Chapter 14 - The Shredder Protocol
"Faster!" the scarred commander barked, his voice echoing sharply off the concrete ceiling as he clutched a bandaged shoulder where my bullet had struck him months before. "If the federal trustees find these binders before we purge the secondary index, every offshore account we spent twenty years building goes up in smoke."
My fingers tightened around the handle of the revolver hidden inside my coat. My pulse hammered in my ears, drowning out the ambient whine of the industrial shredders. Beside me, Lucas's jaw was clenched so tight his facial muscles stood out in stark relief.
"There are three of them," Lucas whispered into my ear, his breath warm against my cheek. "Two at the shredder units, one covering the perimeter near the eastern exit stairwell. If we take the tactical advantage now, we can pin them before they destroy the remaining physical binders."
"And if we miss?" I murmured back, my eyes locked on the thick cardboard boxes overflowing with irreplaceable birth certificates, medical charts, and adoption papers belonging to families whose histories had been stolen just like mine.
"We don't miss," Lucas replied coldly, pulling a heavy-duty tactical knife from his belt.
Before I could process his plan, a sudden metallic clatter echoed from the opposite end of the archive room. One of the operatives by the shredder dropped a heavy metal binder, causing it to crash loudly against the concrete floor. The commander cursed sharply, turning his head toward the dark corner where a row of empty steel lockers cast long, distorted shadows.
"Check the racks," the commander ordered, gesturing to the second operative with a sharp flick of his hand.
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The operative unholstered a sidearm, his combat boots clicking methodically against the floor as he advanced directly toward the dark alcove where Lucas and I stood concealed behind a stack of wooden crates. The distance between us closed with agonizing slowness—five feet, three feet, the glint of the pistol slide catching the harsh fluorescent glare.
Lucas didn't wait. In a single, fluid motion, he sprang from the shadows like a coiled spring, slamming the operative backward into the metal shelving with a deafening crash that sent a cascade of dusty binders raining down over their heads.
