Chapter 25: The Breach

Evan drove to Shieldon with the phone on the passenger seat, lit and silent, showing the same red line.

VAULT 3 OPEN.

He crossed the lobby at a walk, because running would be seen.

The thirtieth floor was bright and loud.

Every Red stood at the glass wall of the lab in a trench coat over her evening clothes, with her phone at her ear.

The tall engineer with the shaved head had a keyboard on his knees, sitting on the floor.

"It's open," he said, when Evan reached him. "Three minutes ago it closed again. Something went in and out."

"What went out?"

"We don't know yet. The vault logged the keys but it didn't log the files."

"It will have," Evan said. "I wrote it to."

He sat down beside him on the carpet and took the keyboard.

For a few minutes there was only the sound of typing.

Every ended her call and came across the room.

She stood over them, quiet, with her arms folded.

"You came quickly," she said.

"I was in the city."

"At a hospital." She said it without heat. "With your husband."

"Ethan is still my husband until he signs. And yes."

"How is he?"

"He'll live."

"I'm glad." She crouched, so that their faces were level. "I'm also not a fool, darling. Look at the timing."

He kept typing.

"A man who can barely stand collapses at dawn. You leave my house at a run.

"Six hours later, while you are sitting beside his bed, the one system you built here opens from the inside."

"You think he did that from a hospital bed with a drip in his arm."

"I think he didn't have to." She held out her phone. "I think he had somebody do it for him."

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