36. Wynn
WYNN
Fifty-nine minutes.
That was how long Elena Weiss had.
How long would everyone have been inside the facility if we were wrong about its ventilation?
How long Lucas had before Minser forced him to choose between saving a woman and surrendering the pieces capable of controlling Project Fate.
Again.
I stared at the photograph on Hawk’s tablet.
Elena sat beneath a rusted surgical light with her wrists bound behind a metal chair.
Blood ran from her temple to her jaw.
Her dark hair partially covered her face, but I could still see the terror in her eyes.
Behind her, Minser watched the camera.
The portable biological unit rested less than three feet away.
Its timer continued counting down.
00:58:41.
00:58:40.
00:58:39.
“We need a helicopter,” Adam said.
Roth had already pulled out his phone.
“The facility is forty minutes away by road. A helicopter can reach it in approximately twelve.”
“Where’s the nearest one?” Adam asked.
“University Hospital. Six minutes from our position.”
“Call it.”
Roth hesitated.
“The pilot isn’t cleared for this operation.”
“Neither is the city Minser may be about to kill.”
Roth made the call.
Lucas stood at the river’s edge, staring toward the mountains.
He hadn’t moved since Minser disconnected.
His shoulders were rigid.
His hands remained at his sides.
Too still.
I knew that stillness.
I had watched him wear it through funerals, deployments, and every terrible moment when the world demanded something from him that no person should have been asked to give.
The difference was that I understood it now.
Lucas wasn’t calm.
He was containing the storm.
I moved beside him.
“You aren’t going alone.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
He turned toward me.
“You’re injured.”
“I can walk.”
“You can barely stand.”
“That’s an exaggeration.”
Blood had begun to seep through the bandage around my thigh, but I wasn’t going to point that out.
His silver eyes dropped toward it anyway.
“You’re staying with Adam.”
“Adam is coming.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes. And the answer is still no.”
His jaw tightened.
“Wynn.”
“Minser wants you angry.”
“He has Roth’s sister.”
“He wants you desperate.”
“He has a biological weapon.”
“And he knows exactly which threat will make you stop thinking.”
Lucas stared at me.
I touched the pocket beneath his vest.
The encrypted drive and Ghost’s one-use wafer rested inside it.
“He doesn’t need you inside that facility. He needs what you’re carrying.”
“I know.”
“Then you understand why you can’t go alone.”
“No. I understand why you can’t come.”
I stepped closer.
“I understand why I have to.”
His expression hardened.
“This isn’t an argument you’re going to win.”
“You said that once before.”
“When?”
“The morning I gave you the divorce papers.”
Pain moved through his eyes.
I hated using that memory against him.
But I needed him to hear me.
“You decided what was safest for me. You let Ghost’s warning control every choice you made. You left me alone, and you called it protection.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“And I was trying to understand why my husband had stopped trusting me.”
“I trusted you.”
“Not with the truth.”
The words landed between us.
Lucas looked away.
I touched his face.
“I know you were afraid.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“I’m afraid now,” I whispered. “But we promised we wouldn’t let fear make our choices anymore.”
“That promise doesn’t mean I take you into a laboratory with a biological weapon.”
“It means you don’t leave me behind without giving me a voice.”
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then his hand covered mine.
“If something happens to you?—”
“Something has been happening to me for eight years.”
His eyes closed.
“I lost you because we faced Fate separately,” I said. “We end it together.”
A helicopter appeared above the river.
Its rotors shattered the quiet along the waterfront.
Lucas opened his eyes.
The storm was still there.
But so was the man I loved.
“Stay beside me.”
“I will.”
“If I tell you to run?—”
“I’ll consider it.”
“That wasn’t the agreement.”
“It’s the best you’re getting.”
His mouth almost moved into a smile.
Almost.
Then he leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine.
“Together,” he whispered.
“Always.”
The medical helicopter landed in a vacant parking area near the river.
The side door opened before its skids touched the pavement.
The pilot wore blue emergency-service coveralls.
A tactical vehicle arrived behind it.
Elise climbed out.
Camille followed her.
“No,” Lucas said immediately.
Elise ignored him and crossed the pavement.
“I know that facility.”
Roth stared at her.
