35. Lucas
LUCAS
Geneva appeared beneath us in the morning light.
Clean streets.
Blue water.
Snow-covered mountains in the distance.
Thousands of people moved through the city with no idea how close they had come to dying.
A portable biological weapon waited beneath one of those streets.
So did one of Minser’s operatives.
Minser himself remained somewhere outside the city, moving pieces we couldn’t see.
I touched the pocket beneath my vest.
Ghost’s one-use wafer rested inside.
A copy of Fate’s second encryption key.
Part of the reason my marriage had been destroyed.
Wynn sat beside me.
Her head rested against my shoulder.
She hadn’t slept.
None of us had.
Blood stained her clothes.
A bandage circled her thigh.
Another covered the cut along her hairline.
Her emerald eyes remained fixed on the live bank-security display.
The vault shutters were still closed.
The dispersal unit remained stable.
Elise and Camille were alive inside the hostage alcove.
Minser’s operative hadn’t appeared on any camera for nearly two hours.
That bothered me.
“Where is he?”
Hawk checked another security feed.
“Still no movement.”
“He didn’t disappear.”
“No. But he may have found a blind spot.”
Adam studied the bank plans.
“There are seventeen cameras inside the vault level. Three maintenance corridors. Two emergency exits.”
“All sealed,” Wynn said.
“Supposedly.”
She leaned closer to the screen.
“What?”
I recognized the look on her face.
The journalist had seen something.
She replayed the final image from the primary-vault camera before it went black.
The masked operative stood near the dispersal unit.
Blood covered one side of his face.
Behind him, a section of wall appeared darker than the rest.
“There.”
Hawk enlarged the image.
A thin line ran vertically through the stone.
“A door,” Adam said.
Wynn shook her head.
“There isn’t a door on the bank plans.”
“Then the plans are incomplete.”
“Elise would know.”
I opened the emergency channel.
“Elise.”
Her voice answered almost immediately.
“We’re here.”
“Is there a concealed exit inside the primary vault?”
“No.”
Wynn stepped toward the radio.
“Look at the wall behind the private-box shelves.”
“That’s solid concrete.”
“Are you sure?”
A pause.
Then Camille’s voice came through.
“Mother.”
“What?”
“The old passage.”
Silence followed.
“What old passage?” I asked.
Elise sighed.
“The bank was constructed above a nineteenth-century treasury. Some of the original tunnels remain beneath the vault.”
“Do they connect to the primary chamber?”
“They shouldn’t.”
“That isn’t an answer,” Wynn said.
“The bank sealed them decades ago.”
Hawk studied the dark line on the screen.
“Someone reopened one.”
“From which side?” Adam asked.
Hawk examined the vault’s final security logs.
“The passage was opened from the tunnel side before biological containment activated.”
Wynn closed her eyes.
“Minser had another operative inside the bank.”
“One we never saw,” I said.
“How long has he known about the box?” Adam asked.
“Long enough to prepare,” Wynn answered.
Our aircraft descended toward a private airport outside Geneva.
Colonel Demir had contacted one person inside Swiss security.
Commander Emil Roth.
No military chain of command.
No international task force.
No one General Kane could easily reach.
Roth waited beside the runway with six members of a tactical-response unit.
Their vehicles carried no markings.
Their uniforms bore no insignia.
Good.
The fewer people who knew we were alive, the better.
The aircraft touched down.
Before it stopped moving, Adam was standing.
“Final assignments. Hawk maintains control of the bank-security system. Wynn and Lucas open the joint box and secure the encrypted drive. I’ll coordinate with Roth.”
“And Minser’s operative?” I asked.
“Alive if possible.”
“Why?”
“He may know where Minser is going.”
“He threatened Wynn.”
“I’m aware.”
“He helped activate a biological weapon.”
“And I want him alive.”
I didn’t answer.
Wynn touched my arm.
“Lucas.”
“I heard him.”
“That isn’t the same as agreeing.”
“No. It isn’t.”
The aircraft stopped.
The door opened.
Cold Swiss air entered the cabin.
We moved.
Commander Roth met us at the bottom of the stairs.
Late forties.
Close-cropped blond hair.
Calm eyes that missed nothing.
He shook Adam’s hand.
“You are officially dead.”
“So we’ve heard.”
“My government received notice of your deaths four hours ago.”
“From whom?”
“General Robert Kane.”
Adam and I exchanged a look.
Kane hadn’t only erased us from American records.
He had announced our deaths internationally.
Roth continued.
“Banque Laurent has been evacuated. The perimeter is secure. The public explanation is a gas leak.”
“Any sign of Minser?” I asked.
“No confirmed sighting. No one has entered or left the bank since containment activated.”
“He had at least two operatives inside. One may have accessed an underground passage before the lockdown.”
Roth’s expression changed.
“What passage?”
“We’ll show you.”
We loaded into two armored vehicles.
The drive into Geneva took nineteen minutes.
Every second felt wasted.
