The terminal was running a secure Navy Unix shell, but Vance had bypassed the main firewalls using his own administrative credentials.

“Can you stop it?” Hayes asked, pulling Vance to his feet and shoving him into the corner.

“If I pull the drive, the system will lock up,” I said.

“And it might trigger an automatic hard-drive wipe.”

“Is that a problem?” Hayes asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“If the drive wipes, we lose the digital forensic trail.”

“We won’t be able to prove Kestrel was behind this.”

“And the Navy will think it was an internal system failure.”

The progress bar reached eighty-seven percent.

I sat in the swivel chair Vance had occupied.

The seat was still warm.

I tapped the escape key, but the terminal was locked in a high-priority transfer loop.

“Vance,” I said, not looking back.

“What’s the abort code?”

Vance didn’t answer.

I heard the sound of Hayes’s boot striking the deck near Vance’s shins.

“Answer her,” Hayes said.

“There isn’t one,” Vance stammered.

“They gave me a custom script.”

“Once it starts, it runs until it’s finished.”