28. Lucas
LUCAS
Seventeen minutes.
Enough time to die.
Not enough time to stop it.
The digital clock glowed above the four server units.
17:43.
17:42.
17:41.
The hum of the containment systems deepened.
Red warning lights blinked across their control panels.
Hawk moved closer.
“Don’t touch anything,” Ghost warned.
“I wasn’t planning to hug them.”
Boone stared at the units.
“That’s disappointing. You look like you need affection.”
“I need a hospital.”
Boone shifted his weight off his injured ankle.
“We all need a hospital.”
I looked around the hangar.
Metal shutters covered every door and window.
No visible control panel.
No weapons.
No tools.
The false colonel and his men had taken everything.
The evidence drive.
The metal tag.
Colonel Demir’s key card.
Everything except us.
That was their mistake.
The airfield workers remained seated along the far wall, their wrists secured with plastic restraints. Colonel Demir sat among them, his face bruised and bloodied.
Ghost’s hands were bound behind his back.
So were Adam’s and the rest of the Brave’s.
Only Wynn and I had been restrained with our hands in front.
They needed us alive to open the Geneva box.
For the moment, that made us valuable.
I approached the nearest airfield worker.
“Can anyone tell me how to open the shutters?”
A woman answered in Turkish.
Ghost translated.
“Controls are in the tower.”
“Can we reach them from inside?”
“No.”
“Manual release?”
She pointed toward the opposite wall.
A steel cabinet sat behind the server units.
“Hydraulic controls,” Ghost said.
“Can we open it?”
“She says it requires the colonel’s key card.”
The same card I had seen the false officer take from Demir before leaving.
Wynn looked toward the real colonel.
“He was signaling us.”
Ghost moved as close to Demir as his restraints allowed.
“What were you trying to say?”
The colonel answered in Turkish.
“He says the countdown is connected to the emergency generator.”
Hawk studied the heavy cables running from the units.
“If we disconnect the generator, the internal batteries could activate.”
“What happens then?” Adam asked.
“They may accelerate the warming cycle.”
Boone sighed.
“Why can’t anything be simple?”
Wynn moved closer to the first containment unit.
“What temperature are they trying to reach?”
Hawk examined the display without touching it.
“Thirty-seven degrees Celsius.”
“Body temperature,” Wynn whispered.
Ghost’s expression darkened.
“That suggests something biological.”
Hawk nodded.
“Something designed to become active inside the human body.”
Silence settled over the hangar.
Something alive might be waiting inside those sealed compartments.
Something General Kane intended to release.
I looked toward the airfield workers.
“How many people live near here?”
Ghost translated my question.
Colonel Demir answered.
“Thousands.”
Wynn’s face lost its color.
“If those containers open…”
“Everyone downwind could be exposed,” Hawk said.
“Could be?” Boone asked.
“I’m not opening one to find out.”
The clock continued counting down.
16:58.
16:57.
16:56.
Adam pulled against the restraints around his wrists.
“We need everyone free.”
Colonel Demir shifted closer to Wynn. He twisted awkwardly, exposing the edge of something concealed beneath his waistband.
A thin ceramic cutter.
Beside it sat a small black card.
Not the key card the false colonel had stolen.
A backup.
Wynn carefully removed both.
Demir said something to Ghost.
“He says every airfield commander carries an emergency card separate from the primary one.”
“Smart man,” Wynn said.
Adam turned his bound hands toward her.
“Let’s hope they were careless enough to miss both.”
Wynn used the ceramic blade to cut through his restraints.
Adam freed Ghost first.
Then Hawk.
Russ.
Boone.
The airfield workers.
Finally, Colonel Demir stood unsteadily.
Ghost supported him while Adam took the backup card.
“Hydraulic cabinet.”
I moved toward the server units.
Hawk caught my arm.
“Walk around them.”
“That takes longer.”
“You don’t know whether they have motion sensors.”
I walked around.
Wynn followed.
“No.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“You stay back.”
“We don’t have time for this.”
“I agree.”
“Then move.”
She stepped around me and reached the cabinet first.
I closed my eyes.
The woman was going to kill me long before Meridian managed it.
She slid the card across the reader.
The light remained red.
“Try again.”
She did.
Nothing.
Colonel Demir spoke urgently.
Ghost translated.
“The backup card has been deactivated.”
“Can Hawk bypass it?”
Hawk was already removing the reader’s outer panel.
“Probably.”
“How long?”
“Ten minutes.”
The clock showed sixteen.
“That’s cutting it close,” Boone said.
Hawk glanced at his injured ankle.
“Feel free to take over.”
“I prefer management.”
I studied the cabinet.
Steel door.
Reinforced hinges.
Electronic lock.
The wall surrounding it was sheet metal.
“We don’t need to open the cabinet.”
Hawk looked at me.
“What?”
“We go through the wall.”
I grabbed a metal chair.
Adam understood immediately.
