Chapter 26 - The Surface of Lies
The rattle of automatic fire erupted instantly, chewing through the upper rungs of the ladder.
Nathan threw his body over mine, absorbing the shower of brick shards and metal fragments that sprayed outward as high-velocity rounds perforated the catwalk. Thorne used the chaos to kick out, throwing Nathan off balance. He scrambled toward the dangling cable of the extraction team with the desperate frenzy of a cornered rat.
"Wait!" Thorne shrieked upward, reaching for the carabiner hanging from the descending harness. "I have the secondary codes! I can still wipe the database—"
A single shot rang out from above—a suppressed, clinical snap that echoed with chilling finality.
Thorne’s head snapped backward. The manic grin vanished from his face, replaced by a blank, glassy stare. His body went limp, slipping backward off the edge of the catwalk, plummeting down into the subterranean abyss without a sound, his secrets swallowed by the darkness below.
"Silencing him," Nathan breathed against my ear, his voice raw. "They don't want him talking to a military tribunal."
"We can't stay here," I said, my combat triage instincts overriding the terror clawing at my chest. "If they drop a flashbang or tear gas down this chimney, we're suffocating in thirty seconds."
"The service hatch behind us," Nathan ordered, his face pale from blood loss, his hand trembling as he gripped my wrist. "It feeds into the municipal subway system. Three hundred yards to the north line. Move, Mera!"
We scrambled back into the narrow horizontal conduit just as two fragmentation grenades dropped from the surface. The explosion behind us was a shockwave of heat and compressed air that slammed us into the concrete floor, blowing the iron hatch shut behind our heels and sealing out the firestorm.
Coughing through the thick, acrid smoke, I hauled Nathan to his feet. He could barely put weight on his left leg. The wound from the gala had reopened, soaking through his trousers in a dark, terrifying stain.
"Lean on me," I said, wrapping his heavy arm around my shoulders. "Do not die on me, Nathan Vance. Not after all this."
"I survived... Kandahar for you, Mera," he whispered, his breathing shallow, ragged. "I'm not going to let... a bunch of black-budget cowards finish me in a sewer."
We dragged ourselves along the maintenance catwalk of the subway tunnel, guided only by the eerie amber glow of the distance track lights. Behind us, the thud of tactical boots echoed in the distance. They were hunting us. The broadcast had broken the story to the public, but the shadow machine that controlled the capital wasn't going to surrender without a bloodbath.
Finally, the maintenance tunnel opened onto the platform of the Federal Center station.
Sirens wailed in the streets above. Through the glass roof of the station, the night sky was painted in strobes of blue, red, and gold. As we stumbled onto the tiled platform, twenty National Guardsmen in full battle rattle leveled their rifles at us.
"Halt! Hands where we can see them!" a sergeant barked, his voice tense, finger hovering near the trigger.
"Check your tactical feeds, Sergeant!" I yelled, stepping in front of Nathan, raising my blood-stained hands high. "This is Captain Nathan Vance! The man your commanders told you to hunt! Look at him! Does he look like a traitor to you?"
The sergeant hesitated, lowering his weapon slightly as his eyes flicked from my face to the battered, decorated uniform Nathan wore. From the rear of the squad, a familiar, commanding voice cut through the tension like a saber.
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"Lower your weapons! Every damn one of you, stand down!"
General Vance stepped through the ranks of the National Guard, his dress uniform pristine, his jaw set in iron, accompanied by four full-bird colonels from the Joint Staff.
