Chapter 18
DELANEY
The maintenance tunnel smells like oil and decades of neglect.
My boots splash through standing water that hasn't moved since the last inspection—whenever that was.
Probably never. Committee headquarters sits three floors above us, gleaming and legitimate, while we creep through its maintenance tunnels.
Alex moves ahead, rifle ready, each step careful despite the water.
Behind me, Kane and Stryker maintain rear security.
Rourke's already in overwatch position somewhere outside with a clear line on our extraction route.
Tommy's voice whispers through my earpiece every thirty seconds with security updates.
"Guard rotation in ninety seconds," Tommy says. "Window opening."
My heart hammers against my vest. The body armor feels heavier than during training, pressing down on my shoulders with the weight of what we're about to do.
This isn't sparring in the gym or target practice at a range.
This is walking into a fortress full of people who will absolutely kill us if we're caught.
The rational part of my brain—the FBI profiler who spent years analyzing risk—screams that this is insane. The rest of me keeps moving forward because seventeen agents died and someone needs to prove who actually killed them.
Alex holds up a fist. Everyone freezes. He signals: two guards, stationary, around the corner. Kane and Stryker move up on silent count. The takedown happens fast—suppressed shots that sound like coughs in the enclosed space. Two bodies hit the ground without making noise that matters.
We keep moving.
The access ladder comes up exactly where Cross's intel said it would. Alex climbs first, rifle at the ready, clearing each level before signaling us forward. My arms burn by the second floor but I don't slow down. Can't slow down. The team's counting on me to do my part.
We reach the server level. The corridor stretches empty and sterile—white walls, fluorescent lights, no cover worth mentioning. Security cameras dot the ceiling every twenty feet.
"Cameras looping now," Tommy confirms. "You've got sixteen minutes before someone notices."
Sixteen minutes to reach the server room, download everything, and extract before this goes from covert operation to active combat.
Alex and I split from the main team. Kane and Stryker continue to the security station to hold that choke point. Our role is simpler and infinitely more dangerous—get to the servers, get the data, get out.
The server room door yields to Tommy's remote access. Inside, rows of black equipment hum with the white noise of expensive technology keeping secrets. Climate control keeps the temperature arctic. My breath fogs despite the vest and tactical gear.
"You're good," Alex says, taking up position by the door. "I've got security. You work."
Right. My job. The reason I'm here instead of safe at the operations center.
I move to the main terminal, pull out Tommy's custom device from my vest. The interface looks simple—plug it in, let Tommy work his magic remotely, download everything. But simple doesn't mean fast.
The device connects. My fingers fly across the keyboard, navigating security protocols Tommy already cracked. Data starts flowing—names, financial records, operational details, everything we need to prove the Committee ordered those murders.
While Tommy handles the remote download, I work on documentation.
Camera out, photographing each server rack, the terminal interface, the device connection.
Time stamps for everything. Chain of custody requires I document the physical source—which servers, which room, exact location.
Can't just have data appear magically. Need to prove where it came from, when it was acquired, who was present.
"Download initiated," I report. "Time estimate?"
"Eight minutes," Tommy responds. "Maybe nine if their system architecture is weird."
Eight minutes for the download. We've already used four getting here. That leaves twelve minutes on the camera loop. Minus eight for download means four minutes to extract before our cover's blown.
The math is bad.
"Alex," I start.
"I know." His voice is calm. Steady. "We work with what we have."
Gunfire erupts from somewhere above us—muffled by distance and concrete but unmistakable. The sharp crack of rifles in enclosed spaces.
"Contact!" Kane's voice cuts through comms. "They made us. Multiple hostiles, north corridor."
"How many?" Alex asks, scanning our door.
"Too many. We're pulling back to secondary position."
The download bar crawls across my screen. Three percent. The server room suddenly feels like a cage instead of an objective. We're three floors underground with one exit and Committee security responding to intruders.
More gunfire. Closer this time.
"Delaney, abort," Alex says. "We're leaving."
"Not without the evidence." I'm photographing the download progress, documenting everything. "Chain of custody breaks if I leave the device unattended. Evidence becomes worthless in court."
"That's not a request."
"It's almost done." I watch the progress bar crawl forward. "We're too close to quit now."
