Read Chapter 33: Northern Exposure

The ferry's diesel engine thrummed beneath Élise’s boots as the gray-green water of the fjord slid past the porthole. She’d traded her naval-issue jacket for a grease-stained parka, her hair tucked under a woolen cap. Beside her, two of Marchand’s operatives—a wiry man named Iversen and a silent woman called Petra—sat with the practiced stillness of people who’d done this before. Élise had done this before, too, but never like this. Never with her own face plastered across newsfeeds as a dead traitor.

The factory loomed ahead, a brutalist concrete slab wedged into the cliffs, its rusted exterior betraying nothing of what churned inside. A single smokestack coughed grey vapor into the pale sky. The dock was quiet, save for a handful of workers unloading crates from a supply boat. Iversen nodded at her. Their cover was simple: transit workers ferrying maintenance parts from the boat to the loading bay.

They moved with the rhythm of men and women who did this every day. Élise hoisted a heavy steel crate, letting the weight settle into her shoulders, and followed Iversen through the bay doors. The air inside hit her like a wall—warm, metallic, laced with the sharp tang of ozone and something else, something organic and wrong. The vibration bombs weren’t just assembled here. They were grown, or tuned, or… she didn’t have time to think about it.

The assembly line stretched across the cavernous floor in a serpentine of conveyor belts and robotic arms. At its heart, a massive central core pulsed with a dull amber light, surrounded by technicians in white suits who moved with the mechanical precision of the machines they served. Élise’s jaw tightened. Sophie had died to put her here. She couldn’t afford to fail.

Petra split off toward the far end, her crate concealing a compact charge. Iversen took the middle. Élise made for the core, her heart hammering against her ribs. She set the crate down beside a junction box, her fingers finding the plastique hidden in its false bottom. Fifty seconds. That’s all they’d agreed on. Fifty seconds to plant, then a silent retreat to the boat.

She was molding the charge against the core’s housing when a voice cut through the hum of machinery.

“You.”

She froze. A security guard, broad-shouldered and pink-faced, was staring at her from ten meters away. His eyes narrowed, moving from her face to the cap, back to her face. Recognition flickered across his features like a struck match.

“You’re the woman,” he said, his accent thickening with shock. “From the news. The one who died—you’re her.”

“I’m nobody,” Élise said, forcing a smile. “Just here to fix the”—she gestured vaguely at the junction box—“the thing.”

But the guard was already reaching for the radio at his belt. Élise moved without thinking. She snapped the charge into place—trigger unset, but it would be enough to slow them—and lunged. Her shoulder caught the guard in the chest, sending him sprawling into a stack of pallets. His radio clattered across the concrete.

“Now!” she shouted, hoping Iversen and Petra heard.

The alarm followed a heartbeat later, a shrill klaxon that bounced off the rafters and set the whole factory buzzing. White-suited technicians turned, confused, then alarmed. Somewhere behind her, a gunshot cracked. Petra. Élise didn’t look back. She sprinted toward the loading bay, Iversen materializing at her side, his arm bleeding through his sleeve.

“The charges aren’t armed,” he shouted over the noise. “We don’t have time to detonate from a safe distance.”

“We make time.” Élise grabbed his collar and pulled him through the bay doors. Bullets whined past, pinging off the metal frame. A worker dropped a crate, and it shattered at her feet, spilling what looked like circuitry into her path. She stumbled, and Iversen hauled her up.

The boat was still there, engine running, a miracle she barely had time to register. Petra was already aboard, her rifle raised, covering their retreat. Élise dove over the gunwale as another volley of gunfire chewed up the dock planks. The ferry surged forward, away from the dock, away from the factory that now swarmed with armed men.

She lay on the deck, gasping, the cold spray misting her face. Her hands were shaking. Not from fear. From rage.

“I have the detonator,” Petra said, holding up a small device. “But the charges aren’t placed close enough to the core. At best, we’ll destroy a portion of the assembly line. They’ll rebuild within a month.”

Élise sat up, wiping saltwater from her eyes. “A month is longer than they have. A month buys us time.”

“Time for what?” Iversen asked, grimacing as he tied a makeshift bandage around his arm. “We barely got out. They know who you are now. The navy will be back on your trail within the hour.”

“Then we don’t give them a trail.” Élise forced herself to think. Sophie’s voice echoed in her skull, the last coordinates she’d choked out. This was the place. This was the bomb. But it wasn’t the end.

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the detonator Petra had handed her. It was a simple device, but the weight of it felt immense. She pressed the button.

A muffled thump rolled across the water, followed by a secondary boom that shook the fjord. Plumes of smoke billowed from the factory’s roof, and the klaxon stuttered, then died. Élise watched the flames lick at the concrete, feeling neither triumph nor relief.

“A setback,” she said quietly. “Someone built this. Someone designed it, funded it, supplied it. If we destroy the factory and not the mind behind it, we’ve only made them angry.”

“What are you suggesting?” Petra asked.

“We need to know who’s really in charge. The malcontents stole the technology, Marchand thinks. But this operation was too coordinated, too quiet, to be the work of scattered dissidents.” Élise looked at the burning factory, at the workers scrambling on the dock like ants from a kicked nest. “There’s a manager. Someone who runs this place. If they’re still alive, they’ll run.”

Iversen’s face was pale, but he nodded. “We circle back. Take one on the road. Make them talk.”

“And if they’re dead?” Petra asked.

“Then we find their phone, their computer, their correspondence. Someone in that factory knows something.” Élise picked a wet strand of hair from her face, her gaze fixed on the smoke-stained sky. “We came here to stop a bomb. But bombs are just tools. The real weapon is the man holding the hammer.”

She turned away from the wreckage. The ferry banked into a narrow channel, cutting deeper into the fjord’s labyrinthine arms. Somewhere in the cliffs, she’d find a place to regroup. But first, she needed answers.

And she would not leave this frozen country until she had them.