I paid the driver in cash and ran through the downpour to the side entrance.

The guard at the desk was a young specialist who barely looked up from his monitor.

I showed my old ID card and signed the logbook with a false name, my handwriting shaky.

The basement was cold and smelled of damp paper, old ink, and floor wax.

I found an empty cubicle in the back of the archives, near the rows of metal filing cabinets.

I sat down and plugged the drive into my laptop.

I disabled the network card to work completely offline.

I inserted the physical dongle Cole had left behind.

The encryption prompt flashed on the screen, a solid blue box demanding a thirty-two-character cipher.

I began typing the override codes I had memorized during my time at Fort Meade.

My fingers flew over the keyboard, the clacking of the keys sounding like gunfire in the empty room.

On my third attempt, the progress bar turned green.

The file directory opened, revealing a single folder labeled *Operation Golden Sentry*.

I clicked on the first spreadsheet.