Chapter 19 - The Ambush at the Garrison Gates
"A second key?" I asked, my hand instinctively dropping to the dog tags resting beneath my uniform shirt. "Dad never mentioned anything else on the tape."
"David was the most thorough intelligence operative I ever commanded," General Graves said, stepping to the window and pulling the heavy velvet curtain aside an inch. "He knew that if Vance discovered the green box, he would assume he had found everything and stop looking. The green box contained the manifests that convicted Vance. But it didn't contain the ledger."
"What ledger?" Mom asked, stepping into the study with a silver tray carrying three mugs of black coffee. Her hands were steady now, hardened by a decade of standing up to corporate developers and municipal bullies.
"The foreign bank accounts," Graves explained, turning back to face us. "Vance wasn't acting alone. He was a middleman for a network of twelve senior defense contractors and corrupt politicians who were siphoning billions from wartime logistics contracts. David had the names, the account routing numbers, and the encrypted passwords written into a waterproof field ledger."
"Where did he hide it, Nathaniel?" Clara asked.
Graves looked at me. His gaze drifted down to the silver chain around my neck.
"He didn't hide it in a building, Clara. He hid it in the one place no one would ever dare desecrate."
Before the General could explain, the glass in the study windows suddenly vibrated with a deafening, bone-jarring CRACK.
Down at the base of the hill, near Gate One, a column of thick black smoke and orange flames billowed into the morning sky. The high-pitched, terrifying wail of the installation's primary emergency klaxon began to howl across the garrison.
BEE-OOP! BEE-OOP! BEE-OOP!
"Base defense alert!" Graves barked, his old posture snapping back into full tactical command. He grabbed his military radio from the desk charger. "Command Post, this is Graves! Report status on Gate One!"
Static hissed through the speaker, followed by the frantic, breathless voice of the young sergeant who had cleared me through thirty minutes earlier:
"Mayday, Mayday! Vehicle-borne explosive device at Gate One! A civilian fuel tanker rammed the security barrier! We have multiple armed hostiles breaching the north perimeter in civilian tactical gear! They're moving toward the residential sector!"
Gunfire—sharp, rhythmic bursts of automatic rifles—echoed through the cold morning air, sounding shockingly close to Quarters One.
"They aren't hitting the armory," I said, my tactical training from West Point taking over instantly. "They breached Gate One to draw the rapid-reaction force down to the main boulevard. It's a diversion. They're coming up the hill."
"They're coming for us," Mom whispered, her green eyes wide.
"Not while I have breath in my body," Graves roared. He yanked open a hidden panel in the mahogany wainscoting behind his desk, revealing an olive-drab tactical gun rack containing three M4 carbines and loaded magazines.
He pulled one down, racked the charging handle with a sharp, professional CLACK, and handed the second weapon directly to me.
"Lieutenant Bennett. Can you fire this weapon?"
"Expert marksman, West Point Class of '26, sir," I answered, slamming a magazine into the receiver and releasing the bolt with the heel of my palm.
"Clara, down into the storm cellar. Lock the blast door from the inside and do not open it for anyone without my voice code," Graves ordered.
"I am not leaving you two," Clara said fiercely, picking up a heavy iron fireplace poker from the hearth. "I ran from these monsters for twelve years, Nathaniel. I don't run anymore."
Before Graves could argue, the front door of Quarters One was blown inward off its hinges with a blinding flash and a concussive roar.
BOOM!
Plaster dust and splintered wood filled the hallway. Through the smoke, four men in black tactical uniforms, wearing Kevlar helmets and carrying suppressed submachine guns, swarmed into the foyer.
Leading them, holding a custom chrome-plated .45 caliber pistol, was Marcus Vance.
He looked older, his face gaunt and twisted by years of bitter hatred, but his eyes burned with the same arrogant, murderous psychopathy that had haunted my childhood.
"Graves!" Vance’s raspy voice echoed through the ruined foyer. "Come out, old man! Bring the Bennett girl and her bitch mother! Hand over the ledger, and I might leave you alive enough to watch me take back my city!"
I looked at General Graves. The old four-star gave me a slow, grim nod.
May you like
"Suppressing fire on three," I whispered.
"One... two... three!"
