Cole laughed nervously.
"You're driving?"
Walter looked at him.
"Unless your fancy uniform learned how."
Cole climbed inside.
The storm grew louder.
Walter started the engine.
Then he looked at the young sergeant sitting beside him.
"You wanted to know what Falcon meant."
Cole said nothing.
Walter shifted into gear.
"You'll find out tonight."
The utility vehicle crawled through the rain.
Water hammered the windshield.
Trees bent beneath the wind.
Cole held the dashboard as Walter drove along what looked like an ordinary dirt road.
Then Walter suddenly turned through a gap in the trees.
Cole looked around.
"There's no road here."
"There used to be."
They continued.
The vehicle descended sharply.
A concrete structure appeared beneath the vegetation.
Cole stared.
"What is that?"
"Old emergency access."
Walter stopped.
He climbed out.
Rain soaked his gray hair instantly.
Cole followed.
Walter walked to a rusted metal door hidden behind vines.
He pulled away the branches.
A faded military symbol appeared.
Cole's expression changed.
"This isn't on the map."
"Most useful things aren't."
Walter opened the door.
Inside was a narrow tunnel.
The team followed him with flashlights.
After several hundred yards, they heard voices.
Then pounding.
Walter raised his hand.
Everyone stopped.
"Someone's trapped."
They moved forward.
A collapsed section blocked the tunnel.
Beyond it, soldiers shouted.
"Over here!"
Walter studied the debris.
Cole expected him to call engineers.
Instead, Walter began moving rocks.
"Sir, let us do that."
"No."
"You're seventy-three."
Walter looked at him.
"And you're twenty-seven."
Cole didn't know what to say.
Together they cleared the passage.
Eventually they reached the trapped convoy.
Thirty-six people had survived, but two soldiers were injured and one officer was unconscious.
Walter immediately took control.
"Move the injured first."
A lieutenant protested.
"We should wait for medical."
Walter pointed toward the ceiling.
"See the water?"
Everyone looked.
A thin stream was entering through cracks.
"That tunnel will flood."
The lieutenant froze.
Walter continued.
"We have twenty minutes."
The soldiers moved.
Cole watched Walter work.
There was no panic.
No shouting.
No need to prove anything.
He simply knew what to do.
Then a loud crack echoed through the tunnel.
Everyone looked up.
Walter grabbed Cole by the shoulder and pulled him backward.
A section of ceiling collapsed where Cole had been standing.
Dust filled the air.
Cole stared at Walter.
"How did you know?"
Walter coughed.
"Old habit."
They continued moving.
But halfway back, the unconscious officer suddenly stopped breathing.
A young medic tried CPR.
Nothing.
Walter knelt beside him.
"Move."
The medic hesitated.
Walter began compressions.
"One, two, three..."
Cole watched.
The old man's hands were shaking.
But his rhythm never changed.
After nearly two minutes, the officer gasped.
Everyone froze.
The medic checked his pulse.
"He's back."
Walter stood slowly.
He wiped blood from his knuckles.
Cole looked at him differently now.
Not as a maintenance worker.
Not as an old man.
But as someone who had done this before.
Many times.
Outside, the storm raged.
Inside the tunnel, Colonel Shaw asked quietly:
"Walter, how many people have you saved?"
Walter looked at her.
"I stopped counting."
Then he turned toward the exit.
But before they reached it, the emergency radio suddenly came alive.