Chapter 10
The interior of the federal annex was dead quiet, smelling faintly of floor polish, old books, and ozone from heavy electrical switchboards. Unlike the sleek, modern luxury of the corporate tower, this building felt institutional, solid, and reassuringly bureaucratic.
Daniel locked the fire door behind them with a heavy iron deadbolt, sliding a steel security bar into place across the frame. He finally dropped the heavy leather suitcase onto the linoleum floor, letting out a long, shuddering breath that sounded like years of accumulated tension leaving his body at once.
“We made it,” Rachel whispered, leaning her back against the cool hallway wall and sliding down until she was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. Her neutral sweater was soaked through, and her badge lanyard hung limp and waterlogged around her neck.
“Not yet,” Daniel said, walking over to a wall-mounted emergency telephone station labeled Secure Direct Line. He lifted the heavy black receiver, but instead of a dial tone, all he heard was a steady, rhythmic busy signal.
Rachel looked up, a cold dread washing over her. “What is it?”
“The internal comms are down here too,” Daniel said, his voice dropping an octave. He slammed the receiver back onto the hook with a dull plastic clatter. “That means the blackout isn’t localized to our building. Someone at the regional command level has cut the entire district’s secure network.”
“How is that even possible?” Rachel asked, standing up slowly, her legs feeling like lead. “This is a federal facility.”
“It means the leak goes higher than we thought,” a calm, measured voice echoed from the end of the dark hallway.
Both Daniel and Rachel spun around instantly, Daniel instinctively dropping his hand toward his concealed holster.
Standing in the shadows near the intersection of the corridor was a tall, middle-aged man in a dark trench coat, holding a small tactical flashlight pointed downward at the floor. His silver-streaked hair was neatly trimmed, and his expression was completely devoid of hostility, though his eyes carried an immense, crushing weight.
“Agent Miller?” Daniel asked, squinting against the flashlight beam.
“Put the gun away, Daniel. If I wanted you dead, you wouldn’t have made it across that catwalk,” Miller said calmly, stepping forward into the dim emergency light. He looked at Rachel, then down at Toby, who was still clinging tightly to Daniel’s side. “You’ve been a very busy couple of days. The entire regional directorate has been tearing itself apart looking for those files.”
“We have the master key,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the suitcase on the floor. “The entire operation—the toxic dumping, the falsified safety logs, Vance’s murder—it’s all documented on those drives.”
Miller stopped three paces away, his face hardening as he looked at the heavy leather case. “And you think bringing physical drives to a field office during a district-wide communications blackout is going to save you?”
Rachel stepped in front of Daniel, her voice sharp and fearless. “If the network is down, that means you’re isolated too, aren’t you? You’re not part of their clean-up crew.”
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Miller looked at Rachel for a long, silent moment, a faint, grim smile touching the corner of his mouth. “Smart girl. No, Agent Vance wasn’t the only one who wanted out of this mess. But if we want those files uploaded to the federal oversight database before the morning shift resets the servers, we have to move to the sub-basement bunker. That’s the only node in this entire grid that operates on an independent analog circuit.”
***
