Her hand finds her pocket. Relief floods her face. "Got it."
"Stryker?"
A groan from the corridor answers me. Then Stryker's voice, rough with pain but still operational. "Still here. Took shrapnel to the leg. Give me ten seconds."
We don't have ten seconds. The Committee operators will be through that corridor in half that time, and when they arrive, they'll find us trapped in a room with no exits except the maintenance tunnel that Tommy mentioned.
A maintenance tunnel that I now realize is located directly beneath the floor grating at the center of this room.
"Khalid. The grating. Now."
The boy understands immediately. He crosses the room in three quick strides, drops to his knees, and begins working at the bolts with his knife while Reagan and I cover the doorway.
"Kane." I key the comm. "Status?"
"Falling back to secondary position." Gunfire punctuates his words. "They've got at least twenty operators. Professional. Well-equipped. This isn't a snatch team, Dylan. They came to kill everyone and burn the building."
Twenty operators. Against five of us, one wounded, protecting two civilians.
The math doesn't work. We move anyway.
"Grating's loose." Khalid's voice carries across the room. He hauls up the metal grid, revealing a shaft that descends into darkness.
"Everyone down." I push Reagan toward the opening. "Move."
She hesitates, eyes on my vest. "Dylan, you're hurt. You need?—"
"I need you alive. I need that drive intact." The words come out harsher than I intended. "Go. Now."
She goes. Drops into the shaft with more grace than I would have expected.
Khalid follows, sliding into the opening without hesitation.
Stryker drags himself through the doorway, one leg trailing crimson. He takes position beside me, weapon up, covering the corridor.
"You first," he says. "I'll cover."
"Your leg?—"
"Still works. Go."
No time to argue. I drop into the shaft, catching myself on a metal ladder that descends into a tunnel barely wide enough for my shoulders. The impact sends fresh pain lancing through my side, and I taste copper at the back of my throat.
Above me, Stryker fires three more rounds into the equipment room, then throws himself through the opening. He lands hard, grunting as his injured leg takes the impact, but he's already pulling the grating closed over our heads.
"Tommy," I gasp into the comms. "Kane's status? Mercer?"
"Kane's already in the tunnel, fifty meters ahead. Mercer's providing cover from the north ridge—he'll extract separately once you're clear. Extraction vehicle waiting at the secondary location."
We move.
The tunnel is old, probably left over from some mining operation decades before the safe house was constructed. Rough stone walls, uneven floor, and the only light comes from the tactical flashlight mounted on Stryker's weapon. Reagan navigates by touch, one hand trailing along the wall, the other pressed against her pocket where the drive sits.
Behind us, muffled explosions. The Committee hitting the equipment room, probably. Finding it empty. Discovering the tunnel entrance.
They'll follow. They have to. We're witnesses. We have evidence. And Reagan's pocket holds everything they've spent decades hiding.
"Dylan." Reagan's voice carries back to me, low and urgent. "I hear water."
