Chapter 43 - THE DAWN OVER SHENANDOAH
The emerald green map suddenly flickered, and a massive crimson target reticle locked onto the Culpeper proving grounds.
"Sarah, what is that?!" I demanded, stepping back toward the main console.
Sarah leaned over the monitor, her face draining of what little color it had regained. "Grant... the system recognized the cancellation of the Sovereign Directive as a Class-Zero Hostile Takeover of a strategic defense asset!"
"What does that mean?!"
"The failsafe isn't just digital," she whispered, her voice trembling in rising horror. "Sterling and his syndicate programmed an autonomous aerial retaliation protocol. The automated defense battery at Naval Air Station Oceana just launched a pair of hypersonic cruise missiles, programmed to sanitize this entire facility to bury the evidence!"
"Time to impact?!" I yelled, grabbing her arm and pulling her toward the exit catwalk.
"Two minutes and forty seconds!" she screamed, snatching the hard drive containing the evidence against the surviving conspirators.
I kicked Vance onto his side, leaving him on the concrete floor. "Move, Vance, or die under your own machine!"
We sprinted through the smoking corridors, our lungs burning from smoke and halon, scrambling up the maintenance ladder toward the surface. Behind us, Vance's frantic footsteps echoed as the coward scrambled to save his own skin.
We burst out through the ventilation intake into the cold mountain dawn. The rain had finally stopped, replaced by a pale, golden light breaking across the peaks of the Shenandoah ridge. Down the access road, a convoy of state troopers and local citizens, free from the digital lockdown, was racing toward the facility with emergency lights flashing blue and red to secure the compound.
Hope was finally breaking through the darkness. The nation was awake, the truth was out, and justice was finally arriving.
Then, from the eastern horizon, the terrifying sonic boom of twin hypersonic warheads tore through the clouds, descending toward our coordinates at five times the speed of sound.
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"Grant!" Sarah screamed, pointing to the sky as the twin streaks of fire descended directly toward the mountain.
I grabbed her, threw her behind the thick reinforced concrete foundation of the primary water tower, and shielded her body with my own as the sky above us turned blindingly white.
