32. Lucas
LUCAS
Five minutes.
Boone, Russ, and Ghost were inside a service tunnel beneath a sealed bunker, with a biological weapon counting down below the rescued civilians.
And we were thousands of feet above the Black Sea.
Too far away to fight.
Too far away to help.
For the first time in my life, I understood exactly how Wynn had felt every time I deployed.
Helpless.
Terrified.
Listening to a man she loved walk into danger while she could do nothing except wait.
The knowledge hollowed me out.
Adam gripped the radio.
“Boone, describe your position.”
Static crackled.
Then Boone answered.
“We’re inside the service tunnel.”
“Distance to the bunker?”
“Approximately two hundred feet.”
“Obstacles?”
“A locked security gate.”
Ghost’s voice followed.
“Electronic controls are dead.”
“Can you breach it?” Adam asked.
“We lost the explosives in the crash.”
Boone sounded offended.
“I knew we forgot something.”
Russ answered.
“We didn’t forget them. The helicopter exploded.”
“Same result.”
A metallic crash echoed through the radio.
“What was that?” I demanded.
“Ghost is hitting the lock with a pipe.”
Another impact.
Then another.
“It isn’t working,” Russ said.
“I noticed,” Ghost muttered.
Hawk engaged the medical jet’s autopilot before examining the bunker plans on his tablet. He was qualified on military fixed-wing aircraft but had never flown this particular model.
Apparently, that wasn’t going to stop him.
“Service tunnels usually have mechanical emergency releases.”
“Where?” Adam asked.
“Near the ceiling.”
Boone groaned.
“Of course.”
“Can you reach it?”
“I have a broken ankle.”
Russ replied, “He’s mentioned that several times.”
“Because no one seems concerned.”
“I’m deeply concerned.”
“You don’t sound concerned.”
“I’m containing it.”
Ghost’s voice interrupted.
“I found the release.”
Metal scraped.
The gate opened.
“We’re through.”
The countdown continued over their radio.
04:07.
04:06.
04:05.
Wynn moved beside Hawk.
“Can you access the bunker’s ventilation system?”
“Not without a network connection.”
“Do they have one?”
“Boone,” Hawk called, “look for a communications panel inside the tunnel.”
“There’s nothing but pipes.”
“What color?”
Boone paused.
“All of them?”
“The largest.”
“Blue.”
“Water. Next?”
“Yellow.”
“Gas. Next?”
“Gray.”
“Communications conduit.”
Ghost struck something.
Metal split.
Russ muttered a curse.
“What happened?” Adam asked.
“Ghost tore open the gray conduit.”
“And?”
“There are approximately two hundred wires.”
Hawk closed his eyes.
“Wonderful.”
Boone laughed.
“He can carry an inflatable raft up a mountain, but two hundred wires upset him.”
“Find the junction box.”
Footsteps echoed through the radio.
Breathing.
Pain.
Every second passed too quickly.
03:36.
03:35.
03:34.
Captain Aras remained restrained on one of the medical stretchers.
He watched us with terror in his eyes.
Not for himself.
For his family.
“Where are they?” I asked him.
“I told you. I don’t know. Kane contacted me through the aircraft’s communication system.”
“How did he prove he had them?”
“He sent a photograph.”
“Show me.”
“My phone is in my flight bag.”
Wynn found it beneath the seat Aras had occupied before takeoff.
Locked.
“What’s the code?” she asked.
The pilot hesitated.
I leaned closer.
“We don’t have time.”
“Four-seven-two-nine.”
Wynn opened the phone.
A photograph showed a woman and two young boys seated inside a room.
No windows.
Concrete walls.
A man holding a rifle stood behind them.
“Recent?” Adam asked.
The pilot nodded.
“An hour before takeoff.”
Wynn enlarged the image.
“There’s a medical cabinet behind them.”
The cabinet bore a military inventory label.
Hawk glanced at it.
“Garrison Eighteen.”
Everyone went still.
The pilot’s family was inside the same bunker as the civilians.
Kane hadn’t only forced him to betray us.
He had gathered every hostage in one place.
“We’ll get them out,” I said.
The pilot looked toward the radio.
“You can’t promise that.”
“No. I can’t.”
The truth was becoming easier.
Not less painful.
Just necessary.
“But the Brave is inside. That’s the best chance anyone has.”
Boone’s voice returned.
“Found the junction box.”
Hawk guided him through connecting their field transmitter to the communication wires.
The aircraft banked unexpectedly.
I caught the edge of the instrument panel.
“Hawk.”
“I’m busy.”
“You’re flying sideways.”
“The autopilot is compensating for the damaged instrument panel.”
“Is it supposed to do that?”
