Chapter 9 - The Whispers in the Vault
The headlights did not turn on. Through the slats of the kitchen blinds, I watched a sleek, unmarked black Suburban roll to a halt fifty feet from my porch. The engine was nearly silent, running on high-end commercial dampeners. Two silhouettes sat inside, unmoving, silhouettes framed against the faint green glow of onboard telemetry equipment.
Rex let out a razor-thin whine, pacing in tight circles around the center of the kitchen before planting his massive front paws directly over the trapdoor that led to the fruit cellar.
"Not yet, Rex," I whispered, keeping my back to the wall, the shotgun barrel pointed at the floor. My father had survived combat because he never shot first at shadows; he waited for the target to commit to the breach.
For three agonizing minutes, the vehicle sat idling. Then, the brake lights flashed twice—a signal—and the SUV backed down the driveway and vanished into the fog of Route 4.
They weren't here to hit the house. Not yet. They were reconnoitering. Checking if the bait had been taken.
My pocket buzzed violently. The vibration made me flinch. I pulled out my cell phone; the caller ID flashed *ST. JUDE VETERANS CARE FACILITY*.
I answered before the second ring. "Harold?"
"Son... get out of that house." Harold’s voice was cracked, paper-thin, competing against the sound of blaring emergency sirens in the background. "They were here. Five minutes after you walked out with Rex this afternoon."
"Who was there, Harold? Talk to me."
"Two suits. Said they were from the Department of Defense Records Annex. They didn't want the paperwork they gave me. They tore apart my room. My footlocker... they pulled the seams out of my uniform coat. They were looking for your father’s dog log. The manifest!"
"The apology ceremony," I breathed, realization freezing the blood in my veins. "It wasn't an honor. It was a staged pretext to isolate you and sweep the facility."
"They know Rex is alive," Harold wheezed, his breathing shallow and rapid. "They thought the whole bloodline died out after the fire at Fort Meade in '82. Your father told them Rex’s mother was euthanized. He lied to them, boy! He stole her off the transport truck! If they find what’s buried inside Rex, they won't just kill you—they'll erase everything your father ever stood for."
"Inside Rex? Harold, what are you talking about? He’s flesh and bone!"
"Check the collar," Harold gasped as the muffled sound of shouting voices echoed on his end of the line. *“Sir, step away from the phone!”* a cold voice ordered in the background.
"Harold?!"
"The brass plate, son! Look behind the brass—"
The call went dead with a sickening click.
I dropped the phone on the counter and dropped to my knees before Rex. The great German Shepherd sat patiently, his warm eyes tracking every panicked twitch of my face. I gripped his heavy leather collar—the thick, double-stitched leather strap my father had fastened around his neck before he died, the one Harold had wept over hours earlier.
With a pocketknife, I pried at the rusted brass plate bearing my father’s name and serial number. The rivets groaned, then popped loose.
Tucked neatly into a hollowed cavity cut into the thick rawhide wasn't paper or microfilm.
May you like
It was a cold, machined titanium cylinder no larger than a cigarette filter, etched with a single word: *PROJECT CHIMERA.*
***
