43. Caleb
CALEB
Nine minutes.
The numbers burn across Fathom’s screen.
Nine minutes to stop the transfer.
Reach the control room.
Escape the mountain.
Mac studies the demolition warning.
“They armed charges throughout the foundation.”
“Can you disarm them?” Reef asks.
“No. They’re independent circuits. Once the sequence begins, each section detonates on its own.”
Rook nods. “Then the mission remains the same.”
Falcon gives him an incredulous look. “It does?”
“We came for the evidence. We leave with it.”
He points toward Maverick, Rogue, and Reef.
“Take the archive bags through the Chairman’s escape tunnel. Get everything outside.”
Maverick looks toward the gunfire behind us. “And you?”
“We stop the purge and follow.”
“You’re sure?”
Rook’s expression hardens. “That was an order.”
Maverick grips his forearm.
“We’ll be waiting.”
Maverick’s team takes the evidence bags and disappears toward the escape route.
Fathom keeps one pack—the Chairman’s digital archive.
Mac leads the rest of us toward a narrow conduit behind the exposed pipes.
“The command room is less than a hundred yards away.”
“What’s between us and it?” I ask.
“The main entrance and an emergency maintenance passage.”
Cobra’s expression brightens. “Which one do I get to destroy?”
“The maintenance passage.”
His disappointment is immediate.
“You’re ruining my reputation.”
Falcon checks his rifle with his uninjured hand. “You’ll find something to explode.”
“That’s true.”
Gunfire follows us into the conduit.
Victor is closing the distance.
Shark and Cobra take the rear while we crawl through the narrow passage.
The mountain groans.
Concrete strikes the floor behind us.
The demolition isn’t a single explosion.
It’s beginning at the outer levels and moving inward.
Collapsing the bunker section by section.
Mac stops at a massive steel door.
No handle.
No keypad.
Only a circular black scanner.
“You said this was an emergency route,” Rook says.
“It was before the Chairman changed the security.”
Fathom studies the scanner. “Biometric?”
“Retina. The Chairman or the Warden.”
Victor is behind us.
The Chairman is gone.
Cobra looks toward the scanner. “I can open it.”
Mac shakes his head. “The door is reinforced into the mountain.”
“So that’s a maybe.”
“No. That’s a no.”
Evie steps forward with the Chairman’s journal.
“The Chairman believed no one paid attention to the woman taking notes.”
Mac frowns. “What are you thinking?”
She flips through the pages.
Her eyes race across diagrams and handwritten margins.
Then stop.
A small smile touches her mouth.
Not relief.
Recognition.
“I don’t think this scanner identifies a person.”
Fathom moves beside her. “What does it identify?”
“Authority.”
She turns the journal around.
Beside a sketch of the scanner, Charles Whitmore wrote:
TRUST CAN BE STOLEN MORE EASILY THAN IDENTITY.
Fathom’s expression changes.
“It’s reading an encryption key.”
“Yes.”
He drops beside the access panel and removes a set of cables.
“That’s brilliant.”
Evie kneels with him.
Behind us, Victor’s rifle fires.
The round strikes the conduit wall.
Shark returns fire.
“We need to move.”
Fathom connects to the scanner.
“Give me sixty seconds.”
The demolition timer reaches seven minutes.
Victor’s voice comes through the corridor.
“You cannot win.”
Calm.
Controlled.
Closer than before.
“The mountain will become your tomb.”
Rook switches off the external channel.
Silence replaces Victor’s voice.
Falcon almost smiles. “Problem solved.”
A bullet strikes the wall beside him.
“Mostly solved,” Cobra adds.