A pause.
“Don't force me to kill the other Cole tonight.”
Rourke entered the control level at 11:26.
He had six armed contractors with him.
We had nowhere left to run.
Vale raised his pistol.
Evelyn pushed it down.
“No.”
Rourke smiled.
“Major Shaw.”
“You look terrible, General.”
“You're supposed to be dead.”
“So are most of your witnesses.”
His eyes turned toward me.
I remembered him giving speeches at military ceremonies.
Talking about honor.
Duty.
Sacrifice.
Now I saw something else.
Not a monster.
That would have been easier.
He looked like an ordinary old man who had spent too many years convincing himself that terrible choices were necessary.
Atlas moved in front of me.
Rourke noticed.
“The famous dog.”
Atlas growled.
Rourke laughed.
“Daniel loved that animal.”
“You knew my brother survived.”
“I arranged it.”
I stared.
“What?”
“Daniel was useful. At first.”
“You tried to kill him.”
“Later.”
He spoke with horrifying casualness.
“The operation overseas was collapsing. Your brother discovered financial channels he wasn't cleared to understand.”
“You were selling patrol information.”
Rourke's expression hardened.
“Do you think wars are funded with congressional speeches? Intelligence is currency. Access is currency.”
“You killed American soldiers.”
“I prevented larger conflicts.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“You always loved that sentence.”
Rourke ignored her.
“Nathan, give me the compass.”
“No.”
“This town has already sacrificed enough for your family.”
“You mean because of you.”
He sighed.
“Daniel had the same inability to see scale.”
“What happened to him?”
Nobody moved.
I stepped forward.
“What happened to my brother?”
Rourke's silence answered too much.
Then he said, “Daniel escaped Blackridge twelve years ago.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
My heart hammered.
“Where did he go?”
“I never found him.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe whatever comforts you.”
The courthouse clock outside began its first warning chime.
Thirty minutes before midnight.
Rourke looked at the console.
“When the archive opens, the data becomes accessible for seventeen minutes.”
Evelyn said, “And automatically transmits to federal inspectors.”
Rourke smiled.
“No.”
Her confidence faltered.
“I disconnected the external fiber lines two hours ago.”
We looked at each other.
Without a network connection, exposing the archive accomplished nothing.
Rourke extended his hand.
“Compass.”
Behind him, one contractor suddenly collapsed.
Atlas had not moved.
Nobody had touched him.
Then another contractor's radio went dead.
The lights flickered.
Rourke turned.
A voice came through the facility intercom.
“This is Bellweather Fire Control.”
Mara smiled.
Her father had helped design the emergency power system.
The voice continued.
“General, you cut the fiber.”
A second voice joined.
“Didn't cut the old copper.”
Vale laughed.
Rourke's face changed.
The town had restored a forgotten emergency telephone network installed for the mine decades earlier.
Slow.
Primitive.
Almost impossible to hack remotely.
But functioning.
Evelyn typed.
“Data won't move fast enough.”
“How much?”
“Maybe three percent before the window closes.”
Rourke smiled again.
“Exactly.”
Then Atlas began barking toward a locked maintenance cabinet.
One bark.
Pause.
Another.
I knew that alert.
Something was transmitting.
I opened the cabinet.
Inside sat an old military radio terminal.
And taped to it was a note.
My brother's handwriting.
NATE,
IF THEY CUT THE INTERNET, USE THE SKY.
Daniel had installed an independent satellite uplink.
It hadn't transmitted in twelve years.
Evelyn powered it.
Nothing.
“Come on.”
She checked connections.
The dish motor was jammed.
The equipment sat on the mountain above us.
Somebody had to realign it manually.
I grabbed a radio.
“I'll go.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “Rourke controls the surface.”
“I don't see another option.”
Vale spoke into his radio.
“Mara?”
Static.
Then her voice.
“I can reach it.”
I looked at her.
She was already halfway toward another tunnel.
“Mara, stop.”
“My father taught me every maintenance route.”
“You'll be exposed.”
