CHAPTER 11: THE SUBLEVEL TRANSPORT
The steel shackles bit cold into my wrists through the canvas sleeves of my coveralls every time the transport vehicle hit a washboard ridge on the service road. The back of the unlisted utility van was pitch-black, stripped of its standard passenger benches and lined instead with heavy aluminum cargo tracking plates. Across from me, Miller sat with his back wedged against the green storage lockers built into the vehicle’s bulkhead, his stocky shoulders moving in sync with the rough, jarring vibration of the rear axle.
“They’re not taking us to the stockade,” Miller muttered. His voice was nearly swallowed by the roar of the mud-tires hitting the wet asphalt below us. The gray morning light didn’t reach this far into the interior; it only caught the edge of his flushed, stern face whenever the vehicle passed under the high-intensity security lamps of the division’s inner perimeter.
“They’re taking us to the central logistics node,” I said, my voice flat, retaining its gray, mechanical rhythm despite the rhythmic clinking of the iron chain between my hands. “The old line sergeant’s transit case proved the scope. We aren’t an administrative error anymore, Miller. We’re unverified inventory that needs to be quarantined before the external inspectors clear the front gate.”
Beside me, the heavy aluminum transit case sat bolted to the floor, its brass toggles sealed with a tamper-evident red plastic wire tag. Through the small wire-glass partition behind my head, I could see the silhouette of the security detachment driver and the pale profile of Special Agent Kincaid. She wasn’t looking at the road; she was staring at the glowing screen of her ruggedized ledger, her pencil tracking lines of metadata generated by the active transponder I’d planted on Transport Three.
Suddenly, the vehicle brakes groaned with a sharp, hydraulic hiss. The van swerved left, its heavy rear end sliding through the clay before slamming into a row of flaking zinc oil barrels at the edge of the trail. The impact threw me forward against the steel edge of the bench-rack, the iron shackles scraping a line of white skin across my forearm.
Outside, the steady roar of the storm was cut by the high-pitched, metallic grinding of a heavy-duty winch pulling steel cables across the wet asphalt.
The van’s rear doors were yanked open from the outside, letting in a blinding sheet of gray rain and the sharp stench of burning transmission fluid. Standing in the downpour, his weathered camouflage utilities completely black with water and grease, was the senior line sergeant. He didn’t have his weapon drawn, but his tactical gloves were covered in a thick, dark film of zinc oil.
“Get down,” the sergeant rasped, his voice cutting through the wind like a dry file. He reached into the dark interior, his hands grabbing the chain of my shackles and hauling me toward the edge of the wet tail-gate. “The recovery team just hauled Transport Three out of the ravine at Mile Marker Eight. The suspension bracket didn’t just snap; it sheared the main steering knuckle. The driver didn’t survive the impact, and his canvas pouch is still locked inside the cab.”
Miller scrambled out after me, his boots hitting the wet clay with a heavy thud. Through the sheets of rain, I could see the wreckage of the third flatbed truck—a twisted heap of black steel and shattered fiberglass wedged against the base of a corroded crane tower. The frame was split completely in two, the unpainted iron of the axle housing exposed to the gray light, its silver transponder still pulsing a faint, wet green light against the mud.
“Kincaid’s team is already calling in the division sweep,” the sergeant said, shoving a pair of heavy-duty industrial wire cutters into Miller’s hands while he pointed toward the crushed cab of the transport. “The driver was carrying a duplicate, unstamped security keycard from the command section’s distribution vault. If you don’t clear that pouch before Kincaid’s assistants secure the perimeter, the exemption codes disappear into the regional firebreak.”
I didn’t wait for Miller to adjust his grip on the cutters. I turned toward the crushed cab, my shackled hands lifting to find a purchase against the jagged, torn sheet metal of the driver’s side door. The cold iron pins of the hinges were sheared through, the smell of stale ozone and wet canvas rising from the interior like gas from an open trench. The investigation had just turned from an armory standoff into a retrieval run, and the dead metal in the ditch was the only evidence left that could break the loop.
