Page 83 of Echo: Line
Kane does final comms check. Stryker adjusts his scope. Rourke loads specialized rounds. Tommy syncs his equipment. Sarah pulls up real-time satellite imagery. Khalid hands out extra magazines, quiet support from someone too young for this mission.
Delaney secures her vest, checks her weapon one last time. She catches me watching, offers a small smile. Not confident. Determined. There's a difference.
At the door, just before we load into vehicles, she stops me.
"See you on the other side," she says.
I kiss her. Hard. Desperate. Tasting promise and fear in equal measure.
"Damn right you will."
We load up. Engines start. The safe house disappears behind us.
Forty minutes to headquarters.
Forty minutes until we find out if Cross's intel is good enough, if Delaney's federal protocols mean anything when bullets start flying, and if I can keep my promise to bring her back.
18
DELANEY
The maintenance tunnel smells like oil and decades of neglect. My boots splash through standing water that hasn't moved since the last inspection—whenever that was. Probably never. Committee headquarters sits three floors above us, gleaming and legitimate, while we creep through its maintenance tunnels.
Alex moves ahead, rifle ready, each step careful despite the water. Behind me, Kane and Stryker maintain rear security. Rourke's already in overwatch position somewhere outside with a clear line on our extraction route. Tommy's voice whispers through my earpiece every thirty seconds with security updates.
"Guard rotation in ninety seconds," Tommy says. "Window opening."
My heart hammers against my vest. The body armor feels heavier than during training, pressing down on my shoulders with the weight of what we're about to do. This isn't sparring in the gym or target practice at a range. This is walking into a fortress full of people who will absolutely kill us if we're caught.
The rational part of my brain—the FBI profiler who spent years analyzing risk—screams that this is insane. The rest ofme keeps moving forward because seventeen agents died and someone needs to prove who actually killed them.
Alex holds up a fist. Everyone freezes. He signals: two guards, stationary, around the corner. Kane and Stryker move up on silent count. The takedown happens fast—suppressed shots that sound like coughs in the enclosed space. Two bodies hit the ground without making noise that matters.
We keep moving.
The access ladder comes up exactly where Cross's intel said it would. Alex climbs first, rifle at the ready, clearing each level before signaling us forward. My arms burn by the second floor but I don't slow down. Can't slow down. The team's counting on me to do my part.
We reach the server level. The corridor stretches empty and sterile—white walls, fluorescent lights, no cover worth mentioning. Security cameras dot the ceiling every twenty feet.
"Cameras looping now," Tommy confirms. "You've got sixteen minutes before someone notices."
Sixteen minutes to reach the server room, download everything, and extract before this goes from covert operation to active combat.
Alex and I split from the main team. Kane and Stryker continue to the security station to hold that choke point. Our role is simpler and infinitely more dangerous—get to the servers, get the data, get out.
The server room door yields to Tommy's remote access. Inside, rows of black equipment hum with the white noise of expensive technology keeping secrets. Climate control keeps the temperature arctic. My breath fogs despite the vest and tactical gear.
"You're good," Alex says, taking up position by the door. "I've got security. You work."
Right. My job. The reason I'm here instead of safe at the operations center.
I move to the main terminal, pull out Tommy's custom device from my vest. The interface looks simple—plug it in, let Tommy work his magic remotely, download everything. But simple doesn't mean fast.
The device connects. My fingers fly across the keyboard, navigating security protocols Tommy already cracked. Data starts flowing—names, financial records, operational details, everything we need to prove the Committee ordered those murders.
While Tommy handles the remote download, I work on documentation. Camera out, photographing each server rack, the terminal interface, the device connection. Time stamps for everything. Chain of custody requires I document the physical source—which servers, which room, exact location. Can't just have data appear magically. Need to prove where it came from, when it was acquired, who was present.
"Download initiated," I report. "Time estimate?"
