CHAPTER 5: THE KEYHOLE BREACH
The window latch on the side of Hangar Three didn’t snap; it sheared off with the dry, high-pitched ping of brittle iron giving way under grease-slicked steel. I dropped my weight onto the interior sill, my boots clearing the radiator pipes before hitting the grit-filmed linoleum floor with a dead, heavy thud.
The armory corridor was dead black, smelling of damp mops, copper wiring, and the lingering sourness of the green cleaning compound the night detail used to scrub the baseboards. Three hundred yards down the hallway, the heavy double doors of the classroom were locked from the outside with a thick master-key padlock, its heavy steel body dangling against the reinforced frame.
I didn’t use my flashlight. I moved by the pale, stuttering white light of the high security lamps outside, their glare cutting through the transom glass above the doors and casting long, barred shadows across the floorboards like ribs.
My hand was still wet from the rain, my knuckles raw where the rusted frame had scraped them during the entry. I pulled the small brass ink stamp from my jacket pocket, using its flat, weighted end to feel along the door casing of the main cage until my fingers found the slight, mechanical groove where the drywall met the steel jam.
A shadow crossed the frosted glass at the far end of the wing.
“Check the loading bay doors again,” a voice echoed from the stairwell. It was one of Vance’s detail—specialists from the logistics pool who had been standing under the flag three hours ago. His boots had the light, rapid click of light-weight patrol caps instead of heavy field soles. “The captain said she didn’t clear the northern fence. She’s still inside the perimeter.”
“She’s an armory sergeant, she knows where the dead spots are,” another voice muttered, the sound muffled by the thick masonry of the old building. “If she’s smart, she’s sitting in a crawlspace until the morning shift changes the guard.”
I pressed my back against the cold steel of the cage door, my thumb locking the brass stamp against my palm to keep the metal from clinking against my belt buckles. My breathing was short, regular, and hot against the wool collar of my jacket. I had exactly twelve minutes before the automated network diagnostic ran its scheduled sweep at midnight. If the terminal wasn’t initialized by then, the port database would default to Captain Miller’s signed variance, and the gate logs from the fourteenth would be permanently overwritten by the division’s central server.
The footsteps faded down the east wing, the heavy fire doors groaning on their hinges before settling into a long, hydraulic hiss.
I moved. My boots didn’t slide; I stepped on the outer edges of the soles, where the rubber was less worn and didn’t squeak against the wet linoleum. I reached the desk—the old, dark oak workstation where I had sat during Vance’s inspection. The clipboard was gone, the plastic bottles had been cleared away, but the distinct smell of his hair oil still hung over the blotter.
I dropped to my knees, my fingers feeling beneath the heavy timber underside of the center drawer, just past the iron rail where the lock mechanism was screwed into the grain.
My fingernails caught on the edge of the industrial duct tape. I pulled it back slowly, the adhesive resisting with a soft, tearing sound that seemed loud enough to bring the guard back from the stairs. Nested inside the gray fabric was a single, unnotched master-terminal card—the old, magnetic-stripe pass that the base technicians used before the garrison switched to encrypted smart-badges. It was outdated, unmonitored, and still tied directly to the old analog terminal hidden behind the spare parts rack in the rear cage.
I didn’t stand up. I stayed low, sliding my body through the narrow gap between the desk and the partition wall until my hand hit the cold, pitted iron of the parts locker.
The locker was supposed to contain nothing but spare firing pins and vintage cleaning rods for the old M16 platforms, but when I swung the heavy door out, the hinges gave a sharp, metallic screech that stopped my heart.
The blue light of the terminal’s standby screen flickered from the depths of the lower shelf, throwing a pale, square grid across my face.
A low click came from the transom window above the main corridor door. The padlock on the outside didn’t just rattle—it was being lifted. Someone was fitting a key into the brass core from the hallway.
“The light’s on in the back cage,” a voice whispered from the door frame. “I told you she didn’t leave the block.”
I jammed the magnetic pass into the terminal slot, the old drive grinding like gravel as the red laser line began to read the sector codes.
