer of his Gulfstream. Look at the handshake requirements: the moment that specific transponder hits three thousand feet, it broadcasts a wide-spectrum pulse back to the C5 site.”

Thea stepped forward, eyes narrowing as she studied the frequency numbers Logan highlighted. She didn’t understand all their jargon, but she grasped the physics behind those specific kilohertz.

“Wait,” she said, her voice sharp and clinical. “That frequency, Mace—if the resonators get a pulse at that exact interval, they won’t just stop or start. They will shift to a high-frequency sustained vibration.”

Logan looked up at her, his expression mirroring Mace’s grim focus. “What does that mean?”

She turned to Ben, her gaze piercing. “Ben, three thousand feet is the exact altitude where that signal gains clear line-of-sight to the Stone Ribs. That frequency matches the seismic resonance of the granite cap. If he reaches that altitude, the resonators will not just pierce the magma chamber but will act like a sonic hammer and shatter the entire caprock.”

“He’s turning his own escape into the detonator,” Grizzly muttered, the realization hitting him like a physical blow.

Mace didn’t wait for an order. He keyed the high-priority line to the East Coast. “Commander Bennett, Ranch Lead. We have a seismic trigger confirmation. Target has a platform-specific handshake tied to his flight ceiling. The moment he clears three thousand feet, his Gulfstream’s transponder will trigger the resonators at full resonance.”

He paused, the passion in his tone reflecting the terrifying knowledge he’d absorbed from Thea. “He’s planning to shatter the caprock to mask his departure. He has total disregard for the tectonic integrity. If he hits that ceiling, he initiates a planetary-scale injection event. He’s trading the global atmosphere for a power-grid monopoly. He’s going for a man-made nuclear winter.”

There was a three-second silence on the line: the sound of the Pentagon processing an extinction-level threat.

“Ranch Lead, this is Bennett,” her voice came back, no longer just authoritative, but chillingly flat. “Wolf, Pacific One is ninety seconds from your position. His ROE is now ‘Total Neutralization.’ Picasso, Atlantic One. Stop that jet. If you can’t stop it on the ground, you are authorized to use any means necessary to keep it from hitting three thousand feet. God help us all. Bennett out.”