Together, we slammed it against the panel beside the cabinet.
Once.
Twice.
The wall dented.
Russ and Ghost joined us.
The fourth strike split the metal.
The fifth opened a gap.
We tore the damaged panel away.
Hydraulic lines ran behind the cabinet.
Hawk pointed toward a red lever.
“Emergency release.”
I reached through.
“Wait,” Wynn said.
Everyone stopped.
She stood near the first unit, staring at its control panel.
“What?”
“The temperature is rising faster.”
The display had reached thirty-one degrees.
The countdown still showed more than fifteen minutes.
Hawk moved beside her.
“They aren’t linked.”
“What does that mean?” Adam asked.
“The timer isn’t counting down to activation temperature.”
“Then what is it counting down to?”
Hawk looked toward the ceiling.
Large ventilation ducts crossed the hangar. Industrial fans sat above each server unit.
The system wasn’t designed to release whatever waited inside those compartments at ground level.
It was designed to carry the agent into the air.
“The dispersal system,” he said.
Wynn followed his gaze.
“They’re going to pump it through the vents.”
Hawk nodded.
“The countdown activates the fans.”
“If we open the shutters…”
“The agent could escape beyond the hangar.”
Boone looked toward the hydraulic lever.
“So we can’t leave?”
“Not until we stop the containment units.”
I released the lever.
We were trapped by more than steel shutters.
Opening them could kill thousands.
The clock reached fifteen minutes.
Adam turned toward Hawk.
“What do you need?”
“To know what’s inside.”
“No,” I said. “That isn’t happening.”
“I can’t disarm a system I don’t understand.”
Ghost examined a laboratory code printed beneath one control panel.
“These units passed through a research facility in Prague.”
“Which facility?” Wynn asked.
“No name. Only a code.”
She read the numbers.
Then went still.
“I’ve seen that code.”
“Where?”
“In the financial records. One payment went to a medical research facility that officially developed vaccines for hemorrhagic fevers.”
Hawk looked at the units.
“And unofficially?”
“The payment was listed beneath Aegis.”
Ghost swore.
“What?” I demanded.
“Aegis wasn’t a target directory,” he said. “It was the defense program.”
“Defense against what?”
“Whatever Fate releases.”
Wynn shook her head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Fate isn’t only predictive software.” Ghost pointed toward the sealed compartments surrounding the servers. “Fate identifies populations vulnerable to collapse. Meridian creates the event that breaks them. Aegis protects Meridian’s people from their own weapons.”
“A post-exposure treatment,” Wynn whispered.
“Yes.”
The horror grew.
Meridian hadn’t merely created a biological weapon.
They had created protection for the people they chose to save.
“Hawk,” Adam said. “Options.”
“Find the primary control module. Disable the dispersal system. Return the containment units to normal cooling.”
“Can you do that?”
“If I can reach the controller.”
He examined the four servers.
“They’re networked. One core unit controls the others.”
“Which one?”
I studied the equipment.
Three units appeared identical.
The fourth had an additional shielded cable running beneath it and a small designation on its control panel.
FATE CORE.
“There,” I said.
Hawk followed the thicker cable to a junction box beneath the unit.
“That’s the primary controller.”
The clock read 13:42.
Adam looked around the team.
“Hawk works the controller. Ghost, assist him. Russ and Boone, search for another exit. Lucas, secure the perimeter. Wynn?—”
“I’m helping Hawk.”
“No,” I said.
Adam ignored me.
“Do it.”
I turned toward him.
“She’s injured.”
“So is every man in this hangar. She understands the files and may recognize something we don’t.”
Wynn touched my arm.
“I’m not leaving your sight.”
“That isn’t the same as being safe.”
“No. It isn’t.” Her voice softened. “But you said we do this together.”
She used my own promise against me.
I hated how effective it was.
“Stay beside Hawk.”
“I will.”
“Don’t touch the unit.”
“I won’t.”
“Don’t—”
“Lucas.”
She raised one eyebrow.
“I understand.”
I didn’t believe her.
Not completely.
But I stepped away.
Colonel Demir led Russ and Boone toward a maintenance hatch near the rear wall. Adam organized the airfield workers.
I moved toward the hangar’s only visible entrance and listened.
Engines started outside.
Meridian was leaving.
No guards.
No witnesses.
They were confident the biological agent would erase everything.
Including evidence of their presence.
Hawk opened the primary control panel.
Wires.
Circuits.
A small digital screen.
The display requested an authorization code.
“What do you need?” Wynn asked.
“Six digits.”
“Can you bypass it?”
“Not before the fans activate.”
“Try significant dates.”
Ghost looked at the screen.
“Minser used dates for access codes.”
“Which dates?”
“Missions. Deaths. Events he considered important.”
“What happened at the observation post?” Wynn asked.
“October seventeenth.”
“What year?”
“Eight years ago.”
Hawk entered the six-digit date.
ACCESS DENIED.