“Not this time,” I said.

My father was already moving down the hallway toward the basement stairs.

The door to the basement was made of reinforced steel, fitted with a digital keypad.

An agent was standing near it, holding a hydraulic breaching tool.

“The keypad is dead, sir,” the agent reported to Colonel Ward, who had followed us inside. “The power has been cut from the inside.”

My father reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black device with two copper prongs.

He pressed it against the keypad’s seam.

A small spark flared, and the digital screen on the lock blinked out.

The heavy steel door clicked open with a dull metallic sound.

“How did you do that?” I asked.

“A simple overload,” he said, pushing the door open.

The staircase below was dark, smelling of ozone and warm plastic.

We descended the stairs, the beam of my father’s flashlight cutting through the gloom.

At the bottom of the stairs was a small server room, its cooling fans whirring at high speed.

Several blue indicator lights on the server racks were blinking rapidly, turning yellow one by one.