Chapter 10 - Sixty Seconds
Red lights flashed across the chamber.
Mara clung to Eli.
Vale scrambled toward the dropped gun.
Rebecca grabbed his ankle.
“Run!”
William kicked the weapon away.
Dennis and Lena reached the closing steel door.
Dennis shoved his injured leg into the gap.
The door crushed against his boot.
He screamed.
Lena fired at the control panel.
Sparks exploded.
The door stopped.
“Move!” she shouted.
William lifted Mara.
Eli stayed beside him.
Rebecca crawled toward them.
Vale caught her by the hair.
“You’re not leaving.”
Daniel’s mother looked toward William.
For the first time, there was no calculation in her face.
Only terror.
“Please.”
William handed Mara to Dennis.
Then he went back.
Eli shouted.
“Don’t!”
William struck Vale.
Rebecca broke free.
Charles watched from his wheelchair.
Thirty-eight seconds remained.
Lena pulled Mara through the doorway.
Dennis guided Eli after her.
William dragged Rebecca toward the exit.
Vale rushed behind them.
Charles raised the gun from the floor.
He aimed at William.
Mara saw him.
“William!”
The shot fired.
Rebecca jerked.
She fell against William.
Blood spread across her back.
Vale stopped.
Charles looked almost annoyed.
“You moved.”
Rebecca collapsed.
William caught her.
“Leave me.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
Her voice broke.
“Tell him I was wrong.”
“You can tell him yourself.”
Twenty seconds.
Vale ran toward the exit alone.
Charles shouted after him.
“Coward!”
Vale did not turn back.
William pulled Rebecca through the steel doorway.
Dennis released his boot.
The door slammed shut.
Charles remained inside.
His voice came through the speaker.
“You think exposing me will make you innocent?”
William turned toward the sealed door.
“No.”
“But it will stop you from hurting anyone else.”
The explosion tore through the tunnel.
The ground lifted beneath them.
Concrete cracked.
Dust filled the passage.
William covered Eli with his body.
Dennis shielded Mara.
Lena dragged Rebecca toward the drainage exit.
Behind them, Hangar Nine collapsed into fire and smoke.
The group emerged onto the snowy runway.
Tactical vehicles surrounded the airfield.
Paramedics rushed forward.
Mara was placed on a stretcher.
Rebecca was barely conscious.
Vale was nowhere in sight.
Lena stared toward the tree line.
“He escaped.”
Eli held Mara’s hand.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Daniel?”
“He’s alive,” William said.
Mara looked at him.
“You found him?”
“Yes.”
Tears slid across her temples.
“Does he know who I am?”
“Not yet.”
Mara closed her eyes.
A paramedic checked her pulse.
“Her pressure is dropping.”
They rushed her toward the helicopter.
Eli started after them.
William followed.
Lena caught his arm.
“Senator.”
She held up a phone.
A security camera near the runway had captured Vale entering a black SUV.
The driver’s face was visible.
William stared at the screen.
It was one of his closest Senate colleagues.
Senator Robert Kessler.
The man scheduled to replace William at the canceled veterans’ announcement.
Lena’s expression hardened.
“This is bigger than your father.”
William looked toward the helicopter carrying Mara away.
May you like
“No.”
“It’s exactly as big as my father built it to be.”
