Chapter 28 - Infiltrating The Glass Fortress
The National Command Authority headquarters was a monolithic, intimidating fortress of black steel and reinforced glass stationed in the heart of D.C., guarded by the most advanced security grid on the planet. Under the cover of heavy, freezing rain, an armored box truck disguised as a commercial catering vehicle slowly rolled into the subterranean checkpoint. Inside the pitch-black cargo hold, Marcus, Claire, and El Sombra were gearing up for a suicide mission. They hadn't fallen blindly into the trap; Marcus had anticipated Vance’s bait, but they had to walk into the lion’s den anyway to physically plug the titanium drive into the core server and manually override Vance’s lockdown.
The tension spiked violently as the truck ground to a halt. A heavy knock on the cargo door signaled the security inspection. Claire took a deep breath. She was no longer a helpless socialite. Clad in a sleek, black tactical uniform, a compact pistol holstered tightly against her Kevlar vest, she embodied her father’s iron will.
The cargo door rolled up. Marcus and El Sombra held their breath, suspended in the shadows of the ceiling using high-powered magnetic climbing clamps. The armed guard shined his flashlight inside, finding only Claire dressed in a janitorial uniform, pushing an industrial chemical cart. Thanks to the elite Beaumont biometric clearances Vance hadn't bothered to wipe yet, the retinal scanner flashed green. The guard grunted and waved the vehicle through.
Once the truck was parked in the subterranean garage, the three phantoms dropped from the ceiling and slipped into the facility's restricted corridors. "The primary server core is on the fortieth floor. We have exactly seven minutes before the encryption keys cycle," Marcus whispered over their secure comms.
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They bypassed thermal scanners and localized jamming fields deployed by El Sombra. But when they reached the fortified entrance to the server core, the massive, foot-thick vault doors were already wide open. There were no guards. There were no alarms. Only the cold, ominous blue glow of thousands of server racks humming in the dark.
Marcus stopped dead in his tracks. His combat instincts flared with blinding intensity. This wasn't a security lapse. The glass fortress had opened its doors to welcome them into a slaughterhouse.