"You don't have time." His voice carries an edge I haven't heard before. Command authority with no room for argument. "They're coming."
"Then you better hold that door."
He moves to better cover position, rifle trained on the corridor. "Tommy, any way to speed this up?"
"Already running maximum bandwidth. Ninety seconds, maybe less if the last files are smaller."
The download hits twenty percent. Then twenty-five. Each percent takes forever while gunfire echoes through the facility. Committee security knows we're here. They're hunting us systematically, clearing each floor, boxing us in.
Forty percent. Sixty. Seventy-five.
"Multiple hostiles headed your way," Tommy warns. "Two minutes out, maybe less."
"Delaney..."
"Almost there." My hands are steady on the keyboard despite my heart trying to beat out of my chest. This is what I'm good at—documentation, evidence collection, building prosecutable cases. The Committee murdered seventeen people and blamed me. This data proves it.
Eighty-five percent.
Footsteps echo in the corridor. Multiple boots, tactical pace, professional movement. They're not running blind—they know exactly where we are.
"They're stacking on your position," Tommy says urgently. "Sixty seconds until breach."
Alex shifts his stance, finger on the trigger. "Delaney, we need to move. Now."
Ninety percent.
The server room has one door, no windows, and walls designed to contain expensive equipment. If they breach while we're inside, we're trapped in a kill box with no way out.
My training in evidence collection never covered improvising explosives under combat conditions. Good thing Alex's training did.
I grab the charges from my vest—small, directional, designed for exactly this situation. Place them on the backup servers across the room, set for remote detonation. Not enough to bring down the room but enough to create chaos.
Ninety-three percent.
"What are you doing?" Alex asks.
"Creating options." I return to the keyboard, watching the download accelerate. Ninety-six percent. Ninety-eight.
The door handle rattles. Someone's breaching. Alex's rifle tracks the movement.
"Delaney..."
"Five seconds."
The door starts to open—slow, controlled, tactical entry.
One hundred percent. Download complete.
I yank the device free, hit the detonator.
The charges blow with enough force to shake the floor. Not the servers I'm standing near—the ones across the room where I placed them. Smoke, sparks, and chaos erupt. The door slams shut from the pressure wave, buying us maybe ten seconds.
"Go!" I shove the device into my vest pocket, bringing my rifle up.
Alex moves first, clearing the doorway with practiced efficiency. Three Committee operatives are scattered in the corridor, disoriented by the blast. He drops two before they recover. The third gets his weapon up.
I fire. Three rounds center mass. The training takes over—stance, sight picture, trigger press. The operative goes down.
"Move!" Alex pulls me into the corridor, away from the server room that's rapidly filling with smoke.
We run. Behind us, shouts and gunfire. Ahead, the access point that got us in. We need to reach it before they cut off our route.
A figure appears at the corridor intersection. Committee operative, rifle rising. I'm faster—two shots that force him back into cover. Alex puts a round through the wall where the man's hiding. The operative doesn't reappear.
"Kane, we're coming to you!" Alex transmits.
"Negative, we're cut off. Head to extraction point Bravo."
"That takes us through the security station."
"Then you better move fast."
We hit the stairwell at a run. My lungs burn from the sprint in full gear but I don't slow down. Can't slow down. The evidence is in my vest pocket, irreplaceable and absolutely critical. If I go down, someone else needs to get it out.
"Alex," I gasp. "If something happens—"
"Nothing's happening."
A door above us crashes open. Footsteps pounding down stairs. They're boxing us in from both directions.
Alex stops, spins, fires up the stairwell. The footsteps pause. He grabs my arm, pulls me through a door into another corridor. This one's finished—carpeted, lit, looking like normal office space except for the bullet holes appearing in the walls around us.
We're taking fire from behind.
"Suppressing!" I drop to one knee, return fire at the doorway we just came through. Three-round burst that keeps their heads down. Alex moves ahead, clearing the next intersection.
"Clear! Come on!"
I follow, checking corners the way Stryker taught me. The corridor opens into a large room—security station, exactly where Cross's intel showed it. But instead of empty terminals, there are four Committee operatives taking cover behind workstations.
They see us the same moment we see them.