Chapter 3 - NINETY SECONDS IN THE DARKAvery dropped before the echo disappeared.
“DOWN!”
Training took over.
People hit the floor.
Security personnel drew weapons.
Someone shouted for emergency power.
Someone else yelled that the eastern access corridor had been breached.
Avery counted silently.
One.
Two.
Three.
The darkness was nearly absolute.
The giant windows had electronically shaded during the security lockdown, leaving only thin strips of afternoon light near the ceiling.
She heard Brock breathing several feet away.
“You hit?”
“No.”
“Stay down.”
“I didn’t—”
“Stay down.”
Avery crawled toward the conference-room wall.
Her fingers touched broken glass.
Not from the window.
Something smaller.
A light fixture.
The gunshot had struck overhead.
That mattered.
The shooter had not aimed at Brock.
Maybe the shot was meant to create panic.
Maybe the darkness was the real operation.
At fourteen seconds, emergency lights flickered once.
Then died.
At twenty-two seconds, Avery heard running below.
Not confused running.
Measured.
Fast.
Someone knew where they were going.
“Reed!” she called.
“Here.”
“East stairwell.”
“I hear it.”
At thirty seconds, Reed and two investigators moved toward the sound using handheld lights.
Avery remained with Brock.
“Who had the badge?”
Brock laughed once, breathlessly.
“You’re asking now?”
“Yes.”
“You people are unbelievable.”
“Name.”
“I never got one.”
“What did he look like?”
“Male. Late fifties. Civilian.”
“Where?”
“A private club outside Virginia Beach.”
“Why were you meeting him?”
Silence.
Avery grabbed Brock’s sleeve.
“Commander, whoever cut power to a controlled federal facility did not come here to frighten you. Start talking.”
“I moved equipment.”
“What equipment?”
“Communication hardware.”
“We know.”
Brock froze.
“You know?”
“Eight encrypted modules are missing.”
His breathing changed.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“What was supposed to happen?”
“I was told they’d be temporarily reassigned for compatibility testing.”
“By Voss?”
Brock said nothing.
That was enough.
At fifty-one seconds, a crash came from the lower corridor.
Reed shouted.
“STOP!”
Footsteps accelerated.
Then another impact.
No gunfire.
At sixty-eight seconds, the main building generator finally engaged.
Red emergency lighting came alive.
Avery stood.
Brock remained on the floor.
A security officer appeared at the stairwell.
“Captain, we have a breach in the evidence-control room.”
Avery’s stomach tightened.
“What was taken?”
“Still checking.”
She turned toward Brock.
His face told her he already knew.
“Your phone?” she asked.
He nodded.
The investigators had confiscated it twenty minutes earlier.
Avery ran.
The evidence room was one level below.
When she arrived, a reinforced cabinet stood open.
Nothing else appeared disturbed.
Three sealed phones remained inside.
Two tablets.
Several identification cards.
But the evidence bag labeled SULLIVAN, BROCK T. was empty.
Reed returned from the corridor, breathing hard.
“Lost him at the service exit.”
“Description?”
“Male. Black maintenance uniform. Face covered.”
“How did he get through the doors?”
“Valid credential.”
Avery turned.
“Whose?”
Reed showed her the access log.
GENERAL NATHAN VOSS.
Mercer stared.
“That can’t be right. Voss is in Washington.”
“His credential isn’t,” Avery said.
Reed nodded.
“Or somebody cloned it.”
Avery looked toward the empty evidence bag.
Someone had risked entering a locked-down military facility to retrieve Brock’s phone.
That meant the phone contained something they could not remotely erase.
Or something they needed physically.
Avery returned upstairs.
Brock was waiting.
The moment he saw her, he asked, “They got it?”
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“What’s on that phone?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why steal it?”
“Because of what’s inside it.”
Avery sat opposite him.
“Explain.”
Brock rubbed both hands over his face.
“There’s a hidden storage partition. It can only be opened with a physical key.”
“What key?”
He looked at her.
“My fingerprint.”
“Then the phone is useless to them.”
“No.”
Avery immediately understood.
“They already have a copy.”
Brock nodded.
“When I joined the network, they made me authenticate a biometric device.”
Avery felt anger rise but kept her voice even.
“The network has a name?”
“Sentinel.”
“And what does Sentinel do?”
Brock looked toward the glass.
“I thought it was an off-books readiness program. A way to bypass bureaucracy when units needed equipment immediately.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“At first, yes.”
“And later?”
Brock’s jaw tightened.
“Later I stopped asking questions.”
“Because?”
“Because my career exploded.”
Promotions.
Prestigious assignments.
Access.
Awards.
Avery had seen the pattern before.
People rarely believed they were becoming corrupt.
They told themselves they were becoming important.
“Who leads Sentinel?”
“I don’t know.”
“Voss?”
“I dealt with him twice.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I don’t know.”
Avery stood.
Brock suddenly said, “I can help you.”
She turned.
“You already are.”
“No. I mean really help.”
She waited.
“There’s another transfer.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“How convenient.”
Brock leaned forward.
“They send location details exactly sixty minutes before movement.”
“To the stolen phone?”
He shook his head.
“To another device.”
“Where?”
“In my vehicle.”
Avery stared at him.
Brock gave a weak smile.
“You thought you searched everything?”
Before she could answer, Reed entered.
“We’ve got something else.”
He placed a printed photograph on the table.
It showed the maintenance intruder leaving the service corridor.
A security camera outside the blackout zone had captured the side of his face.
Brock looked at the photograph.
All color vanished again.
“You know him,” Avery said.
Brock did not answer.
“Commander.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is he?”
Brock touched the photograph.
“That man trained me eighteen years ago.”
“Name.”
“Master Chief Evan Rourke.”
Reed typed the name into his tablet.
Several seconds passed.
His expression became puzzled.
Then grim.
“What?” Avery asked.
Reed turned the screen toward her.
EVAN ROURKE
DECEASED
DATE OF DEATH: OCTOBER 14, 2019.
Avery read the line twice.
Brock whispered, “I attended his funeral.”
No one spoke.
Then Mercer’s radio came alive.
“Colonel, security found Sullivan’s vehicle.”
Mercer answered.
“Status?”
A pause.
“Sir… you need to see this.”
They crossed the parking complex under escort.
Brock’s black SUV sat alone near a concrete wall.
The driver’s door was open.
Inside, taped to the steering wheel, was a white envelope.
Avery pulled on gloves and opened it.
One card lay inside.
Printed on the front was the silver compass emblem.
The same emblem as her classified credential.
But the symbol was wrong.
One line was reversed.
A counterfeit.
On the back were six words.
WE KNOW WHO YOU REALLY WORK FOR.
Below them was a time.
And an address.
Brock stared over her shoulder.
“That’s tonight’s transfer.”
Avery looked at the darkening sky.
Whoever controlled Sentinel knew about SID.
They knew Avery was investigating.
And instead of running, they had invited her to come closer.
That meant one of two things.
May you like
They were desperate.
Or they believed the trap was already finished.
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