“How?”
“My father was one of the original investors in Arslan Biomedical.”
“Did he know what they were building?” Adam asked.
“Not at first.”
“And later?”
Elise’s face tightened.
“He tried to expose them.”
“What happened?”
“He died in a boating accident three weeks later.”
Silence followed.
Another death.
Another accident.
Another person buried beneath Project Fate.
Camille held a leather folder against her chest.
“My grandfather kept these.”
She handed the folder to Hawk.
Inside were architectural plans.
Not the public records I had found.
The real ones.
Three concrete structures appeared aboveground.
Nine levels existed beneath them.
Hawk unfolded the largest page.
“There are two separate laboratories.”
Elise pointed toward the western building.
“Arslan developed the medical countermeasures here.”
“Aegis,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And Fate?”
Her finger moved toward the largest structure.
“Minser is in this laboratory.”
Lucas studied the tunnels connecting the two.
“Where is Elena being held?”
“The surgical light in the photograph came from the lower research wing.”
Elise pointed toward Level Four.
“But the portable dispersal unit is wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“That laboratory couldn’t safely handle biological material.”
“Could Minser have modified it?”
“Possibly.”
I took the photograph from Hawk.
Something had bothered me from the moment I saw it.
Now I understood why.
The surgical light above Elena was rusted.
Dust covered the floor.
The wall behind Minser showed years of water damage.
But the portable unit was clean.
New.
Minser hadn’t prepared that weapon inside the laboratory.
He had carried it there.
“Can it disperse beyond the facility from Level Four?” I asked.
Hawk examined the ventilation system.
“Yes.”
Elise shook her head.
“No.”
We looked at her.
“The external ventilation shafts were sealed when the laboratory closed.”
“Are you sure?”
“My father supervised it.”
“Then the agent can’t reach Geneva from there,” I said.
Hawk studied the image again.
“He isn’t threatening the city.”
“He’s threatening Elena,” Roth said.
“And anyone who enters the facility,” Adam added.
Minser hadn’t chosen the laboratory because it offered the best location for an attack.
He had chosen it because we would believe it did.
The timer wasn’t counting down to a mass-casualty event.
It was counting down to an execution.
Lucas moved toward the helicopter.
“Then we have enough time to reach her.”
Adam turned toward Elise and Camille.
“You’re not coming.”
“I can show you the tunnels,” Camille said.
“The plans can do that.”
“But the plans don’t show the old quarantine passage.”
Elise turned sharply.
“What passage?”
“Grandfather showed me before he died.”
Camille opened the folder and removed a hand-drawn page.
A narrow passage ran beneath the Aegis laboratory.
It connected to the lower research wing.
No electronic locks.
No security cameras.
An entrance Minser might not know existed.
Roth took the page.
“Where does it begin?”
“Inside a stone storage building north of the property.”
Lucas looked toward Adam.
“It gives us a second entry.”
“Minser expects you to approach the main facility,” Adam said. “Hawk and Roth use the quarantine tunnel.”
“And you?”
“I give Minser what he expects.”
My stomach tightened.
“You walk through the front door.”
Lucas looked toward the helicopter.
“Yes.”
“No.”
His eyes found mine.
“You wanted a voice.”
“I didn’t agree to watch you surrender.”
“I’m not surrendering.”
“You’re carrying the encrypted drive and the only duplicate of Fate’s second key directly to him.”
“And while he’s focused on me, Roth reaches Elena.”
Adam nodded.
“It’s our best option.”
I hated when the two of them agreed.
The helicopter pilot leaned out.
“We need to move.”
Elise gripped Roth’s arm.
“Bring her back.”
“I will.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Roth said. “But I’m going anyway.”
Camille tried to hand him the leather folder.
He pushed it back toward her.
“Keep it.”
“But you need the plans.”
“Hawk photographed them.”
Camille looked toward me.
Fear filled her eyes.
The same fear I had heard while she crawled through the dark conduit.
“What can we do?” she asked.
I took both of her hands.
“Go back to the bank. Help Elise protect every person Minser left inside it.”
“I want to help Elena.”
“You already did.”
“How?”
“You found the tunnel. You gave us a way to reach her.”
