Every officer who had ever managed base movements knew the geometry of Camp Vora. Siding Nine didn't roll freely onto the main line. It dead-ended into a mechanical derailer fifty yards short of Gate Four—a heavy cast-iron wedge clamped over the rail to prevent runaway cars from drifting onto the civilian freight corridor. To drop that wedge, an operator needed a heavy brass switch key kept in the motor pool master locker.
My eyes cut to the key board mounted behind Lin’s shoulder. The hook labeled SPUR-9 DERAIL was empty.
The brass key wasn't on the board. It was already in Lin’s utility vest.
Miller noticed the direction of my gaze. "Secure the bench," he barked to the marshals behind him.
The four men moved with professional speed, spreading out to clear the hydraulic lift posts, their boots splashing through the oil slick on the concrete. But Lin didn't wait for them to close the gap.
She didn't swing the pry bar at the marshals. She rammed the chisel point directly into the electrical disconnect box mounted on the concrete support pillar beside Bay Two.
The impact tore through the galvanized conduit with a blinding blue flash and a concussive pop that sounded like an artillery simulator going off inside the closed bay. Sparks showered down across the hood of the utility truck. The overhead sodium lamps died instantly, plunging the entire five-bay maintenance floor into pitch blackness, punctuated only by the amber glow of the battery-backed diagnostic terminal and the red indicator lights on the tool racks.
"Move!" Lin shouted in the dark.
I didn't reach for the upload key. Uploading a three-gigabyte raw audio archive across a sixty-year-old copper relay wire would take twenty minutes we didn't have. Instead, I grabbed the digital media card from the drive bay, shoved the red accordion tag back into the front pocket of my soaked tunic, and vaulted the low metal tool cart separating Bay Two from the sunken lubrication pit.
Gunfire didn't erupt. Miller was too experienced to authorize blind shooting in a dark shop filled with fifty-five-gallon drums of solvent and motor oil. Shouts ricocheted off the corrugated steel ceiling—orders to hold the doors, curses as someone stumbled over a floor jack, the sharp crash of a metal shelf tipping into the grease pit.
"Cover the roll-up doors!" Miller yelled, his voice echoing from the center of the dark bay. "Nobody leaves this building! He has the card on his person!"
I knew the layout of Bay Five better than Miller’s civilian escorts. In the far corner, behind the heavy parts washer, a narrow steel hatch led down into the old heating tunnel that carried steam lines beneath the yard to the rail depot pump house.
A hand caught my field jacket in the dark, fingers twisting into the rough wool. I spun, bringing the heavy aluminum edge of the recorder’s chassis down across the man's forearm. Bone hit metal with a dull crack, the grip broke with a sharp gasp of pain, and Lin’s voice cut through the dark two inches from my ear: "This way, Thomas. Down the pit."
She had an angle-head flashlight tucked under her chin, its lens taped down to a pinprick of dim red light. She grabbed the steel ring on the floor hatch, wrenched it upward with a screech of rusted iron hinges, and dropped straight into the concrete crawlway below. I followed her, pulling the heavy plate shut above my head just as a tactical flashlight beam swept across the ceiling of the bay.
The tunnel was four feet wide, choked with the smell of wet asbestos, scalding pipe scale, and stagnant drainage water. We moved in a half-crouch, our boots splashing through ankle-deep runoff that was warm from the leaking steam fittings overhead.
"Where does this surface?" I asked, my voice rattling against the concrete pipe.
"The pump house directly opposite the rail siding switch," Lin said, moving fast ahead of me, the red dot of her flashlight dancing over the mud-slick floor. "Sterling knew Hale was moving cargo off that spur. He didn't tell me what was in the cars, but he gave me the switch key at noon yesterday. He told me that if the base went on perimeter lockdown before the shift change, someone had to lock the derailer down so the reefers couldn't be shunted onto the mainline."
"And Corporal Aris?"
"Aris was his nephew, Thomas," Lin said, not stopping. Her boots kept a brutal, steady rhythm through the dark water. "Julian Sterling didn't stay on this post for thirty years because he loved the prairie. He stayed to watch the boy after Aris’s father died in Germany. When Aris didn't report in from Gate Four on Tuesday night, Sterling knew the boy hadn't deserted. He knew Hale had put him somewhere."