25. Caleb
CALEB
Evie’s radio goes silent.
One second I hear her breathing.
The next, nothing.
“Evie.”
No answer.
“Evie.”
Static.
I turn toward the vent.
Rook grabs my shoulder. “You can’t follow her.”
“Watch me.”
The steel door bends inward as the Inner Guard strikes it again.
Cobra positions a shaped charge along the locking mechanism.
“We have a more immediate problem.”
“Thirty seconds,” Rook says.
I stare into the dark vent.
Every instinct tells me to go after her.
But the duct won’t hold my weight.
If I bring it down, I may trap her beneath it.
I force myself to turn toward the door.
“Fathom, find her signal.”
“I’m trying.”
The steel buckles again.
Cobra finishes the charge.
“Cover.”
We move behind the support columns.
The explosion tears through the lock.
The door flies inward.
Smoke fills the opening.
The Inner Guard fires through it immediately.
Disciplined bursts tear across the corridor.
Rook returns fire.
Shark takes the left.
Falcon takes the right.
I move through the center.
The smoke clears through my thermal optic, revealing seven guards in the first rank and more behind them.
Forty highly trained operators.
Not three hundred.
Enough.
I fire at weapons, shoulders, and legs where possible. Men fall. Others replace them.
They move without panic.
One position collapses and the next closes around it.
A machine built from people trained to sacrifice themselves without question.
“Forward!” Rook orders.
We drive them back one section at a time.
The hallway becomes a storm of muzzle flashes, smoke, and red emergency light.
Fathom stays near Cobra, tracking Evie’s signal.
“I have her.”
“Where?”
“Control level. Twenty yards ahead and one floor below.”
“Alive?”
“Her transmitter is moving.”
Not good enough.
A man steps through the smoke.
Unlike the others, he wears no helmet.
Silver hair.
Black tactical uniform.
No rank or insignia.
Every member of the Inner Guard adjusts around him.
Respect.
Not fear.
Mac stops behind me.
“Victor Kane.”
The commander hears him.
A faint smile touches his face.
“Mr. Stenson. It has been a long time.”
Mac raises his weapon. “Not long enough.”
“I wondered whether your conscience would eventually bring you back.”
“You trained him?” Rook asks.
Mac never looks away from Kane. “He trained all of us.”
Kane takes one deliberate step closer.
“I taught you patience. Discipline. Sacrifice.”
“You taught obedience.”
“Yes. And you refused to learn.”
The guards tighten their formation.
Kane looks directly at me.
“Caleb McDougal. The sniper who refuses to miss.”
I don’t answer.
“Your father was the same. Infuriatingly principled.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Nothing.”
His smile changes.
“The Chairman did.”
My finger tightens against the trigger.
Kane’s gaze shifts toward the ceiling.
“And Miss Hart appears to have reached our control room.”
Fathom’s tablet comes alive.
The sealed doors throughout the bunker begin opening.
Evie did it.
Relief hits hard enough to weaken my knees.
Her voice returns over the radio.
“Caleb?”
“I’m here.”
“I fell.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Ask me later. I opened the doors, but Graves isn’t here.”
“Where is he?”
“The rail platform. He’s leaving with another man.”
“The Chairman?”
“I can’t see his face.”
An alarm fills the bunker.
Kane begins backing toward the Inner Guard.
“You should go, Mr. McDougal.”
“I’m not finished.”
“Yes, you are.”
The ground vibrates beneath our boots.
A train is moving deep inside the mountain.
Evie’s voice becomes urgent.
“The seventh drive is aboard it.”
Kane’s smile widens.
“Choose carefully, Caleb. You can capture me—or you can chase the truth about your father.”
Smoke grenades roll across the corridor.
White clouds engulf Kane and the Inner Guard.
By the time the air clears, they’re gone.
I run toward the control room.
We find Evie climbing through a shattered maintenance door. A bruise darkens one side of her face, but she’s alive.
I reach her before I can stop myself.
My arms close around her.
She stiffens in surprise.
Then holds me just as tightly.
“I’m all right,” she whispers.
I pull back enough to see her face.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“I’ll add it to the list.”
The mountain trembles.
The underground train is gaining speed.
Fathom checks the rail schematics.
“There’s an interception point half a mile ahead.”
“How do we reach it?” Rook asks.
Evie points toward a maintenance vehicle sitting beside the tracks.
Caleb’s father was murdered by the First Circle.
Hers may have been too.
And the man who ordered both deaths is escaping with the only drive capable of identifying him.
I take Evie’s hand.
This time, I don’t release it.
“After this,” she says.
I look toward the tunnel swallowing the train.
“After we catch him.”
The maintenance vehicle roars to life.
And Shadow Division races into the darkness after the Chairman.