35. Caleb
CALEB
Evie’s words reach me through the gunfire.
I know the Chairman.
An armored guard moves through the smoke.
I duck beneath his rifle and drive my shoulder into his chest.
We strike one of the circular pillars.
His elbow catches my jaw.
Pain erupts through my face.
I answer with two punches against his ribs.
The armor absorbs both.
His hand reaches for the knife on his vest.
I trap his wrist.
Twist.
The knife falls.
He keeps coming.
No hesitation.
No fear.
I drive the heel of my hand beneath his chin.
His head snaps back.
Rook takes him down from the side.
“Focus,” he says.
“I am.”
“No, you’re thinking about Evie.”
He isn’t wrong.
Another guard emerges.
Rook fires, forcing him behind cover.
“Go to her. I have this side.”
I move.
The smoke stings my eyes as I cross the chamber.
A guard appears between me and the control console.
Evie sees him first.
“Caleb!”
I turn.
His weapon is already raised.
Evie fires twice.
The first round strikes the guard’s rifle.
The second hits the exposed section beneath his arm.
He falls.
Evie keeps her weapon trained on him until I reach her.
“You saved me.”
“I told you I can shoot.”
I grip her shoulders.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Turn around.”
“Caleb.”
“Humor me.”
She turns.
No blood.
No torn clothing.
Only then do I breathe.
When she faces me again, something soft enters her eyes.
“You checked twice.”
“I’m not taking chances.”
The battle continues around us, but for one heartbeat, there’s only Evie.
Then Fathom points toward the screen.
The railcar races through the tunnel.
Walter sits across from an older man whose face I can finally see.
“Who is he?” I ask.
Evie doesn’t answer immediately.
Her pistol lowers by an inch.
“Director Charles Whitmore.”
Mac goes still.
“The former Director of Central Intelligence?”
Evie nods.
“He retired fifteen years ago. He and my father served together.”
“Why was he at the funeral?”
“He gave the eulogy.”
Grief and fury sharpen every word.
“He stood beside my mother. He told me my father’s heart had failed because he worked too hard.”
The man who comforted her after Daniel Hart’s death ordered it.
On the screen, Charles Whitmore looks directly into the railcar camera.
At us.
A faint smile crosses his face.
He knows we can see him.
He reaches forward and disconnects the feed.
The screen goes black.
Fathom’s tablet emits a warning.
“He transferred the seventh drive.”
“Where?” Rook asks.
“Off-site. I can’t trace it.”
The timer on the containment system stops.
Twenty-one minutes.
Then resets.
Seven minutes.
Cobra stares at the display. “That seems bad.”
“It is,” Fathom says. “Whitmore accelerated the bunker’s demolition sequence.”
The remaining First Circle guards begin withdrawing.
They aren’t losing.
They’re leaving us inside a tomb.
Rook sees it.
“Fall back to the archive.”
Cobra works at the control panel.
“I can interrupt the charges, but I need access to the primary relay.”
“Where?”
Fathom studies the schematics.
“Behind that upper door.”
He points toward the third level.
The armored guards are retreating through it.
“That’s our only exit,” Mac says.
The archive door begins closing behind us.
Forward means following the Inner Guard.
Back means being sealed inside the vault.
Rook looks at the team.
“Forward.”
We climb.
Shark supports Falcon as they take the stairs. Fathom secures the drives. Mac covers Cobra while he disconnects from the console.
Evie stays beside me.
The third-level door narrows as we approach.
Six feet.
Four.
Two.
Cobra dives through first.
Fathom and Mac follow.
Rook pushes Falcon across while Shark holds the door.
Evie reaches the threshold.
An armored hand catches her vest from the other side.
She disappears into the darkness.
“Evie!”
I lunge through the closing gap.
The steel door slams shut behind me.
Separating us from the rest of Shadow Division.
The lights come on.
Victor Kane stands at the end of the corridor with one arm locked around Evie’s throat and a pistol pressed beneath her jaw.
He looks at me.
“Put down the rifle, Caleb.”
Evie’s eyes meet mine.
Don’t.
She doesn’t say it.
She doesn’t need to.
I can read it on her face.
Victor pulls back the hammer.
“You have three seconds.”