Donovan O'Niel's Arc

Chapter 3 of 11

The fight at the vault mouth was won, but the anger stayed. Days later Donovan sat in the Rangers Command Office, jaw tight. A recruit in Brad's camp had sold their plans to the raiders. They'd caught the informant and locked him up. But the damage sat heavy in Donovan's chest. His network was supposed to keep his people safe. Instead a leak nearly cost them the whole mission. "You're gnawing on it," Sinclair said from the doorway. The Red Hills recon officer stepped in, radio pack on his back, yellow eyes calm. Sinclair had run comms and decryption for their team since the vault job began. He set a compact HF transceiver on the table. "Guilt's a lousy negotiating partner, friend. Better to spend the leak than mourn it." "Spend it how?" Donovan asked. Sinclair tapped the hand-drawn map between them. Two small raider outposts, one main camp, twenty miles north. "The raiders don't know their radio channel is still open to us. Their informant fed them for weeks. We know his frequencies. We know his codes." He chuckled, dark and short. "They think that line went quiet when we grabbed him. It didn't." Donovan understood. He pulled his survey board close and studied the glowing map. "We send fake orders. Test whether they still trust the channel." "Test it clean," Sinclair said. "Feed them something we can watch happen. If they move, the line's live and we own it." They worked through the afternoon. Sinclair matched the informant's code style, clipped and lazy. Donovan tuned the transceiver to the raider band and checked the signal twice. The plan was simple. They'd send word that a supply cart was passing the eastern trail near the second outpost, lightly guarded, easy pickings. Real Rangers waited nowhere near it. If raiders showed, the channel was theirs to poison. Donovan keyed the handset. Sinclair read the message flat and bored, exactly like a tired informant. Then they waited by the receiver. An hour crawled past. Static. Then chatter broke on the raider band. Two voices, arguing over who took point. A third confirmed a squad rolling toward the eastern trail. Donovan leaned in, heart quick. On his survey board he watched a scout's marker, a Ranger far off with binoculars, blink a signal back. Six raiders had left the second outpost, heading exactly where the fake message sent them. "They bit," Donovan said. Sinclair grinned. "Every one of them. The line's live, gal to fool, and they don't know we're the ones talking." Donovan sat back. The anger finally eased. He had a working channel straight into the raider network, feeding him their movements. His comms plan had turned a betrayal into a weapon. But six armed raiders now marched toward a trail with no supply cart. When they found nothing, they'd know something was wrong. He had one clean window to use the open line before it closed for good.