Chapter 10 - The Child in the Wrong SUV.
The chapel corridor led to the east courtyard through a servants’ stairwell.
Vivian moved first, still wearing the bloodstained white uniform that had begun the evening as a symbol of honor.
Now it looked like the uniform of someone who had survived a war inside her own home.
Ethan supported Caldwell while Kessler followed behind them.
No one trusted anyone completely.
They only trusted the fact that Mara Voss had the rabbit.
At the bottom of the stairs, Kessler checked his radio.
“Voss is using one of my vehicles.”
Vivian looked at him.
“How convenient.”
“You can hate me after we stop her.”
“I already do both.”
They reached the courtyard.
Several SUVs were parked beneath the trees with engines running.
Agents moved between them, confused by conflicting orders.
Kessler shouted.
“Lock the east gate!”
A black SUV accelerated before the barrier could descend.
Vivian saw a pale face at the rear window.
Sophie’s face.
For one impossible second, Vivian thought her daughter was still beside her.
Then she looked down.
Her hand was empty.
“Sophie?”
Ethan turned in horror.
The child had been behind him on the stairwell less than twenty seconds earlier.
The SUV struck the half-closed gate and burst through.
Vivian ran after it without thinking.
“SOPHIE!”
Ethan caught her before she reached the moving vehicles.
“You cannot outrun a truck.”
Vivian fought him.
“LET GO OF ME!”
“We need a vehicle!”
That snapped her back into focus.
Kessler threw Ethan a key fob.
“Take mine.”
Vivian pointed at Caldwell.
“He needs medical care.”
Caldwell pressed his blood-soaked hand to the wound.
“I am coming.”
“You are barely conscious.”
“And Voss believes I know the archive override.”
Kessler stared at him.
“Do you?”
Caldwell gave a weak smile.
“Maybe.”
Vivian opened the rear door.
“Then bleed in the car.”
They launched down the driveway seconds later.
Ethan drove.
Vivian sat beside him tracking the escaping SUV’s taillights through the trees.
Kessler used his radio to order roadblocks, but every time he transmitted, another team countermanded him.
“Voss copied my credentials,” he said.
Vivian did not look at him.
“You built a system where one person could impersonate you.”
“I built nothing.”
“Then you failed to control it.”
Caldwell groaned from the back seat.
“She wants the old training site.”
Ethan glanced in the mirror.
“What old training site?”
“Black Lantern used a decommissioned federal communications facility near the Potomac.”
Kessler’s expression changed.
“The archive mirror.”
Caldwell nodded.
“If the master token is in the rabbit, that is where she will use it.”
Vivian stared at the road.
“And my daughter?”
No one answered quickly enough.
Vivian turned on them.
“What does she need Sophie for?”
Kessler’s face was grim.
“The cipher was designed by Nathan.”
“So?”
“It does not open with one voice.”
Vivian felt the world narrow.
Kessler continued.
“It opens with a paired authentication.”
“Whose voices?”
May you like
Kessler looked at her.
“Yours and Sophie’s.”
