Chapter 7 - The Rogue Commander
I stood perfectly still inside the vault, holding the red hard drive.
Vance had completely outmaneuvered me by using his authority to twist my rescue mission into a crime.
"General, you know exactly what is happening here," I shouted through the thick glass.
"Your keycard was used to bypass gate security this morning by hostile operatives."
Vance did not even flinch.
"The suspect is erratic and dangerous," Vance told the guards.
"Open the door and detain her with extreme prejudice."
I knew that if I surrendered to these guards, I would suffer an "accidental" death in custody before morning.
As the heavy electronic locks began to disengage, I looked at the emergency fire suppression system on the ceiling.
It was a Halon gas system designed to extinguish fires by rapidly depleting oxygen in the room.
I drew my service weapon and fired a single round directly into the control panel on the wall.
The alarm shrieked, and a thick cloud of white gas violently deployed from the ceiling, instantly blinding the cameras and the guards outside.
I held my breath, strapped a tactical gas mask over my face from the emergency kit on the wall, and waited.
The door swung open, and the four guards rushed in, coughing and stumbling blindly in the dense fog.
Using my advanced hand-to-hand combat training, I swiftly disarmed the first two guards and swept the legs out from under the third.
I grabbed the fourth guard, spun him around, and shoved him forcefully into General Vance.
In the chaos, I slipped out of the vault, sprinting down the maintenance corridor toward the emergency exit.
I plugged the hard drive into my secure tactical tablet as I ran.
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The decrypted files loaded, revealing not just the spies, but the buyer's identity.
The terrorist funding Vance's entire operation was a man named Ryan.
