24. Evie
EVIE
My father.
The words strike harder than the gunfire.
I stare at the speaker hidden in the ceiling.
“What did you say?”
Soft laughter echoes through the bunker.
“Daniel Hart was an honorable man. Honor made him predictable.”
My father’s death was ruled a heart attack.
He collapsed at his desk when I was twenty-six.
There was no investigation.
No reason for one.
Until now.
“What did you do to him?”
The voice ignores me.
“Caleb’s father was equally stubborn. He refused an invitation few men would have possessed the courage to decline.”
Caleb moves closer until his shoulder touches mine.
The contact steadies me.
The voice knows it.
“I wondered whether their children would inherit that same unfortunate loyalty.”
Rook raises his weapon toward the camera.
“If you have something to say, come out here.”
“No. I learned long ago never to underestimate soldiers.”
Caleb’s expression becomes lethal.
“You aren’t the Chairman.”
A pause follows.
The first uncertainty we’ve heard.
Then the man answers.
“No?”
“The Chairman wouldn’t waste time talking to us.”
The emergency lights flicker.
“You are perceptive.”
“You’re delaying us,” Caleb continues. “Graves is moving the seventh drive.”
Mac turns toward the corridor leading deeper into the bunker. “The rail platform.”
Steel doors slam shut behind us.
One.
Then another.
The sound reverberates like cannon fire.
Fathom spins toward the terminal.
“We’re locked in.”
More doors close ahead, dividing the bunker into sections.
Mac’s face turns white.
“They’re compartmentalizing.”
“What does that mean?” Falcon asks.
“They’ll isolate us and send the Inner Guard through concealed access points.”
A mechanical announcement fills the corridor.
“Containment Protocol Alpha activated.”
“Inner Guard deployment authorized.”
“All unauthorized personnel will be terminated.”
Metallic sounds answer from beyond the sealed doors.
Rifle bolts.
Dozens of them.
The remaining guards are moving into position.
Rook scans the corridor. “Fathom, can you open the doors?”
“Not from this terminal. The emergency shutdown severed my access.”
Cobra taps the nearest steel panel. “I can.”
“Without burying us?”
“Probably.”
“Cobra.”
“Yes. I can open it without collapsing the mountain.”
Caleb looks toward Mac. “Other route?”
“Maintenance ducts connect the compartments, but they’re too narrow.”
“For all of us,” I say.
Everyone turns toward me.
Fathom studies the ceiling. “She’s right. One person could reach the next control room and release the doors.”
“No,” Caleb says.
I haven’t volunteered yet.
He already knows.
“I’m the smallest.”
“No.”
“I know intelligence control systems.”
“No.”
“Caleb.”
His eyes meet mine. “Find another way.”
A burst of gunfire strikes the opposite side of the sealed door.
The Inner Guard is already there.
We don’t have time.
I move closer and lower my voice.
“You came for me because I asked for help. Now I need you to trust me.”
“I trust you.”
“Then let me do this.”
His jaw tightens.
I see every terrible memory he carries—every person he couldn’t save and every body he brought home.
He doesn’t fear that I’ll fail.
He fears that he won’t be close enough if I do.
“I’ll be on the radio,” I tell him.
“That won’t stop a bullet.”
“No. But neither will keeping me behind you forever.”
Something shifts in his expression.
Pain.
Acceptance.
He removes his backup pistol and places it in my hand.
“Six rounds.”
“I have my own.”
“Take it.”
I secure it at my waist.
“Stay off the main corridors,” Mac says. “The control room is one level down.”
Caleb grips the edge of my vest.
“If anything feels wrong, you come back.”
“I will.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
“I know.”
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then he leans forward until his forehead touches mine.
Not a kiss.
Something quieter.
More intimate.
“After this,” he whispers.
I close my eyes.
“After this.”
Cobra removes the vent cover.
I climb into the darkness.
Behind me, the steel door begins to buckle beneath the Inner Guard’s attack.
Ahead, the Chairman’s voice comes through my earpiece.
“Your father made the same mistake, Evelyn.”
I stop crawling.
“He believed he could enter my house and expose me.”
The duct suddenly slopes downward.
The metal beneath my hands gives way.
I fall through darkness.
And land inside a room filled with armed men.