Chapter 12 Tag
TAG
Vanguard had the lock picked and open in under two minutes.
The heavy steel door swung inward with a hydraulic hiss that echoed through the cavern, revealing the darkness beyond. I raised my torch to illuminate what lay inside.
“Christ,” he muttered beside me.
The space was modern, climate-controlled, and maintained—everything the ancient cavern surrounding it was not.
Metal shelving units lined the walls in industrial rows, all of them empty.
The air inside held that particular sterile quality of a space kept at a specific temperature and humidity, the kind of environment required for sensitive equipment or electronics.
I stepped inside, my boots echoing on the concrete floor. Nightingale followed, her torch sweeping methodically across every surface while Vanguard remained at the entrance, keeping watch.
The shelves bore signs of occupation. Not decades or even years ago. This had been in use far more recently than that.
“Tag,” Nightingale said, her voice tight with controlled urgency. “Look at this.”
She stood near the center of the space, her light focused on the floor. When I reached her, the chalk marks were impossible to miss.
Someone had created a grid across the concrete, outlining where the crates had been positioned.
The marks were faint but visible, laid out with exacting care—whoever had measured and marked these positions knew exactly what they were doing and where every piece of cargo should sit for maximum space efficiency.
“They were storing equipment here,” I muttered.
Nightingale was already moving, photographing everything with her mobile. She worked methodically, capturing every angle and every detail.
The walls drew my attention next. The scratches on them weren’t random, and the lack of dust on the shelves’ otherwise dirty surfaces confirmed the deliberate placement of crates of similar sizes.
“This indicates recent activity,” Vanguard commented from the doorway.
“You’re right.” Nightingale crouched near one of the chalk marks, angling her mobile to capture it. “These marks are fresh. No foot traffic has disturbed them, no air movement has worn them down.”
What we’d discovered settled over me like a weight.
This wasn’t some abandoned Cold War bunker or forgotten storage facility.
This was a present-day operation being conducted beneath my own estate, using infrastructure I didn’t know existed.
That I’d been walking above it for months, completely unaware, jarred me.
The far wall held the kind of industrial-grade equipment used for sensitive cargo.
Power cables ran along the ceiling to outlets that were clearly modern installations, not part of the original construction.
Whoever had outfitted this space had gone to considerable expense, and more importantly, they’d done it without anyone noticing.
“They’ll come back,” Nightingale said quietly, appearing at my shoulder. “Whatever was stored here, they moved it elsewhere. But they left the infrastructure intact. Which means—”
“They plan to use it again.”
Our eyes met in the torchlight. For a moment, the barriers between us dropped and I saw the same fear I felt—that we were always one step behind, that whoever was orchestrating this had been planning for years while we scrambled to catch up, that people would die because we couldn’t move fast enough.
Then she turned away, returning to her documentation, and the walls went back up.
The climate-control units still ran, pumping cold air into an empty room.
The electricity required to run this setup wasn’t insignificant.
Whoever had installed it must have tapped into the castle’s power supply before it reached the meters, making the drain invisible to anyone reviewing the estate’s utility usage.
Smart. Deliberate. The work of people who knew how to stay hidden.
We spent another twenty minutes examining every corner of the space. Vanguard checked the perimeter, looking for any other exits or hidden compartments, but the chamber appeared to be exactly what it seemed—a storage facility, emptied out, waiting to be filled again.
When Nightingale finally pronounced the documentation complete, we stood in the center of the empty chamber—three operatives surrounded by the ghost of whatever had been stored here.
“Ready?” I asked.
Nightingale nodded, shouldering her pack while Vanguard moved to the door, preparing to lead us aboveground.
One last glance around the space made me wonder how many other estates had similar facilities hidden in their foundations? How long had this network been operating? And most importantly—who was running it all?
“Tag?” Nightingale’s voice pulled me from my thoughts. She stood at the door, waiting, her expression unreadable in the torchlight.
“Coming,” I said, forcing myself to move.
We filed out of the chamber. Behind us, the steel door sealed shut with another hydraulic hiss, hiding its secrets once more.
But we’d found them. Whoever had been using this space would soon discover they were no longer working in the shadows.
