The reinforced glass did not cover the entire passage. A narrow maintenance hatch was built into the wall beneath it, partially hidden behind an electrical cabinet.
“Rebecca,” Olivia said. “Can you create a distraction?”
Rebecca glanced at the hatch.
“How much time do you need?”
“Two minutes.”
“You'll have one.”
Rebecca pulled a flash device from her vest and threw it toward the far end of the corridor.
The explosion of white light and sound filled the underground passage.
Grant's men shouted in confusion.
Walker immediately moved toward the cabinet. He pulled it aside, revealing a small access panel. Behind it was a narrow opening barely wide enough for one person.
“Olivia, go!”
She crawled through first. The metal edges scraped her shoulders, and dust filled her mouth. On the other side, she landed in a small maintenance room.
A second door stood opposite her.
She rushed toward it and found an old electronic keypad.
“Dad?” she called.
“Olivia?”
The answer came immediately.
She entered the date of her father's disappearance.
The keypad flashed red.
She tried her birthday.
Nothing.
Then she remembered something from childhood. Her father used to tell her that some doors could only be opened by remembering where the story began.
She entered the number of the house where she had grown up.
The keypad flashed green.
A heavy lock clicked.
Olivia pulled the door open.
An elderly man stood inside a small room. His hair was almost entirely white, his face thin, and his clothes worn. He leaned heavily against a metal table.
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Then he said her name.
“Olivia.”
She ran toward him.
He caught her in his arms, and she buried her face against his shoulder.
“Dad,” she whispered. “I thought you were dead.”
Thomas Bennett closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“Twenty years. Twenty years, Dad.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
She pulled away and looked at him.
“Why didn't you come home?”
His expression changed. The warmth in his eyes was replaced by grief.
“Because they told me that if I ever contacted you or your mother, they would kill you both.”
“Who told you that?”
“Richard Caldwell. Robert Harlan. Michael Grant. And a man you trusted more than any of them.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked down.
“Director Reynolds.”
Olivia shook her head.
“Why would Reynolds care about our family?”
“Because I helped build the financial system behind Project Nightfall.”
The words struck her harder than the explosion.
“What?”
Thomas moved toward the table and picked up a small metal box.
“I was an accountant for a private security company twenty-one years ago. At the time, I believed I was helping the government fund confidential operations. Then I discovered that the money was being used to pay police officers, judges, politicians, and private contractors.”
He opened the box.
Inside were several photographs, a small recording device, and a folded document.
“I found out that Project Nightfall wasn't simply about controlling police investigations. It was designed to eliminate anyone who could expose the people financing it.”
Olivia looked at the photographs.
One showed Senator Caldwell standing beside a younger Robert Harlan. Another showed Michael Grant shaking hands with a man she recognized from an old newspaper photograph.
Her father.
“You were working with them?”
“At first, yes. I didn't understand what they were doing. When I discovered the truth, I tried to take the records to federal investigators.”
“And they caught you.”
Thomas nodded.
“They took me before I could deliver the evidence. They made it look as though I had stolen money and fled the country. They threatened your mother. They threatened you. I believed disappearing was the only way to keep you safe.”
Olivia's eyes filled with tears.
“You let us believe you abandoned us.”
“I thought it was better than letting you know I was alive and putting a target on your back.”
“That wasn't your decision to make!”
“I know.”
His voice broke.
“I have spent every day regretting it.”
For a moment, Olivia wanted to say everything she had held inside since childhood. She wanted to tell him about her mother's sleepless nights, the birthdays spent waiting for a phone call, and the years she had spent convincing herself that she was not worth staying for.
But the sound of footsteps interrupted them.
Walker appeared at the doorway, weapon raised.
“Olivia! We have to move!”
Rebecca followed him, supporting Porter.
“Grant's men are coming through the main passage,” she said. “We have maybe ninety seconds.”
Thomas grabbed the metal box.
“Then we go through the lower archive.”
Porter stared at him.
“There's no lower archive. It was sealed after Daniel's investigation.”