A pause stretched on the other side of the door. Long enough for the hum of the transformer outside to whine against the damp air.
"Colonel," Sterling replied, his tone dropping into that quiet, rehearsed patience used by men who believe every exit belongs to them, "I’m afraid the base commander just placed the entire installation under emergency quarantine lock. No vehicles depart the wire. All communication relays are restricted to division command. I need you to open the door, step outside with your sidearms surrendered, and transfer all seized ledgers to my custody for official inventory."
Miller pulled his knees to his chest, trembling violently against the wall.
"If we open that door," Cole said in a soundless whisper, leaning toward my ear, "we don't make it past the motor pool gate."
"We aren't opening it," I whispered back.
I moved to the back of the trailer where the metal maintenance vent joined the sub-floor drainage run. The small crawl space led straight down through the hollow pier footings, opening into the overgrown drainage swale that fed the marsh. It was two hundred yards of black mud and stagnant ditch water, running directly beneath the exterior fence line toward the medical annex.
I pulled my field knife from my belt, wedged the heavy blade into the edge of the vent cover, and wrenched the sheet-metal screws free with three sharp twists. The gap yawned open, cold air smelling of rotten reeds and diesel exhaust rising into the room.
"Toby," I said, gripping the boy by his wet collar and pulling him toward the opening. "You keep that key around your neck. You take Agent Cole down through the swale toward the back boiler pit of the medical incinerator. Do not approach the gate. Do not use the gravel roads."
"What about you, Colonel?" Cole asked, his hand dropping to the vent frame. "You can't hold this room alone."
"I don't need to hold the room," I said, reaching down to Sterling’s ledger on the desk.
I didn't take the book. Taking it would prove to Sterling that we were running. Instead, I used my knife to slice the final three pages cleanly from the cloth binding—Miller’s false burn entry, the false transfer depot codes, and the fuel receipt showing the seventy-mile round trip along the marsh road. I folded the stiff papers and shoved them into the waterproof inner lining of my service cap.
Then I picked up the heavy red grease pencil from the desk, walked to the blinds, and pulled the slat down just far enough to see Sterling standing on the gravel twenty feet away, flanked by four armed military policemen carrying shotguns.
"Major," I called out, letting my voice ring clear against the wood. "The base commander's inspection starts at 0800. If you want this ledger, you’ll have to break the lock and take it from a superior officer under full visual record."
A crowbar struck the lower wooden frame of the door. The aluminum groaned, the latch bending two inches inward as the first fracture splintered the plywood jamb.
Behind me, Cole eased Miller down into the dark opening beneath the floorboards, sliding after him into the cold earth.
I stepped back into the shadows beside the vent, watching the steel lock tear from the frame as Sterling’s men threw their weight against the door.
CHAPTER 2 CONTINUED
"Check the filing cabinet. Tear the floor register out. They couldn't have reached the perimeter wire on foot."
Cole’s hand found the wet sleeve of my coat in the dark. He didn't speak. He simply tugged once toward the south drainage swale, where the low concrete tunnel carried runoff beneath the security gravel and out toward the fuel depot.
Toby Miller was three paces ahead of us, crawling on hands and knees through eighteen inches of foul water. His breathing was a harsh, rhythmic rasp against the curved concrete culvert, but he kept moving, guided entirely by his left hand dragging along the rough aggregate wall. The yellow parachute cord hung down from his neck, the stamped brass key to the incinerator vault clinking rhythmically against the stone.
"Keep your head down," I whispered, the words barely grazing Cole’s shoulder. "The culvert passes directly under the secondary checkpoint. If they trip the floodlights on the tank farm, they’ll see the water churning at the outflow."