Chapter 9 - The Broken Seal
The rhythmic tapping on the corrugated metal wall echoed through the damp warehouse, sending a shiver down Julian’s spine. He instinctively reached for his hip, cursing under his breath when he remembered he left his service weapon back in the hotel room during the initial chaos.
"Stay behind the crates," Clara commanded, her voice dropping into a dangerous whisper as she crept toward the shadows near the back wall.
Marcus didn't move from his crate. He sat with his head bowed, staring at his calloused hands as if seeing them stained with blood for the very first time. "It’s too late," the old general muttered, coughing softly into a handkerchief. "They don't need to break in. They already have the frequency."
Suddenly, the encrypted laptop on the central table beeped furiously. The screen flashed a bright, blinding crimson, replacing the lines of green code with a single flashing word: OVERRIDE.
Clara pivoted away from the wall, sprinting back toward the desk just as the system locked itself out. "They’re brute-forcing the firewall from an outside satellite link," she said, her fingers flying across the keys in a desperate attempt to isolate the network. "Somebody gave them our encrypted IP address."
Julian’s eyes widened as he stared at his father. "You. You had a tracking beacon on you the whole time, didn't you?"
Marcus slowly raised his head, his eyes heavy with sorrow. "I didn't have a choice, Julian. The moment I walked out of that ballroom, the Vance security grid locked onto my medical telemetry. They knew where we were heading before we even hit the steam tunnels."
Clara didn't scream or yell. Her emotional restraint was absolute, forged in the very fires Marcus had helped ignite twenty-five years ago. She simply reached down, pulled a heavy tactical wirecutter from her pack, and severed the laptop’s internal power supply with a sharp snap. The screens went pitch black.
"Well, they know our general location," Clara said, her tone icy calm as she strapped the knife back to her ankle. "Which means we have exactly three minutes before a tactical team breaches this door."
Julian looked around the dimly lit warehouse, desperation bleeding into his voice. "There’s no other way out. We’re trapped."
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"Not quite," Clara said, walking over to a large tarp draped over a heavy object in the corner. She ripped the canvas away, revealing a battered black armored all-terrain vehicle. "Hold on tight."
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