Chapter 2 - TEN MINUTES IN THE DARKNo emergency lights came on.
That was the first warning.
Commander Hayes pushed Avery behind the desk.
Colonel Vance drew her weapon.
Elias Ward moved into the darkest corner.
Something slid beneath the door.
A smartphone.
Its screen illuminated the floor.
Ryan Briggs appeared on the display.
He was tied to a metal chair.
Blood ran from his mouth.
A distorted voice filled the room.
“Avery Mitchell. Ten minutes. Come alone, or Sergeant Briggs dies.”
The camera moved briefly.
Concrete.
Yellow pipes.
A faded maintenance warning.
Hayes recognized the location.
“The old tunnels.”
Ward finally explained what Avery had seen overseas.
Black Meridian.
A private network built from corrupt officers, contractors, weapons brokers, intelligence assets, and people who had learned that war could become extremely profitable when nobody asked the right questions.
Three years earlier, Avery’s unit had entered a safehouse containing stolen American weapons and falsified military credentials.
The symbol on Avery’s photograph had been painted on the wall.
She had remembered names.
Routes.
Numbers.
That made her dangerous.
Briggs, Ward claimed, might merely have been bait.
Avery looked at the screen.
Briggs had humiliated her.
He had tried to injure her.
But Avery knew exactly what Black Meridian expected.
They expected revenge to make her predictable.
“I’m going,” she said.
Hayes refused.
Avery slid a combat knife beneath her sleeve.
“They expect me to go alone.”
Ward studied her.
“So?”
May you like
Avery opened the door.
“So we give them what they expect until they stop looking for what we're actually doing.”
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