“She answered a phone call from her own number: Line of Power

The call came at 3:47 a.m.

Agent Maya Vence sat upright in her D.C. apartment, heart pounding. The ringtone was soft, but the number glowing on her screen chilled her.

Incoming Call: Maya Vence

Her own secure agency number.

The kind of number only a handful of people had. Untraceable. Encrypted. The kind you don’t spoof. The kind you can’t.

She hesitated, then answered.

“This is Vence.”

A pause. Then, her own voice: clipped, professional, urgent.

“Maya. Listen carefully. In less than six hours, the vice president is going to be assassinated. You’re going to be blamed.”

Silence followed. Then the line went dead.

Maya sat motionless in the dark, phone still at her ear. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about the detail yet. She’d only just been assigned to the VP’s protective team, a last-minute shift due to an internal reshuffle. No public record.

She checked the number again. Her number. Outgoing.

Impossible.

She reached for her second phone—Agency Red. No missed calls. No messages.

But her gut was already in motion. Training kicked in.

She threw on a jacket, grabbed her firearm, and was out the door within two minutes.

By 4:30 a.m., Maya was in a secure briefing room at Langley. She didn’t waste time going through the chain of command—she went straight to Deputy Director Salazar.

He listened without blinking.

“You’re saying you got a call—from yourself—warning of an assassination?”

“Yes, sir. I know how that sounds.”

“You check logs?”

“It’s not on my official devices. But it wasn’t a hallucination. It was my voice, my cadence. It knew my assignment before anyone outside the building did.”

Salazar leaned forward. “The VP is delivering a speech at the Foreign Policy Summit this morning. If you’re right, this is bigger than rogue intel.”

Maya nodded. “This isn’t a lone wolf. Someone on the inside has access to black-level comms.”

Salazar stood. “If this is real, the kill won’t be flashy. It’ll be surgical. Quiet. Collateral pinned on someone plausible.”

She knew what he meant.

“You think I’m the scapegoat,” she said quietly.

“Wouldn’t be the first time they used a ghost to cover a kill,” he said grimly.

“Who’s they, sir?”

He didn’t answer.

By 6:15 a.m., Maya was in the perimeter team at the Capitol Hotel. The VP’s floor had been swept three times. No anomalies. No unusual chatter on encrypted comms.

She hadn’t told anyone else. She couldn’t.

A warning from herself? It sounded insane. It was insane. But she’d made a career out of trusting instinct.

At 6:58 a.m., the vice president’s private elevator came online. Maya’s comm crackled.

“Protective detail alpha, check-in.”

She responded automatically. “Alpha-one, position confirmed.”

Then, through the static—barely audible—a whisper on the line:

“Now.”

Maya’s blood went cold. It was her voice again.

She turned, just as the elevator doors opened.

Inside: two men. Suits. Lanyards. One smiled, lifting a case.

“I’m with White House AV,” he said smoothly. “Mic check for the VP—”

Maya had already drawn her weapon.

“Hands where I can see them. On the ground. Now.”

They hesitated. Too long.

She shot the case. It sparked—microexplosives. Detonator wired through a thermal relay.

The men went down fast, no time for resistance. Both armed. Both using federal credentials that would have passed any scan.

Internal.

Two hours later, Maya was sitting in a debriefing room with Salazar again. The men were part of an off-books special access unit—a program that had supposedly been dismantled years ago.

Salazar’s face was grim.

“You weren’t meant to stop it. The entire shift assignment was tailored to put you in the right place, right time, and with a trigger in your hand.”

She nodded. “They needed a clean scapegoat. One with enough training to make the narrative convincing.”

He folded his arms. “The attempt was covered up. Public story is a false alarm. Quiet medals, no headlines. But the Agency wants to know how you knew.”

“I don’t know.”

“Someone tipped you off.”

“No one. No person, at least.”

Salazar studied her. “You’re saying… you believe it was you?”

“I don’t know what I believe. But it wasn’t a recording. It responded. It knew.”

Salazar was quiet a moment. Then: “We ran trace routes on your phone after the call. One anomaly. A digital echo routed through something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

Maya looked up sharply. “What?”

“A decommissioned satellite. Part of the old Stargate Communication Relay. Shut down in 2014. No access since.”

“And the signal?”

“Looped. Bounced. Temporal signature is… inconsistent.”

“Temporal?” she echoed.

He shrugged slightly. “Let’s just say… it might have come from six hours ahead.”

They sat in silence.

After a moment, Salazar said, “If you get another call…”

“I’ll answer it.”

A week passed.

Maya didn’t sleep much. She was reassigned to internal intelligence, off the field.

Then one night, at exactly 3:47 a.m., her phone rang.

Incoming Call: Maya Vence

She answered.

Her voice—sharper now. Focused.

“They think you’re off the board. They’re wrong. Check the senator’s itinerary. The trade deal’s not the target. She is.”

Maya’s pulse quickened. “Who?”

“Senator Liang. She’s going to vote against the defense merger. They’ll take her out and use the chaos to fast-track the contract. You have 18 hours.”

“Who are you?” she whispered.

The voice on the line paused.

“I’m the version of you that didn’t listen soon enough.”

Then the line went dead.

Maya stared at the dark screen.

Another call. Another ghost from six hours ahead.

And somewhere in the shadows of Washington, someone powerful was planning another clean kill.

But now—they had her to deal with.

M Rackham Mann

@mr359

Scotland

M Rackham Mann has not written a story.