Blackout Protocol

Chapter Twelve

The Lincoln Park safe house was a third-floor apartment above a Korean restaurant. Marcus could smell kimchi and grilled meat through the floorboards as he checked the windows for the third time in twenty minutes.

Still clear. No suspicious vehicles. No unmarked vans. No cops staking out the building.

He'd been here for two hours, and the waiting was killing him.

His phone; the compromised one, sat on the kitchen counter like a live grenade. He'd powered it on once, just long enough to see the message from Devereaux. Six hours. Now it was closer to four.

Four hours until the final activation.

Four hours until eight cops became murderers and then corpses.

Marcus paced the small apartment. Living room barely bigger than his cell had been. Kitchen with ancient appliances. Bathroom with a shower that probably hadn't been updated since the nineties. But it had a bed, running water, and…most importantly, no one knew he was here except Ellis.

And Ellis wasn't answering his calls.

Marcus had