Rain had begun to fall in earnest now, cold autumn drops that struck the gravel with a steady, hissing patter. My service shoe lost traction twice in the slick Virginia clay, but I kept my left hand pressed against my holster flap to keep the Beretta dry. Ahead, seventy yards through the dripping loblolly pines, rose the blunt, earth-covered hump of Communications Bunker Four.
Its low reinforced-concrete portal was flanked by two blast-resistant steel doors, painted dull drab green with stencil warnings from thirty years ago flaking into rust. The left door hung slightly ajar, propped open with an empty wooden ammunition crate.
I slipped through the gap, pulling the crate inward so the heavy steel slammed shut on its mechanical latch with a hollow, echoing boom. The sudden interior quiet was suffocating, smelling of damp lime, stale engine oil, and thirty years of enclosed cellar air.
"Miller," I whispered into the darkness.
A scrape sounded from the foot of the iron spiral staircase thirty feet down the corridor. "Colonel?"
Miller’s voice trembled from the dark. I pulled a small aluminum penlight from my breast pocket and clicked it on. The narrow white beam cut through the subterranean damp, catching Miller sitting on the bottom rung of the metal stairs, his knees pulled up to his chest, clutching the brass key in both hands like a talisman.
"Did they follow you?" he asked, his teeth chattering uncontrollably.
"Cross is still at the perimeter with the sedan," I said, descending the iron steps two at a time, my boots ringing on the steel treads. "Reyes won't shoot, but the man in civilian clothes inside that car isn't military police. He carries an off-base transfer binder. They'll have three patrol units stationed at the surface doors within five minutes to wait us out."
I reached the bottom landing and knelt beside him. The air down here was twenty degrees colder than the surface, thick with the chemical odor of preservative grease.
"Give me the key, Leo."
He opened his shaking fingers. The brass blank was heavy, five inches long, notched with eight deep, angular cuts along its upper ridge. Stamped into the base near the key ring loop were three letters: ORD-VAULT-B.
"Where did Hale get this?" I asked, turning the key under the penlight beam.
"He told me it was in his field desk when he took command of the logistics group five years ago," Miller whispered, wiping rain from his forehead with the back of his sodden sleeve. "He said... he said Cross came to his quarters at nineteen-thirty tonight and offered him a flight out of Norfolk if he handed over the ledger key. When Hale refused, Cross showed him the expulsion order signed by the regional provost. Hale knew he was being scrubbed from the record, Colonel. He knew if he came to you directly, Cross would intercept him at your quarters."
"So he used you as a courier decoy," I said, the bitter shape of the maneuver clicking into place. "Hale knew I was patrolling the rear boundary fence after the courier terminal shut down. He made sure I saw you with the packet so I’d intervene before Cross's detail could pick you up off-post."
Miller swallowed hard, looking down at his boots. "Did he set me up?"
"He used your fear to force my hand," I said, standing up and sweeping the penlight beam down the long, vaulted corridor. "Because he knew I wouldn't let an MP detail drag an enlisted clerk into an unmarked car without a signed docket."
At the far end of the underground hall stood the vault: an eight-foot slab of reinforced plate steel set directly into the bedrock of the bunker foundation. Its surface was free of digital keypads or optical scanners, bearing only a heavy brass turn-handle and a keyway protected by a spring-loaded dust cover.
I walked to the door, the penlight beam trembling slightly against the dull metal. Behind us, forty feet above, the distant thump of heavy boots hit the surface blast door. Cross was on top of the bunker.