People walked along sidewalks.
Sat outside cafés.
Waited for buses.
Ordinary lives.
Fate saw them as numbers.
Pressure points.
Casualties capable of producing a profitable response.
I saw Wynn.
Camille.
Elise.
Every family inside the warehouse.
Lives.
Not outcomes.
The bank appeared at the end of a quiet street.
Stone exterior.
Tall windows.
Brass lettering.
Nothing about it suggested a biological weapon waited beneath the floor.
Roth’s team had cleared the surrounding buildings.
Two men in protective suits guarded the entrance.
He handed each of us a compact respirator.
“Wear these below ground. Biological sensors remain negative, but we aren’t trusting them.”
For once, everyone agreed.
We entered through the rear security door.
The bank’s upper floors were empty.
Telephones rang inside abandoned offices.
Computer screens glowed.
A cup of coffee sat on one desk, still half-full.
The evacuation had been fast.
Hawk connected his tablet to the bank-security network.
“Vault seal holding.”
“Elise and Camille?”
“Hostage-alcove oxygen stable.”
“Primary chamber?”
“No movement.”
We reached the elevator.
Roth pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
“Containment disabled it.”
“Stairs,” Adam said.
We descended three levels.
The air grew colder.
Thicker.
At the bottom waited a reinforced steel door.
Two biometric scanners flanked it.
Wynn approached the first.
I moved toward the second.
Our names appeared.
WYNN SPENCER.
LUCAS SPENCER.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“Together,” she said.
“Always.”
We placed our hands against the scanners.
The locks disengaged.
The steel door opened.
Inside, emergency lights bathed the corridor in red.
One passage led toward the hostage alcove.
Another toward the primary vault.
Adam pointed toward Elise and Camille.
“Wynn, with me.”
I caught her arm.
“No.”
“We need to secure the hostages first.”
“I’m going with her.”
“Lucas, the duplicate key stays away from Minser’s operative.”
“The wafer stays with me. And I stay with Wynn.”
Adam’s expression hardened.
“This isn’t the time.”
“It’s exactly the time.”
Wynn looked between us.
“I don’t need both of you.”
I stared at her.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
She almost smiled.
Then she touched my chest.
“You need to secure the primary chamber. Adam will be beside me.”
“I need to secure you.”
“Elise and Camille are behind a locked barrier. Adam and two members of Roth’s team will be with me.”
“He’s very bossy.”
Adam raised one eyebrow.
“He’ll fit right in.”
I didn’t want to leave her.
Every instinct warned me not to.
But we had come to stop Fate.
If Minser’s operative escaped, he would come after the wafer I carried.
Not Wynn.
I touched her cheek.
“Stay with Adam.”
“I will.”
“Do exactly what he says.”
She smiled faintly.
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
I kissed her forehead.
Then her mouth.
Quick.
Firm.
A promise.
“I’m coming back.”
Her eyes filled.
“So am I.”
We separated.
Wynn and Adam moved toward the hostage alcove with two members of Roth’s team.
Hawk, Roth, and I headed toward the primary vault.
The security shutters waited ahead.
One protected the portable dispersal unit.
The second sealed the operative inside the main chamber.
Hawk checked the control panel.
“Still locked.”
“Can you open it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Should you?”
Roth raised his weapon.
“Only enough for us to enter.”
Hawk entered the authorization.
The shutter lifted six inches.
We crouched.
No movement inside.
Another foot.
Still nothing.
When the opening reached three feet, I rolled beneath it.
Roth followed.
Then Hawk.
The primary vault appeared empty.
Rows of private boxes covered the walls.
The passage behind them stood open.
A dark trail of blood led toward it.
“He used the tunnel,” Roth said.
“Not yet.”
I saw movement beneath the lowest row of boxes.
A boot.
I raised my rifle.
“Come out.”
Silence.
Then the operative fired.
The bullet slammed into the steel box beside my head.
I dropped behind a stone counter.
Roth returned fire.
The operative lunged from cover and ran toward the concealed passage.
Hawk triggered the emergency shutter.
Steel crashed down across the tunnel entrance.
The operative stopped inches from it.
I hit him from the side.
We struck the floor together.
He drove an elbow toward my wounded shoulder.
Pain tore through me.
I trapped his arm and rolled.
He reached for a knife.
Roth kicked it away.
The man fought hard.
Desperate.
But three days of blood loss had taken its toll.
I drove him against the floor and secured his wrists.
“Where is Minser?”
He laughed.
“You’re too late.”
“For what?”
“He’s already gone home.”
“Where is home?”
The operative smiled through the blood on his teeth.
“Where Fate began.”
Roth pulled him upright.
“We’ll continue this conversation upstairs.”
Hawk examined the trail near the passage.
“Some of this blood is older.”
“From a second person?”
“At least one.”
The concealed passage had been used before the lockdown.
The operative we captured had remained with the weapon.
Someone else had escaped.
My radio crackled.
Adam’s voice.