CHAPTER 2 — PROJECT VULTURE NEVER DIED
Forty-five minutes later...
Hangar 7 no longer looked like an aircraft maintenance building.
It looked like a war room.
Military police stood guard outside every entrance.
Intelligence officers replaced mechanics.
Black SUVs surrounded the building.
Every security camera within half a mile had been disconnected.
Corporal Brennan sat alone on an empty ammunition crate.
No one spoke to him.
No one even looked at him.
For the first time since joining the Army...
He felt genuinely afraid.
Inside the temporary briefing room...
Colonel Cross closed the blast-proof door.
Only four people remained.
Cross.
Two intelligence officers.
And Evelyn.
She sat calmly across the metal table drinking stale coffee as though nothing unusual had happened.
One officer slid a thick classified folder across the table.
"We found nothing."
Cross nodded.
"I expected that."
"No fingerprints before 2012."
"No school records."
"No hospital records."
"No birth certificate."
"No taxes."
"No military history."
"No family."
The officer looked directly at Evelyn.
"You don't exist."
She smiled faintly.
"I know."
Cross leaned forward.
"Tell me where the others are."
"What others?"
"The remaining Vultures."
She remained silent.
Then she asked a completely different question.
"Colonel..."
"When was the last time you visited Site Nine?"
His heartbeat stopped.
Site Nine.
Another name erased from military history.
He had never told anyone he served there.
Not even his wife.
"How do you know about Site Nine?"
She ignored him.
Instead...
She quietly reached into her pocket.
Every guard instantly reached for their pistols.
She placed one small brass coin on the table.
Silence exploded across the room.
Cross stared at it.
The coin carried the exact same bird engraved on her back.
Only twelve of those coins had ever been minted.
One for each Vulture.
Cross whispered,
"They're all dead."
Evelyn looked into his eyes.
"No."
"They were abandoned."
The room became ice cold.
She slowly turned the coin over.
Scratched into the back...
Just six words.
WE WERE NEVER MEANT TO SURVIVE.
Cross remembered everything.
The explosions.
The bunker collapsing.
The evacuation helicopters leaving.
The order that haunted him for twenty-six years.
Leave the assets behind.
Seal the mountain.
Erase the mission.
His hands began shaking.
"My God..."
"You lived."
Evelyn nodded once.
"Barely."
Then...
The lights went out.
Total darkness swallowed the room.
Every emergency alarm screamed at once.
Outside...
Automatic gunfire erupted.
Soldiers shouted.
Glass shattered.
Someone over the radio screamed,
"Unknown personnel inside the base!"
"They're wearing our uniforms!"
Another voice cried,
"They've already bypassed biometric security!"
Cross looked toward Evelyn.
She wasn't surprised.
She simply stood.
"They're here."
"Who?"
She looked toward the steel door.
"The ones who buried us."
Then...
A deep electronic voice echoed through every speaker on the military base.
"PROJECT VULTURE RECALL PROTOCOL HAS BEEN INITIATED."
"ELIMINATE ALL SURVIVING ASSETS."
One by one...
The emergency lights turned blood red.
Then every door unlocked simultaneously.
Somewhere outside...
May you like
Someone whispered in terror,
"They're inside..."
