Chapter 4 - The Protocol of Shadows
"She’s lying," Marcus whispered fiercely, grabbing Beatrice’s arm. "She’s pulling you into a kill zone. The moment you step up those stairs with the ledger, they eliminate the variables. That includes you."
Beatrice looked from the intercom to her father’s frozen face. The man who had taught her how to ride a bike, who had proudly pinned her captain’s bars on her shoulders at West Point, was lying in a medical refrigerator, a ghost preserved by technology he had stolen from a shadow government.
"She’s not lying about the purge," Beatrice said, her mind calculating the tactical options at lightning speed. "Look at the ceiling corners. Those aren't fire extinguishers. Those are pressurized incendiary charges."
Small, red cylinders were mounted into the concrete joists above the server racks. If triggered, the room would become an oven within seconds, erasing twenty years of evidence and her father along with it.
"We have to execute the code," Beatrice said, pointing to the yellowed paper. V74-ALPHA-ECHO. "Marcus, get to the main console. Upload the data from the terminal we took from Unit 17."
"And what are you going to do?"
"I'm going to talk to my mother," Beatrice said, racking the slide of her pistol. "Face to face."
Beatrice moved to the stairs, her movements silent and fluid despite the heavy dress shoes she wore. She bypassed the creaking third step—a detail her father had taught her to avoid when sneaking out as a teenager—and reached the basement door. She turned the knob slowly, slipping into the kitchen.
The house was dark, save for the flickering light of the television in the den. The smell of funeral flowers mingled with the sharp scent of gun oil.
She moved down the hallway, her weapon raised. As she stepped into the entryway of the living room, she saw her mother sitting in the armchair, exactly as she had in the video, but the ropes were gone. She was sipping hot tea, a sleek, polymer submachine gun resting casually across her lap. Two men in tactical gear stood near the windows, their rifles trained on the front lawn.
"You came up without the ledger," Eleanor said without looking up from her cup.
"I came up to see who I was actually raised by," Beatrice said, keeping her weapon lowered but ready. "Who are you, Eleanor? Because you aren't the woman who made my school lunches."
Eleanor set her teacup down with a delicate click. "I was a logistics analyst for the CIA before you were born, Beatrice. I met your father in Berlin. We didn't build a family because we wanted a quiet life in Ohio. We built a operational cell. And you were our finest deployment."
Beatrice felt a sickening knot tighten in her stomach. "I am a Colonel in the United States Army. I serve my country."
"You serve the front company," Eleanor countered, standing up. "Who do you think authorized your promotion to the logistics command? Who do you think positioned you so you could oversee the transport of the very containers your father was tracking? We didn't just plan this for twenty years, Beatrice. We engineered your entire career so you would be the one holding the keys when the time came to dismantle Vanguard."
Before Beatrice could process the depth of the betrayal, the window behind Eleanor shattered.
May you like
A flashbang grenade rolled across the hardwood floor.
"Down!" Beatrice screamed, her training taking over instantly as the room exploded into a blinding flash of white light and deafening sound.
