5. Caleb
CALEB
The explosion hits like a freight train.
The front wall disappears in a roar of fire, shattered brick, and splintered wood. Glass rains across the kitchen. The force slams into my back, but I keep my body over Evie as pieces of the ceiling crash around us.
The lights die.
Smoke swallows the room.
For half a second, everything goes silent.
Then the gunfire begins.
Three separate rifles.
Exactly where I expected them.
One across the street.
One on the neighboring rooftop.
One covering the rear alley.
A kill box.
Professional.
Not Langley security.
Mercenaries.
“Caleb!”
“I’m here.”
I push myself up enough to see her face.
Dust streaks her skin. A thin cut crosses her forehead where flying glass caught her.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.”
Good.
I’m not.
My left shoulder burns where a piece of brick struck it, but the joint still moves. Nothing feels broken.
That’s all I need.
Another burst of rifle fire rips through the smoke.
The kitchen cabinets explode behind us.
“They’re walking their fire,” I say.
“They’re doing what?”
“Pushing us toward the back door.”
Understanding flashes across her face. “Where another team is waiting.”
I nod.
“They want us alive.”
“How do you know?”
“If they wanted us dead…”
A bullet punches through the wall six inches above my head.
“…they wouldn’t be missing.”
Her eyes widen. “You say the most comforting things.”
Despite the pain in my shoulder, I almost smile.
Almost.
I crawl toward the broken kitchen window.
Only far enough to see.
Never far enough to be seen.
One glance.
That’s all I need.
Three black SUVs.
Nine men.
Suppressors.
Night optics.
Military spacing.
One man stands behind the engine block of the lead vehicle, giving silent hand signals.
Former special operations.
Probably hired through an organization Graves can disavow.
Expensive.
He isn’t cutting corners anymore.
Good.
Neither am I.
I reach into my vest and pull out a cylindrical device.
Evie looks at it. “What is that?”
“Noise.”
“That’s the technical name?”
“It is tonight.”
I pull the pin and count.
One.
Two.
Three.
I throw the flash-bang through what remains of the front window.
It detonates with a deafening crack.
White light floods the street.
Men shout.
Someone fires blindly into the house.
I grab Evie’s hand. “Move.”
We run through the smoke.
Not toward the back door.
Toward the basement.
Evie glances at me. “The basement?”
“They expect us to run outside.”
“So we’re not running?”
“We are.”
I kick open the basement door.
We race down the wooden steps as another explosion tears through the living room above us.
The entire house groans.
Dust pours from the ceiling.
A support beam snaps.
“They’re bringing the house down!” Evie shouts.
“They’re getting impatient.”
“They’re trying to kill us!”
“No. If they wanted us dead, they would have leveled the house with the first explosive.”
“What do they want?”
“The recording.”
“And after they have it?”
I don’t answer.
I don’t need to.
We both know.
I reach the back basement wall and shove against an old shelving unit. It rolls aside on concealed steel tracks, revealing a narrow concrete tunnel.
Evie stares into the darkness.
“There’s no way.”
“Inside.”
“You have a secret tunnel.”
“The government built it.”
“That’s supposed to make this less unbelievable?”
“This house was used by intelligence couriers during the Cold War. The tunnel leads to an abandoned maintenance building.”
“How many safehouses have secret escape tunnels?”
“The useful ones.”
Despite the smoke, explosions, and armed men trying to capture us, she laughs.
One short, breathless sound.
“I can’t believe I just laughed.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“It means you’re still thinking.”
She looks at me as we enter the tunnel. “No. It means you’re impossible.”
A smile tugs at my mouth before I can stop it.
I pull the shelving unit closed behind us.
Seconds later, the house collapses.
The thunder of it travels through the passage, shaking dust from the concrete ceiling. Smoke rolls toward us like fog.
Evie glances over her shoulder. “They’ll think we’re dead.”
“For a few minutes.”
“Then what?”
“They’ll search the debris.”
“And when they don’t find us?”
“They’ll find the tunnel.”
“So what happens now?”
I switch on a flashlight covered with a red filter. The narrow passage stretches nearly two hundred yards ahead.
“We disappear.”
She follows beside me. “You really do plan everything.”
“I try.”
“What happens when your plans fail?”
“They usually involve bullets.”
She becomes quiet.
Our footsteps echo through the passage.
My shoulder throbs with every movement, but I keep my pace steady. Evie has enough to worry about without wondering whether I can continue.
“How badly are you hurt?” she asks.
“I’m not.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s a bruise.”
“You’re holding your left arm differently.”
I glance at her.
Even in the low red light, I see the challenge in her expression.
She noticed.
I should be annoyed.
Instead, I’m impressed.
“I can still use it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“It’s the answer that matters.”
She shakes her head. “Impossible.”
We continue through the tunnel.
After several moments, she asks quietly, “How many people couldn’t you save?”
The question lands harder than the explosion.
Images surface before I can stop them.
A rooftop in Afghanistan.
A burning convoy.
A young interpreter who believed I could protect his family.
A father shielding his little girl.
My brothers trapped on a mountain.
Six caskets beneath six American flags.
“Enough,” I say.
Evie doesn’t apologize.
She doesn’t offer empty reassurance or tell me it wasn’t my fault.
She simply walks beside me.
Close enough that our shoulders brush in the darkness.
She doesn’t move away.
Neither do I.
The tunnel ends beneath the abandoned maintenance building.
I gesture for Evie to remain behind me and climb the steel ladder. Then I ease open the hatch.
Rain.
Distant sirens.
No vehicles.
No voices.
No movement.
I climb out and sweep the building before signaling for Evie.
She emerges a moment later.
Through a broken window, orange flames rise above the rooftops. Fire engines are already approaching. Police will follow.
Then federal agents.
Then Graves’s people wearing official credentials and concerned expressions.
Evie wraps her arms around herself. “They destroyed an entire house.”
“To erase one witness.”
She looks at me. “Do you think they’ll stop?”
“No.”
She takes a slow breath.
“Good.”
That surprises me. “Good?”
“If they’re willing to do this, then what I heard is only part of it.” She watches the flames climb higher. “We aren’t exposing one assassination plot. We’re exposing everything.”
For the first time since entering that parking garage, I see something in her stronger than fear.
Resolve.
Walter Graves tried to silence the wrong woman.
I pull out my phone and send one encrypted message to Rook.
HAVE HART AND RECORDING. SAFEHOUSE LOST. MOVING TO WEST VIRGINIA.
The response comes almost immediately.
NOT ALONE. TEAM EN ROUTE.
My brothers are coming.
Because Rook knows what I already understand.
This is bigger than one witness.
Bigger than Mac Stenson.
Bigger than the senator Graves intends to kill.
Evie turns from the window. “What now?”
“We find a vehicle.”
“And then?”
“We reach the listening station before Graves moves Mac.”
“What if Mac really did betray you?”
“Then he’ll answer for it.”
“And if he didn’t?”
I look toward the burning house.
“Then Graves has another reason to be afraid.”
A sound scrapes across the dark building behind us.
Metal against concrete.
Evie’s hand moves toward her pistol.
I step in front of her and raise mine.
A shadow passes across the doorway.
We aren’t alone.