“No.”
“That isn’t comforting.”
“Then stop asking questions.”
Wynn lowered herself into the empty copilot’s seat.
“What are you doing?” Hawk asked.
“Watching the controls.”
“You don’t know how to fly.”
“Neither does the autopilot, apparently.”
“I know how to fly.”
“Have you flown this aircraft?”
“No.”
“Then I’m supervising both of you.”
Hawk looked offended.
“That isn’t how flying works.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then the countdown sounded through the radio.
02:41.
02:40.
02:39.
The humor disappeared.
Hawk connected the field transmitter to his tablet.
A security map appeared.
“I’m in.”
“Find the weapon,” Adam ordered.
“Scanning ventilation controls.”
“Boone, continue toward the medical ward.”
“Moving.”
Gunfire erupted through the radio.
Wynn flinched.
I grabbed the handset.
“Boone!”
“We’ve got company!”
More gunshots.
Russ shouted.
“Two down!”
Ghost fired.
“Kane’s men are inside the tunnel!”
“Fall back,” Adam ordered.
“Negative,” Boone answered. “That device activates in two minutes.”
“You can’t stop it if you’re dead.”
“Then I’d better stay alive.”
The connection dissolved beneath automatic fire.
I stared at the radio.
Every instinct screamed at me to do something.
Run.
Fight.
Protect my team.
But there was nowhere to go.
Nothing to shoot.
Only the terrible sound of battle through a speaker.
Wynn touched my arm.
“This is what it was like.”
I looked at her.
“When you were gone,” she said. “I heard pieces. A telephone call. A news report. Sometimes another wife telling me there had been an attack. But I never knew whether you were alive.”
Her eyes glistened.
“I would sit beside the phone and imagine every possible way I could lose you.”
My chest tightened.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No.” I covered her hand with mine. “I understand now. Waiting feels worse than fighting.”
“Yes.”
“I never knew.”
“I didn’t want you to.”
“That was the problem.”
The radio exploded with gunfire again.
A strangled grunt came through the speaker.
Then Boone cursed.
“I’m hit.”
“Where?” Adam demanded.
“Side. Through and through.”
“Can you move?”
“I’m already moving.”
More shots followed.
Then Boone’s voice emerged again.
“Tunnel clear.”
Everyone exhaled.
“Status?” Adam asked.
“Russ has another scratch.”
Russ sounded irritated.
“It’s a bullet wound.”
“You called mine a scratch.”
“Yours is a scratch.”
“Everyone, stop bleeding,” Adam ordered.
Ghost spoke over them.
“We’re at the bunker wall. No entrance.”
The clock reached one minute and forty-seven seconds.
Hawk found the ventilation diagram.
“The Fate unit is beneath the central air handler.”
“How do they reach it?” I asked.
“They can’t.”
“What?”
“The chamber has no personnel entrance. It was built into the ventilation foundation.”
Wynn leaned over the tablet.
“Then how was the unit placed there?”
Hawk enlarged the plan.
“Through a construction shaft that was later sealed from above.”
“Where?”
“Inside the medical ward.”
The weapon could only be reached from the room where Kane stood with Janice.
Boone and his team remained below it.
“Can you shut off the air handler?” Adam asked.
“I’m trying.”
Hawk sent the command.
ACCESS DENIED.
He tried another route.
Denied.
“Minser’s encryption,” Ghost said through the radio.
“No,” Wynn answered. “Kane’s.”
“What’s the difference?” Boone asked.
“Minser uses significant personal dates. Kane uses military operations.”
“How do you know?”
“He sees people as assets. He’d use victories.”
I thought about everything Kane had said.
I funded the Brave.
I selected each man.
He considered the team his creation.
His weapon.
“What date was the Brave authorized?” I asked.
Adam looked at me.
“January twenty-third.”
“Year?”
“Five years ago.”
Hawk entered the six-digit date.
ACCESS DENIED.
ONE ATTEMPT REMAINING.
The countdown reached one minute.
“No more guessing,” Adam ordered.
Wynn stared at the control screen.
“Not the day the Brave was authorized. The day of its first successful mission.”
Adam’s expression changed.
“January twenty-seventh. Same year.”
Hawk entered the date.
For one endless second, nothing happened.
Then the ventilation controls opened.
ACCESS GRANTED.
“Shut it down!” Adam shouted.
Hawk sent the command.
COMMAND REJECTED.
PHYSICAL OVERRIDE REQUIRED.
Boone cursed through the radio.
“We’re tired of physical overrides!”
Thirty-eight seconds.
Hawk searched the plans.
“There’s an emergency pressure-release valve inside the tunnel. Fifty feet behind you.”
“What does it do?” I asked.
