35. Lucas #2
“Elise and Camille secure.”
Relief filled me.
“Wynn?”
“She’s here.”
Her voice came through.
“I’m fine.”
I closed my eyes for half a second.
Alive.
Safe.
For now.
Wynn and Adam joined us inside the primary vault.
Elise and Camille remained with Roth’s officers in the secure corridor.
The moment Wynn saw me, her gaze swept over my body.
“You’re bleeding again.”
“It’s not mine.”
She looked toward the captured operative.
“I’m choosing to believe you.”
Hawk approached our joint box.
Its lock remained intact.
“No signs of forced entry.”
Minser’s people hadn’t opened it.
They couldn’t.
The account still required both of us.
Wynn moved to one side of the box.
I took the other.
Two biometric panels activated.
“Ready?” she asked.
“Yes.”
We placed our thumbs against the readers.
The locks released simultaneously.
The box opened.
Inside rested the encrypted drive containing Fate’s source code and the evidence Wynn had spent months gathering.
Still there.
Still secure.
Beneath it lay the photograph from our wedding.
Wynn wore white.
I wore my dress uniform.
We were smiling at each other as though the future couldn’t touch us.
Wynn lifted the picture carefully.
“I put this here.”
“When?”
“The day we opened the account.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought we might come back someday and laugh at how young we looked.”
I studied the two people in the photograph.
They hadn’t known what waited for them.
The deployments.
The fear.
The divorce.
Eight years of a conspiracy built around their love.
“They look happy,” I said.
“They were.”
I looked at her.
“They still could be.”
Her emerald eyes filled with emotion.
“Yes,” she whispered. “They could.”
I placed the encrypted drive inside a protected pouch beneath my vest.
The photograph went beside it.
Then we turned toward the concealed passage.
Hawk examined the portable dispersal unit through the reinforced barrier.
Environmental readings remained stable.
Aegis had restored cooling.
No dispersal warning.
The unit sat behind the steel shutter.
Silent.
Secure.
“Can it be moved?” Roth asked.
“Not safely,” Hawk answered.
“My team will guard it until Dr. Demir arrives.”
“She’s still in Turkey.”
“Then it stays here.”
Roth placed two men outside the chamber.
“No one enters. No one touches the unit. No exceptions.”
I looked directly at him.
“If Kane has someone inside your team?—”
“I selected these men myself.”
“So did Adam.”
The reminder landed heavily.
Adam had believed General Kane built the Brave to protect people.
Trust wasn’t proof.
Not anymore.
Roth nodded.
“Then we maintain two-person control. No one remains alone with the device, and every access attempt comes directly to me.”
“Good.”
The original metal tag remained with Kane’s men.
Ghost’s wafer rested beneath my vest beside Wynn’s drive.
I wasn’t leaving either one inside the bank.
Roth directed two officers to take the captured operative upstairs.
Then we entered the old tunnel.
The passage smelled like earth and standing water.
Old brick curved above our heads.
Hawk followed with a flashlight.
Roth covered our rear.
Blood marked the ground every few feet.
Some belonged to the operative we had captured.
The rest didn’t.
My radio crackled again.
Wynn.
“Lucas.”
“What?”
“We found the missing bank employees.”
“Alive?”
“Three are.”
Four had disappeared.
“Who’s missing?”
“The chief security officer.”
“Name?”
“Elena Weiss.”
Roth stopped behind me.
“What?”
I repeated the name.
“Elena Weiss.”
His expression changed.
“You know her.”
“She’s my sister.”
The tunnel fell silent.
Wynn continued.
“Elise says Elena disappeared before the biological lockdown.”
“She wouldn’t help Minser willingly,” Roth said.
“Where is her family?” I asked.
“My nephew is at school. My brother-in-law is traveling.”
Hawk checked the security records.
“Elena’s card opened a private garage beneath the River District before containment activated.”
“Can you access the camera?” Adam asked.
Hawk pulled up the final recording.
A masked man held a gun against Elena’s back as she opened the garage.
He forced her into a black van.
The recording ended.
“Elena didn’t betray the bank,” Wynn said.
“She was taken.”
Roth moved past me.
“We find her.”
The passage climbed.
Fresh air appeared ahead.
We reached a metal hatch.
Roth pushed it open.
Daylight flooded the tunnel.
The Rh?ne River rushed beyond an abandoned storage building.
Tire tracks crossed the dirt.
A black van was gone.
Something lay near the tracks.
A woman’s shoe.
Blood covered the heel.
Roth picked it up.
“Elena.”
Hawk studied the tire marks.
“They headed west.”
I raised the radio.
“Adam, Minser’s second operative escaped with Roth’s sister. Black van, traveling west.”
“Vehicle description received. I’ll alert Roth’s people.”
“No military channels.”
“I know.”
A siren sounded in the distance.
Then another.
Roth’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face went pale.
“What?”
He ended the call.
“There’s been an explosion at Geneva Airport.”
My stomach dropped.
“Our aircraft?” Hawk asked.
“No. A private hangar.”
“Casualties?”
“Unknown.”
Roth looked toward the city.
“Witnesses saw a black van enter minutes before the explosion.”
Minser wasn’t fleeing Geneva.
He was destroying evidence.
Or creating a distraction.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Minser’s voice filled the speaker.
“You’re becoming predictable, Lucas.”
“Let Elena go.”
“Commander Roth is with you.”
It wasn’t a question.
Minser could see us.
I scanned the riverfront.
Buildings.
Windows.
Roofs.
No obvious surveillance.
“What do you want?”
“The encrypted drive and Ghost’s duplicate key.”
“You don’t have the original tag.”
“Not yet.”
Kane’s men were still bringing it west.
Minser intended to control Fate before they arrived.
“Where are you?”
“You’ve been searching for where Fate ends.”
His voice lowered.
“Perhaps you should discover where it began.”
The call disconnected.
A message appeared.
A location forty minutes outside Geneva by road.
Hawk entered the coordinates.
An image appeared on his tablet.
A decommissioned medical-research facility stood high in the mountains.
Three concrete buildings.
A private landing pad.
Tunnels running beneath the property.
Wynn’s voice came through my radio.
“I know that place.”
“How?”
“It appeared in the financial records. The property belongs to a shell company called Arslan Biomedical.”
Leyla’s father.
The man who created Aegis.
The man General Kane had murdered.
Fate hadn’t been created at the observation post.
It had been created here.
Minser was returning to the beginning.
A photograph followed.
Elena sat inside the abandoned laboratory.
Her hands were bound.
Blood covered one side of her face.
Minser stood behind her, finally off his aircraft and on the ground.
Beside him rested another portable dispersal unit.
A timer glowed across the front.
00:59:58.
Wynn’s voice came through my radio.
“Lucas, what is it?”
I stared at the abandoned facility.
At the place where Project Fate had been born.
“Minser has Elena.”
“And another weapon,” Hawk said.
“Where?”
“An old research facility in the mountains.”
I looked toward Roth.
His sister was inside.
So was the last place anyone could permanently shut down Meridian.
If I wanted to save Elena and end Fate, I would have to carry Wynn’s encrypted drive and Ghost’s duplicate key into the place where it all began.