The ascent took longer than the descent. The hours spent underground had drained us, each step upward feeling heavier than the last. Nightingale’s breathing remained even ahead of me, her torch beam cutting through the darkness with unwavering focus.
My mind raced through what we’d found. The climate-controlled chamber. The chalk grid. The evidence of use within the last few weeks. Labyrinth wasn’t just continuing—it was thriving, using my own estate as part of their distribution network.
We emerged into the undercroft an hour later. The late-afternoon sun filtered through the high windows, making me blink after the darkness below. The shift from the underground chill to the castle’s warmth made my skin prickle.
Douglas appeared at the top of the stairs, his expression sharpening when he saw our faces.
“Find anything?”
“Get Mrs. Murray to prepare food,” I said, my voice rough from hours of breathing stale air. “We need to brief Typhon within the hour.”
Douglas nodded and disappeared toward the kitchen.
“We’ll take a short break, during which time I’ll request a conference.”
“Thirty minutes?” Nightingale asked, already moving toward the doorway, with Vanguard close on her heels.
“Affirmative. We’ll meet in the study.”
She nodded and left.
I gave her enough time to retreat upstairs, then went to my suite to shower, hoping it would help clear my head if not my thoughts.
I stood under the hot water longer than necessary, washing away the underground grime while my mind churned through what we’d discovered.
Someone had been in the tunnels recently, which meant they might come back.
Once I returned downstairs, I rang Typhon. He answered on the second ring.
“Obsidian.”
“Requesting a full-team conference within the hour. We found active operations beneath Glenshadow. There’s evidence of use within the last few weeks.”
“I’ll contact the other teams. We’ll convene in thirty minutes.”
“Copy that,” I said, ending the call when Nightingale walked in. Her hair was still damp, pulled back in a sleek knot that emphasized her neck. She’d changed into dark trousers and a fitted burgundy jumper like she often wore.
I looked away before she caught me staring.
“Coffee?” I gestured to the pot Mrs. Murray had brought in, remembering it was what she chose yesterday.
“Please.”
I poured a cup, added sugar, and handed it across the desk. Our fingers didn’t touch, though I was acutely aware of how close they came.
“I’ve confirmed a team videoconference,” I said.
“I overheard,” she said. “In the meantime, I’ll cross-reference what we found with the intelligence from Syria.”
Neither of us spoke for several minutes. The silence between us wasn’t comfortable, but it was bearable—two operatives preparing for a briefing, nothing more.
Except it was so much more than that, and we both knew it.
Her teeth caught her lower lip as she concentrated, and the furrow between her brows deepened as she worked. She looked up, and this time, she caught me staring.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.” I cleared my throat. “Just…you’re good at this. Your job. Exceptionally so.”
Her expression flickered—surprise, perhaps at the compliment—but it was gone as quickly as it had come.
“You made sure I would be.”
“Nightingale, Leila—”
“The files are ready.” She angled the laptop so I could see the screen. “We should review the presentation order before the others join.”
The shutters came down, sealing her away from me again.
I stood beside her, both of us looking at the screen rather than each other, and began planning how to present what we’d found.
The videoconference went live at sixteen hundred hours.
My large monitor divided into multiple feeds, showing Con and Lex in Edinburgh, Ash and Sullivan at the borders, Archon and Prima somewhere in the Northern Highlands, and Gus and Renegade calling in from what looked like a hotel room.
Typhon and Viper occupied their own frames, likely both from London.
“Right then,” Typhon said, his voice cutting through the ambient noise from multiple locations. “Obsidian, you called this meeting. What did you find?”
I pulled up the first image on the screen—the steel door in the cavern beneath Glenshadow.
“We discovered modern infrastructure and signs of recent activity,” I began, cycling through the photos we’d taken.
“Were they moving AIWS components?” Typhon asked.
Nightingale leaned into frame. “Unknown. The space was empty when we found it. However, the setup suggests they stored sensitive equipment or electronics.”
Viper’s eyes sharpened. “How long has this been in use?”
“Impossible to say with certainty.”
“Understood,” said Typhon. “Moving on, then. Infidel, Edinburgh status?”