“It reverses the ventilation flow into an underground quarantine chamber.”
Ghost ran.
His footsteps hammered through the radio.
“Describe it.”
“Red wheel above the main pipe.”
“I see it.”
“Turn it counterclockwise.”
Ghost grunted.
“It won’t move.”
Twenty-seven seconds.
Russ reached him.
Metal groaned as both men pulled.
“Again!” Ghost shouted.
Twenty.
Nineteen.
Eighteen.
The valve moved.
Barely.
“Keep turning!”
Fifteen.
Fourteen.
Thirteen.
Boone joined them.
I could hear the pain in his breathing.
His injured ankle.
The bullet wound in his side.
The mountain.
The crash.
None of it mattered.
The Brave pulled together.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
The valve opened.
Air thundered through the tunnel.
The radio filled with a deafening roar.
Five.
Four.
Three.
The display froze.
00:02.
No one moved inside our aircraft.
“Boone?” Adam called.
Static.
“Russ?”
Nothing.
“Ghost?”
The bunker ventilation map changed.
The airflow reversed.
Instead of carrying the biological agent into the medical ward, the emergency system redirected the air toward the underground containment chamber.
Hawk stared at the readings.
“They did it.”
Wynn gripped my hand.
“What about the weapon?”
“Temperature falling. Dispersal disabled.”
Adam raised the radio again.
“Boone, report.”
Static answered.
Then a weak voice.
“Still here.”
Boone.
I closed my eyes.
“Russ?”
“Still ugly,” Boone replied.
Russ’s voice followed.
“I’m going to shoot him.”
“Good.”
Adam’s shoulders relaxed slightly.
“Ghost?”
No answer.
The relief disappeared.
“Ghost, report.”
Static.
Boone’s voice changed.
“He’s down.”
“What happened?”
“When the valve opened, the pressure line ruptured. Ghost took the impact.”
“Is he alive?”
A pause.
Too long.
“Barely.”
Wynn looked at me.
Ghost had saved them.
The man who had spent eight years hiding.
The man I had wanted to kill less than an hour ago.
“Get him out,” I said.
“We’re trying.”
Adam took control of the radio.
“Boone, locate Kane.”
“He’s still inside the medical ward.”
“Do not engage until the civilians are secure.”
“Kane has Janice.”
“I know.”
“He has the pilot’s family.”
“I know.”
Another gunshot echoed through the bunker.
Boone swore.
“What?” Adam demanded.
“Kane’s moving the hostages.”
“Where?”
“Upper level. He’s heading toward the helipad.”
Russ’s voice came through.
“He has armed men with him, and Ghost can’t move.”
Boone breathed hard.
Decision.
We all knew what he faced.
Chase Kane and leave Ghost.
Or save Ghost and allow Kane to escape with Janice and the pilot’s family.
Adam closed his eyes.
“Boone.”
“I know.”
“Get Ghost out,” Adam ordered.
“What about Kane?”
“We’ll find him again.”
“He has Janice.”
“I know.”
“He has Aras’s family.”
“I know.”
Fury and helplessness filled Boone’s voice.
The Brave had promised to protect every person rescued from that warehouse.
Boone would risk his life for any one of them.
Adam’s voice softened.
“Get Ghost out.”
Boone didn’t answer.
Then Ghost’s faint voice emerged.
“Go.”
“Shut up,” Boone said.
“Leave me.”
“Not happening.”
“Save the hostages.”
“We’ll save all of you.”
“You can’t.”
“Watch me.”
Gunfire erupted above them.
Helicopter rotors began turning.
Kane was leaving.
Boone made his decision.
“Russ, can you move Ghost alone?”
Russ answered after a brief pause.
“Yes.”
“Get him to the transport.”
“What are you doing?” Adam demanded.
“Bringing Janice and the others home.”
“Boone, you’re injured.”
“So is everyone else.”
“You’ll be alone.”
“No.”
His breathing steadied.
“I’m Brave.”
Silence filled the channel.
Adam stared at the radio.
Then his expression hardened.
“Russ, evacuate Ghost. Boone, pursue Kane—but you do not engage until you have a clean opportunity.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep the channel open.”
“I will.”
“Bring them home.”
“That’s the plan.”
The radio filled with Boone’s uneven footsteps.
Fast.
Determined.
Fading as he climbed toward the upper level.
Wynn squeezed my hand.
“He’ll make it.”
I looked toward the clouds outside.
I wanted to believe her.
But Boone was chasing General Kane through an underground bunker on a broken ankle with a bullet wound in his side.
And if he failed, Kane would disappear with the hostages.
The bunker weapon had been stopped.
The battle wasn’t over.
Not even close.