CHAPTER 4 — THE GHOST FILES
The command bunker beneath Falcon Base had been sealed for nearly twenty years.
Officially, it was a storage facility for outdated communications equipment.
Unofficially, Colonel Nathan Cross knew exactly what it had once been.
As emergency sirens echoed across the base, he led Evelyn and a small security team down three flights of reinforced stairs. The thick steel door at the end of the corridor opened only after Nathan entered a security code he hadn't used since his hair was still black.
Dust floated through the flashlight beams.
Rows of abandoned servers lined the room like silent tombstones.
"This place should've been destroyed," Nathan muttered.
"It was supposed to be," Evelyn replied. "Someone wanted it forgotten... not erased."
She walked directly to a rusted filing cabinet in the far corner without hesitation.
Nathan frowned.
"You've been here before?"
"No."
She rested her hand on the cabinet.
"But I dreamed about it."
Inside the cabinet sat twelve identical black folders.
Eleven carried red stamps reading DECEASED.
Only one folder had no stamp.
V-3147.
Nathan opened it with trembling hands.
The first page wasn't a mission report.
It was a birth certificate.
A tiny footprint was stamped across the corner.
The baby's name wasn't Evelyn.
It wasn't V-3147.
It read:
Grace Nathaniel Cross.
Nathan's knees nearly gave out.
"I buried you..."
"You buried an empty coffin," Evelyn said quietly. "They needed you to believe I was gone."
Before Nathan could answer, another document slipped from the folder.
It wasn't about Grace.
It was about him.
PROJECT VULTURE – PARENTAL ELIGIBILITY ASSESSMENT
Subject: Colonel Nathan Cross
Status: Suitable Genetic Contributor
Nathan stared at the words in disbelief.
"They planned this..."
Evelyn nodded.
"I was never recruited."
"I was designed to become one."
The bunker fell silent.
May you like
Then every emergency light switched off.
Someone else had just entered the underground level.