Her chin trembled.
Camille looked toward Roth.
“Bring your sister home.”
“I will.”
We boarded the helicopter.
Adam sat beside the pilot.
Hawk and Roth took the rear seats.
Lucas pulled me beside him and fastened the restraint across my chest.
“I can buckle myself.”
“I know.”
“You’re still doing it.”
“Yes.”
“Bossy.”
“I warned you.”
The helicopter lifted.
Geneva fell away beneath us.
Elise and Camille disappeared near the river.
Within minutes, the city ended and the land began to climb.
Green valleys became rocky slopes.
Clouds gathered around snow-covered peaks.
Somewhere ahead waited a dead laboratory.
A hostage.
A portable biological weapon.
And the man who had manipulated our lives for eight years.
Hawk connected to the facility’s satellite network.
“No active external communications.”
“Minser called us from there,” Adam said.
“He may be using an isolated system.”
“Can you access the cameras?”
“Trying.”
The tablet screen flashed.
For half a second, an interior corridor appeared.
Then darkness.
Hawk worked around another firewall.
The image returned.
Empty hall.
Broken glass.
Emergency lights.
A figure moved past the camera.
Too fast to identify.
Hawk switched feeds.
Nothing.
Another camera.
Nothing.
Then the lower research wing appeared.
Elena remained in the chair.
Minser was gone.
The timer showed thirty-nine minutes.
Lucas leaned forward.
“Where is he?”
Hawk searched the surrounding feeds.
A door opened behind Elena.
Someone entered.
Not Minser.
A man wearing a dark military jacket approached the portable dispersal unit.
He limped heavily.
One trouser leg was torn and stained with blood from Boone’s bullet.
He turned toward the camera.
My blood went cold.
“General Kane,” Adam said.
Alive.
Wounded.
And already inside the facility.
After escaping Garrison Eighteen, Kane must have transferred from the hidden helicopter to a waiting jet.
He had flown directly to the one place where Fate could still be controlled.
Kane crouched awkwardly beside the dispersal unit and entered a code.
The timer changed.
00:39:12 became 00:15:00.
Roth surged toward the screen.
“No!”
Kane looked directly into the camera.
Then held up a small metal tag.
LET HER GO, OR SHE DIES.
The original physical key.
The one his men had taken from Lucas at the Turkish airfield.
The speaker on Hawk’s tablet activated.
“Fifteen minutes, Lucas.”
Kane’s voice filled the helicopter.
“Bring me the encrypted drive and Ghost’s duplicate key, or Commander Roth watches his sister die.”
Lucas touched the protected pocket beneath his vest.
I gripped his wrist.
“Don’t.”
His silver eyes met mine.
“We didn’t come this far to let her die.”
“That’s what Kane wants you to believe.”
“Elena is sitting beside a biological weapon.”
“And Minser is missing.”
Lucas went still.
I looked again at the camera feed.
Kane had shortened the timer.
Kane held the original tag.
Kane controlled the laboratory.
But Minser had brought us here.
Why?
If they were working together, Kane would have been standing beside him.
He wasn’t.
Minser had disappeared before Kane entered the room.
I remembered the explosion at the airport.
The way Minser said we should discover where Fate began.
“He didn’t bring us here to give Kane the drive,” I said.
Adam turned.
“What are you saying?”
“Minser knew Kane would come.”
“Why?”
I looked at the facility plans.
At the two laboratories.
Fate and Aegis.
Weapon and failsafe.
Two systems designed to oppose each other.
“Because Kane has something Minser needs.”
“The original tag,” Hawk said.
“Yes.”
Lucas understood.
“Minser has the birthplace of Fate. We have the encrypted source files and the one-use duplicate. Kane has the physical key.”
“And Minser used us to bring all three pieces together,” I finished.
Hawk’s tablet chimed.
A message appeared across the screen.
No sender.
No traceable source.
Only six words.
KANE CANNOT LEAVE THE FACILITY ALIVE.
A second message followed.
LEVEL NINE.
Then the surveillance cameras went black.
The helicopter banked toward the mountains.
Below us, the abandoned research facility appeared through the clouds.
And on the roof of the largest building stood Evan Minser.
Watching us arrive.