Chapter 35 - The Extraction Protocol
The subterranean fortress was dying. With the primary server farm purged and the command protocols overridden by Admiral Sterling's NCA codes, the bunker's automated fail-safes began executing an emergency environmental purge. Deep within the bedrock, hydraulic valves groaned, venting toxic Halon gas into the lower munitions vaults to prevent uncontrolled secondary detonations from the surface strikes.
"We have six minutes before the lower levels are completely uninhabitable," Arthur announced, checking his tactical wrist-chronometer. "The upper hangar structure is compromised. Sterling has a flight of CH-53 King Stallions inbound to the auxiliary tarmac two miles east. Move out."
Hayes and two remaining operators, fully cooperative under the threat of treason charges, hoisted Thomas Vance to his feet. The once-feared three-star general looked pathetic, his tunic torn, his shoulders slumped, being dragged like common contraband through the corridors he had once commanded with absolute impunity.
Julian refused to walk. He wept openly, his knees buckling with every step, his formal dress trousers soaked in mud and hydraulic fluid. Hayes finally gripped him by the scruff of his collar, literally hauling the whimpering former hero across the steel floor.
Eleanor walked in rigid, catatonic silence. She refused to touch the metal walls, refused to look at Arthur, and refused to acknowledge Julian’s pathetic cries. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead on the dark, ascending access tunnel, her jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles in her neck stood out like cords. The facade of the grand matriarch was dead, replaced by the bitter, hollow shell of a fallen aristocrat.
"Marcus," my father called out as we reached the reinforced blast door leading to the vertical extraction shaft. "Take point. Check the emergency stairs. Thomas had an external security detail from Blackwood Tactical stationed at the mid-level catwalks. If they haven't received the stand-down order, they’ll shoot anything that comes through that hatch."
I drew Thomas’s discarded Sig Sauer, racking the slide to chamber a round. "Understood."
I pushed through the heavy steel pressure hatch, stepping out onto the narrow metal grating of the vertical service shaft. The air was cool and smelled of rain, a sharp, shocking contrast to the suffocating rot of the bunker below. Two hundred feet above us, through a shattered exhaust grate, the dark midnight sky was visible, illuminated by the rhythmic, strobing flashes of circling gunships.
Suddenly, the staccato bark of automatic fire echoed from the catwalk forty feet above.
*SPANG! SPANG!*
Rounds ricocheted off the steel handrail inches from my face, sending jagged metal fragments whistling past my ear.
"Contractors on the fourth tier!" I shouted, dropping flat against the grated landing, returning fire in controlled, two-round bursts. The muzzle flashes from above illuminated three figures in sterile black plate carriers, pinned down behind an industrial ventilation manifold.
"They're not backing down!" Hayes yelled from behind the steel hatch. "Blackwood's contract had a dead-hand clause—fifty million in an offshore trust if Vance's extraction is completed, dead or alive!"
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"They don't know the money’s gone," Arthur muttered, drawing a suppressed carbine from a wall-mounted emergency locker. "Marcus! Suppression on the left catwalk! Move!"
***
