Chapter 35 - Descent into Ironwood
The transit across the inland waterway was a ghost-ride through a gray, churning underworld. General Sterling drove the semi-submersible craft with terrifying precision, hugging the deepest river channels and locking onto underwater military navigation beacons that hadn't been pinged in decades.
By midnight, we ditched the watercraft at a hidden intake sluice near Marquette, transferred into an unmarked matte-black utility van parked inside an overgrown logging depot, and drove forty miles north into the dense, fog-shrouded wilderness of the Upper Peninsula.
The entrance to Project Ironwood looked like nothing more than an abandoned mining shack nestled against the base of a towering granite cliff face. A rusted iron gate barred the access road, its heavy chains thick with red corrosion.
Ethan killed the van’s headlights a hundred yards out, coasting silently onto the gravel shoulder.
“Thermal imaging shows zero active guard patrols,” Ethan whispered, staring at his tactical tablet as the van rolled to a stop. “Either the facility really is completely abandoned, or the automated defense grid is running entirely on silent-watch protocols.”
“Assume it’s the latter,” Sterling said, unlatching his door and stepping out into the freezing midnight air. He reached into the back of the van and pulled out a heavy military-grade breaching kit, handing me a suppressed carbine. “The perimeter sensors here aren't monitored by human guards. They’re tied directly to an optical-recognition turret network. If we trigger an alarm without the proper hardware-handshake frequency, the internal bulkheads will seal permanently, locking us four hundred feet underground with zero oxygen.”
I checked the bolt on my carbine, feeling the smooth, oiled slide click into place with familiar satisfaction. “Then let’s make sure we don't trip the wires.”
We moved in a tight, disciplined three-man stack toward the heavy steel personnel door set into the cliff face. Sterling knelt down beside the electronic keypad, pulling a custom hardware sniffer from his pocket and patching it directly into the facility’s auxiliary data port.
For three tense minutes, nothing happened. The forest around us was dead silent, save for the wind hissing through the pine boughs and the distant, hollow sound of water dripping deep within the subterranean caverns.
Click.
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The heavy steel door gave a low, pneumatic hiss and swung inward six inches, bathing the dark concrete entryway in a dull, emergency-red glow.
“Handshake accepted,” Sterling whispered, pushing the door open and leading us into the dark.
