January 25, 2019. The Warehouse. 07:15 Local Time.
I woke up in the Command Container, my neck stiff from the army cot. The warehouse was silent, a vast cathedral of dust and hidden technology. On the monitors, the telemetry from the Nomad showed it drifting in a high polar orbit, hidden in the thermal shadow of the Earth.
"Archi," I asked, rubbing my eyes. "Hypothetically. If they breach the door. Not a knock, but a battering ram. How long until extraction?"
"Calculating Emergency Descent Profile Alpha," Archi replied instantly. "Disengaging stealth. Full reactor output to the ventral thrusters. Ignoring atmospheric drag limits. Ignoring noise abatement. A direct, high-G suicide burn from Low Earth Orbit to the coordinates of this parking lot."
"Time?"
"37 seconds."
I swallowed hard. "37 seconds."
"It would be violent, Surgrim. The ship would decelerate from Mach 25 to a hover in under ten seconds. The shockwave would shatter every window within a two-kilometer radius. The G-forces on the hull would be extreme, but the structural integrity will hold. However, you must be outside the building when it arrives. If you are inside when 120,000 tons of displacement hit the ground, the warehouse will collapse on top of you."
"Good to know," I muttered. "Keep that protocol on a hot key. Dead man switch."
"Protocol 'Thor's Hammer' is armed and waiting. But Surgrim... the van outside hasn't moved. They are waiting for something."
"They're waiting for the others," I realized. "They want the whole set."
January 25, 2019. Mobile Command Post "Echo-1". Parked 2km south of the Industrial Park.
Colonel Vance (USAF/Liaison) stood next to Agent Schreiber (BND) in the cramped back of a surveillance truck. The monitors showed a thermal feed of the warehouse. Or rather, they showed everything except the warehouse. The main building was a ghostly grey, but the container inside the main hall was a void.
"Look at that," Schreiber said, tapping the screen. "Thermal shielding. Acoustic dampening. We pointed a directional mic at that container that can hear a whisper through three layers of brick. Do you know what we heard?"
"Static?" Vance guessed.
"White noise," Schreiber corrected. "Engineered white noise. It's vibrating the walls at a frequency that cancels out our lasers. That isn't something you buy at a hardware store. That is military-grade counter-surveillance."
Vance crossed his arms. "So, the 'Scrap Metal Recycling' firm is a front. Espionage? High-tech smuggling?"
"Or worse," Schreiber said. "The power consumption spikes match the timestamps of the orbital anomalies we tracked. Whoever is in that box is communicating with something up there."
"Is the target alone?"
"Currently, yes. Subject One: Surgrim. He lives in the box. But we need Subject Two (the Admin, 'Mereel') and Subject Three (the Manager, 'Judy')." Schreiber checked his watch. "They usually arrive between 08:30 and 09:00. We wait. Once all three are inside the perimeter, we close the net. I want them all. No loose ends."
Vance nodded to the tactical team leader via headset. "Standby. Green light is conditional on full occupancy. Prepare for a hard breach. Gas and flashbangs. We need them alive for interrogation."
09:05 Local Time. The Warehouse.
The front door chimed. "Morgen!" Judy called out, her heels clicking on the linoleum of the hallway. She sounded cheerful. "I brought donuts! Don't tell me you're already hiding in the back cave."
I watched her on the internal camera. She hung up her coat, adjusted her glasses, and sat down at her desk. She touched the silver pendant I had given her—the shield generator—absently. A moment later, Mereel walked in. He looked tired but awake. He grabbed a donut from Judy's desk, exchanged a few words about the weather, and headed back toward the warehouse floor.
He knocked on the container door. Knock. Knock. "Open up, boss. I have sugar and caffeine."
I unlocked the door. Mereel stepped in, handing me a coffee. "Van is still there?" he asked, dropping into his chair.
"Still there," I said, taking a sip. "But Archi says the radio traffic just spiked. Encrypted channels."
"Alert," Archi's voice cut through the room. It wasn't the usual calm tone. It was sharp. "Perimeter breach detected. Multiple vectors."
I dropped the cup. Coffee splashed on the floor. "Where?"
"Rear forest. Four heat signatures moving rapidly toward the loading dock. Front gate. Two armored vehicles approaching at high speed. No sirens."
On the screen, I saw it. The grey van that had been parked for weeks suddenly roared to life and rammed the chain-link fence, blocking the exit. Behind it, black SUVs swarmed into the lot. Men in heavy tactical gear—helmets, shields, rifles—poured out. Polizei. SEK.
"They're hitting us," Mereel whispered, his face going pale. "They waited for us to get here."
"Hardline power cut in 3... 2... 1..."
The lights in the warehouse died instantly. The hum of the decoy servers outside stopped. Inside the container, the red emergency lighting bathed us in a sinister glow.
"Judy!" I yelled, jumping up. "Judy is in the front office!"
"She is surrounded," Archi reported. "Tactical team A is at the front door. Tactical team B is breaching the rear rolling shutter. They are using shaped charges."
BOOM. A dull thud shook the floor. The rear door was blown open. Smoke and dust billowed into the main warehouse hall. Through the haze, I saw the green beams of laser sights cutting through the darkness.
"Polizei! Hinlegen! Sofort hinlegen!" voices screamed from the back.
"Surgrim," Mereel grabbed my arm. "We're trapped. We can't get to Judy."
"We can," I said, my hand hovering over the console. "We just need to make a really big distraction."
"Surgrim," Archi said. "The Nomad is in position. Protocol Thor's Hammer is ready. ETA 37 seconds to ground contact. Do I initiate?"
I looked at the screen. The tactical team was moving across the warehouse floor, heading straight for our container. I looked at the front office camera. Judy was standing behind her desk, terrified, as the front door was kicked in.
"Archi," I shouted. "Bring it down! NOW!"