20. Evie
EVIE
The explosion destroys the bridge fifty yards behind the last SUV.
Concrete and twisted metal tumble into the ravine.
Shark jerks the wheel, barely clearing the collapsing edge.
“Ambush!” Rook shouts over the radio.
Machine-gun fire erupts from both sides of the canyon.
Tracer rounds slice through the darkness.
The lead vehicle rocks as bullets strike its armor.
Caleb leans toward the open window with his rifle.
Blood is already seeping through the clean bandage I placed over his ribs.
“Caleb, don’t—”
His rifle fires.
A machine gun on the eastern ridge goes silent.
A second position opens from higher ground.
Shark fires from the rear vehicle.
The muzzle flash disappears.
“Two down,” he reports.
A rocket streaks toward us.
“RPG!” Falcon shouts.
Rook swerves.
The projectile passes over the hood and explodes against the cliff. Rock crashes onto the road, blocking the path ahead.
Fathom looks through the rear window. “The bridge is gone. The road ahead is blocked.”
“We’re trapped,” Mac says.
Rook’s voice remains calm. “No. They are.”
Caleb smiles.
I know that smile now.
It means someone has made a terrible mistake.
“Cobra,” Caleb says.
“I’ve been waiting.”
“What do you have?”
“Three directional charges and eight pounds of C-4.”
“Can you collapse their eastern position without bringing the ridge onto us?”
Cobra sounds offended. “Of course I can.”
“No unnecessary casualties,” Rook orders. “Force them out of position.”
“Understood.”
Cobra slips from the rear SUV and disappears into the forest.
Gunfire pounds the canyon.
Mac ducks lower while I reload magazines and pass them to Fathom.
He takes one from me. “You’ve done this before?”
“My father believed daughters should know how to survive.”
“Remind me never to argue with him.”
Pain moves through me.
“My father is dead.”
Fathom’s expression softens. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Across the radio, a low whistle echoes.
Cobra’s signal.
“Get down!” Caleb shouts.
Three explosions detonate almost simultaneously.
The blasts tear through the trees above the enemy positions. Dirt, stone, and branches rain across the road.
The machine-gun teams abandon their weapons and scramble away from the collapsing ledges.
Cobra did exactly what Rook ordered.
He broke their positions without turning the mountain into a graveyard.
Our vehicles surge forward until the rockslide stops us.
Rook and Caleb climb out.
I follow.
Caleb turns immediately. “Stay inside.”
“No.”
“Evie.”
“You need someone watching your wounded side.”
His eyes narrow.
I draw my pistol. “I’m coming.”
There’s no time to argue.
We move behind the vehicles as another burst of gunfire tears through the smoke.
Caleb drops to one knee and fires.
A weapon spins away from an operator on the ridge.
He could kill them.
He continues choosing not to.
These aren’t federal officers.
They’re mercenaries who tried to murder us.
But Caleb’s restraint remains.
He doesn’t take a life simply because he can.
That may be my favorite thing about him.
Fathom runs toward us with his tablet.
“I intercepted their communications.”
“What did you find?” Rook asks.
“They weren’t trying to stop us.”
Mac leans against the SUV. “Delay.”
Fathom nods. “Graves reached the command bunker seven minutes ago.”
Caleb looks toward the blocked road.
“How long until he transmits the seventh drive?”
“Unknown.”
Mac’s face turns pale. “If he connects it to the command system, the First Circle can remotely purge everything.”
“The six drives too?” I ask.
“If the seventh contains their master encryption key, it may be able to corrupt every copied file the moment Fathom tries to open them.”
The evidence case suddenly emits a soft electronic tone.
Fathom tears it open.
All six drives are flashing red.
“He’s inside the system,” Fathom says.
“How long?” Caleb asks.
A countdown appears on the tablet.
Nine minutes.
Forty-eight seconds.
“If that reaches zero,” Fathom says, “we lose everything.”
Rook looks toward the ridge.
“The road is blocked.”
Caleb studies the cliff, the smoke, and the stream pouring from a broken drainage pipe beside the rockslide.
Then he smiles.
“We don’t need the road.”
He points toward the rushing water.
The drainage channel runs directly beneath the mountain.
Directly toward the First Circle bunker.
Rook chambers a round.
“We stop chasing Graves.”
Caleb looks at me.
“We take the bunker.”
The countdown reaches nine minutes.
And we enter the mountain.