“So will everybody if this fails.”
She disappeared.
11:54.
Six minutes.
Rourke ordered his contractors forward.
Vale and Lucas's men barricaded the corridor.
Nobody wanted a gunfight.
But Rourke did.
A contractor fired.
The first bullet struck a steel cabinet.
Everything changed.
Vale returned fire.
People shouted.
Atlas stayed beside me.
I opened the archive interface.
Thousands of files.
Names.
Transactions.
Operation orders.
Audio recordings.
Daniel had documented everything.
11:58.
Evelyn shouted into the radio.
“Mara!”
“Almost there.”
The satellite indicator remained red.
Rourke's men pushed closer.
A bullet shattered the glass above us.
Atlas barked.
“Down!”
We crouched.
Midnight.
The archive opened.
A clock appeared.
16:59.
16:58.
Transmission unavailable.
“Mara!”
Her voice came through.
“Try now!”
Evelyn activated the system.
Nothing.
Then the light turned yellow.
Green.
SATELLITE LINK ACQUIRED.
Upload began.
1%.
2%.
Rourke saw the screen.
For the first time, panic entered his face.
“Destroy the terminal!”
His men rushed forward.
Lucas and Vale held the doorway.
I hated being behind a computer while others risked themselves.
But Daniel had built the system around me.
My job was to remain.
8%.
A contractor reached the room.
Atlas moved before I gave the command.
He hit the man's forearm.
The weapon dropped.
“Atlas, release!”
Instantly.
The man staggered backward.
Atlas returned.
Thirteen years old.
Still perfect.
25%.
Rourke himself entered.
He pointed a pistol at Atlas.
“No!”
I tackled him.
The gun fired.
Atlas yelped.
Everything inside me stopped.
I turned.
Atlas stood.
Blood darkened his shoulder.
He remained on his feet.
My vision narrowed.
Rourke reached for the gun.
I could have killed him.
Maybe part of me wanted to.
Then Daniel's voice existed in my memory.
Not for me. For them.
I kicked the weapon away.
Rourke punched me.
I hit him back.
We crashed against the console.
41%.
He grabbed a broken metal bracket.
I trapped his wrist.
He was seventy.
I was fifty-one.
Neither of us fought like young men.
But desperation doesn't need youth.
53%.
Sirens became audible above ground.
Rourke heard them.
“So what?” he gasped. “Half those agencies still answer to my people.”
Evelyn laughed.
“Not all of them.”
64%.
Rourke looked toward the screen.
His confidence finally disappeared.
78%.
He charged.
Atlas barked.
Rourke instinctively looked toward him.
That half-second was enough.
I took him down and held him against the floor.
Vale entered.
He handcuffed Rourke.
95%.
The timer showed forty-two seconds.
98%.
99%.
Then nothing.
Frozen.
“No,” Evelyn whispered.
Twenty seconds.
“Come on.”
Atlas lay beside me.
I pressed my hand against his bleeding shoulder.
Ten seconds.
The screen changed.
100%.
TRANSFER COMPLETE.
The archive locked.
Three seconds later every server in Blackridge went dark.
Rourke stopped fighting.
He looked suddenly very old.
I held Atlas.
Outside, bells began ringing across Bellweather.
Not alarm bells.
Church bells.
Midnight had passed.
And after fourteen years, the truth was finally out.
Atlas survived.
The bullet passed through muscle without striking bone.
A veterinarian operated before sunrise.
I stayed beside him.
The federal response was unlike anything Bellweather had ever seen.
Not one agency.
Seven.
Military investigators.
Justice Department officials.
Federal marshals.
Treasury investigators.
Congressional security staff.
Rourke had spent decades creating influence, but Daniel's archive contained evidence too widely distributed to suppress.
Copies transmitted simultaneously to six separate destinations.
One went to federal prosecutors.
One to a congressional inspector.
One to an investigative journalist Daniel apparently trusted.
One to a law firm.
Two went overseas.
Evelyn smiled when she explained.
“Your brother didn't believe in single points of failure.”