Chapter 4 - The Subterranean Escape
The heat from the breaching torch outside kissed the back of my neck as General Graves shoved the heavy steel filing cabinet aside, revealing a dark, circular maintenance hatch set into the concrete wall.
With a sharp twist of his signet ring against a hidden latch, the circular iron door swung inward, releasing a rush of stale, damp air from the drainage tunnel beyond.
“General, you have to come with me,” I pleaded, tears finally spilling over my cheeks as I clutched the black flash drive in my sweaty fist.
“I can't, Ruby,” Graves said gently, setting me down on the concrete lip of the tunnel entrance. He drew his service pistol, clicking off the safety with a sharp, metallic click that echoed in the small room. “If I run with you, they’ll track our thermal signature within five minutes. I have to stay behind to buy you time.”
“They’ll kill you!”
“They won't kill me yet,” Graves replied with a grim, humorless smile. “I still hold the master decryption keys to the Pentagon’s audit files. As long as they think I have them here, they won't look for you.”
Behind us, the deadbolts gave way with a violent snap. The heavy steel door shuddered as a massive boot kicked it inward, denting the frame and sending a shower of paint chips and metal shavings across the floor.
“Go! Now!” Graves shouted, shoving me backward into the dark tunnel.
I scrambled on my hands and knees into the damp concrete pipe, the acrid smell of burning metal and ozone filling my nose. Just as I reached the first bend in the tunnel, I heard the heavy roar of gunfire erupting in the room behind me.
Bang! Bang-bang!
A man’s shout, a heavy thud of a body hitting the floor, and then absolute, terrifying silence.
I bit down hard on my lower lip to keep from screaming, tears blinding me as I crawled as fast as my small hands and knees could carry me through the darkness. The tunnel sloped downward, carrying the sound of rushing water from the drainage canal ahead. Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, to check on the General, to find my mom—but his final command echoed in my head like a drumbeat: Don't look back.
After what felt like hours of crawling through the claustrophobic concrete tube, a pale sliver of gray daylight appeared ahead.
I pushed forward, bursting out from the mouth of the drainage pipe beneath a thick tangle of willow trees along the muddy banks of the Fort Aldridge river canal.
The cold autumn wind hit my face, making me shiver violently. I scrambled up the muddy embankment, hiding behind a rusted industrial dumpster just fifty yards from the base motor pool.
Through the chain-link fence, I watched chaos unfold inside the compound. Sirens wailed across the rooftops, flashing red lights painted the gray morning sky, and three sleek black SUVs with tinted windows were screeching toward the main gate.
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And stepping out of the lead vehicle, holding a phone to his ear with a cold, expressionless look, was a man in an expensive gray suit whose face I had seen printed on the front page of every national newspaper: Marcus Vance, Director of National Defense Acquisitions.
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