Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64044 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 320(@200wpm)___ 256(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
“She’s safe. She’s running the tech side from outside.”
He starts to ask something, then stops. Even beat to hell and half-starved, his brain is still working. Enley running a digital operation doesn’t line up with anything he knew about his little sister before this.
“We’ll talk later,” I tell him. “Right now we move.”
We move.
The corridor on sub-level two is narrow, lit by those low emergency strips that turn everything amber. Poe limps along with his arm over my shoulder, breathing hard but steady. Behind us the cell door stands open.
“Render.” Her voice comes through the earpiece. Controlled, professional, but I can hear the edge underneath it. The same edge that showed up the second the locks cycled and she realized what her access pattern had cost us.
“Enley.”
“Stairwell’s compromised. Diaz is holding the top, but more guards are coming from the first level. Knight wants an alternate exit through the maintenance shaft.”
“That shaft fits one person. I’ve got Poe. He can barely walk.”
“I know. But the stairwell has active shooters between you and the exit. Diaz can hold maybe three more minutes before the reinforcements from the west side overwhelm her.”
Three minutes. Poe hanging on me. A stairwell full of people trying to kill us, and a shaft that only fits one.
“Enley. Can you kill the lights from your end?”
“I can try. Lighting control runs through the same network I’m in, but it’s a separate system. I’d have to find the access point and write a new command.”
“How long?”
“Two minutes. Maybe ninety seconds if it uses the same authentication I’ve already cracked.”
“Do it. Dark gives us the edge. They don’t know this building without lights. I do.”
“You’ve never been in this building.”
“I’ve been studying the layout for a week. Dimensions, distances, cover points. In the dark that’s enough.” A short pause. Then her voice comes back softer. “The lockdown… the countermeasure. It happened because of the access pattern I left when I went through Margaux’s account. Serafina used it. She saw how I was working and built a response for exactly what we were going to do.”
I’ve known that since the locks reset. The timing of her work in the Luxembourg bank, combined with the facility data she pulled earlier, gave Serafina enough to see us coming. “We’ll talk about it later.”
“We need to talk about it now.”
“We need to get out of this building now.”
“I really need you to hear me.” Her voice is steady, but I can hear the slight tremor in her voice. She’s got something important to say.
“Fine. Talk.”
“It’s my fault. I went through that account even though something felt off, because I wanted the financial map complete. I was thinking about making the evidence airtight, not about what the access itself would look like from the other side. I was thinking like someone building a case, not like someone running an operation.”
“You’re not an operator.”
“That’s the point. I made a decision that had operational consequences and I didn’t have the experience to see the risk. You would’ve caught it. If you’d been at the keyboard instead of out with a fever, you would’ve looked at that access pattern and known it was a problem.”
She’s right about part of it. Wrong about the rest. And none of it can be sorted out properly while shots are echoing down the stairwell above us.
“You’re right I might have seen it,” I tell her. “You’re wrong that it changes the call. The map needed to be complete. You made that decision and it was the right one. The fact that the right decision had consequences we didn’t see coming doesn’t make it the wrong decision. It just means we were working with incomplete information. That’s every decision anyone’s ever made under pressure.”
“People are getting shot because of my incomplete information.”
“People are getting rescued because of the complete map you built.”
She’s silent for a couple of seconds, and then she says, “Lighting system’s open. Writing the kill command now. Thirty seconds.”
We’ve reached the base of the stairwell. The firefight above is louder here. Diaz and her team hold the top against guards trying to push down. The concrete turns every shot into a sharp, ringing crack.
On the first underground level Arrow appears at the end of the corridor. He’s moving under his own power, which means nothing critical is broken. Behind him Gage is supporting Ozzy, who’s favoring one leg. Lark is with them, calm and focused, saving every question and every emotion for later. Sawyer brings up the rear, checking corners and covering their six the way his military training drilled into him.
“Hostages at the stairwell,” I report. “Five total. Missing Orchid. Ready to move on your mark.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Enley says. “Kill command’s ready. When the lights go, you’ll have about forty-five seconds before the emergency generators kick in and restore partial power upstairs. The lower levels should stay dark.”