Oliver didn't move from the ladder. He climbed down slowly, step by step, keeping the barrel of the pistol leveled at David's heart. He didn't stop until the cold steel of the muzzle pressed directly into the center of David's chest, right over the heartbeat he could practically see thumping through the agent's shirt.
A thin, cold smile curled on Oliver's lips. It was a look stripped of all his usual pretenses. "We don't have a choice, David. So please... cooperate."
David's eyes started to shine with unshed tears, shimmering under the harsh red lights of the bunker. He looked past the gun, searching Jack's face for a shred of the man he once respected.
"You gave me your word, Jack," David choked out, his voice trembling. "You broke it. Is this the same man I served with in the Bureau? Is this what you've become?"
Jack remained a shadow against the concrete wall, his silence heavier than any apology.
With shaking hands, David reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He lit it, the flame of the lighter dancing in his reflection. He took a long, jagged hit of nicotine, exhaling a cloud of grey smoke that hung heavy in the stale air. He sat back down in the metal chair, his spirit seemingly broken, and reached for a bottle of water. He drank it in silence, the only sound the rhythmic glug-glug of the plastic.
Finally, Jack broke the silence.
"You know how serious this is, David," Jack said, his voice gravelly and low. "If you walk out that hatch, we lose our technical spine. The movement dies before it draws its first breath. Without you, we're just two men in a hole waiting to be caught."
"That's not my problem," David snapped, slamming the water bottle onto the table. "I kept my end. Now it's your turn."
Jack stepped out of the shadows. "I'm sorry, David. Truly. But you're staying."
"Fuck you!" David's scream echoed off the damp concrete, a desperate, hollow cry. "Fuck both of you!"
The Next Morning
None of them had truly slept. The air in the bunker was thick with the smell of sweat and cold smoke. The domestic illusion of Oliver's life felt a million miles away.
David was the first to move. He stood up, his joints popping, and walked over to where Jack was sitting. He tapped Jack on the shoulder, his face pale but his expression flat, devoid of the emotion from the night before.
"Wake up, Jack," David muttered.
Jack opened his eyes instantly, alert.
"Let's do it," David said. "Let's get this over with."
Jack stood up, nodding once. "Great, then."
They sat at the heavy metal table, the laptop glowing like an altar between them. David's fingers began to move across the keys, a blur of expert motion as he pulled up encrypted directories he hadn't touched in years.
"We aren't using an anonymous domain," David explained, his eyes fixed on the code. "That's for amateurs. We're using a Zombie."
"A what?" Oliver asked, leaning over the screen.
"Three years ago, I took down a kid named Marcus Thorne," David said. "A black-hat hacker who was running a phishing empire out of Seattle. He's currently serving fifteen years in Leavenworth. When we seized his hardware, I 'misplaced' the credentials for his private command-and-control server. To the FBI, that server doesn't exist. But to the internet? It's still Thorne's playground."
"We're routing Thorne's credentials through a Ghost Relay," David continued. "I've hijacked three bulletproof SMTP servers in Moldova and Estonia to stagger the bursts. The signal is tunneled through three layers of Onion Routing. If the FBI manages to trace the packet—which they won't—they won't find a bunker in Oregon. They'll find the digital footprint of a man who's already in an orange jumpsuit. We're hitting the 'Send' button with a dead man's hand."
Jack leaned in, his shadow looming over the keyboard. "And the link?"
"A One-Time-Burn," David said. "They get one click. One chance to walk through the door before it vanishes."
David hovered his finger over the 'EXECUTE' key. He looked up at Oliver and Jack, the weight of the moment hanging in the air.
"Once I hit this, we are officially enemies of the state," David whispered. "Are we ready to go?"