Capítulo 11: Bass's Final Spark

The air in the hidden cell was thick with the metallic tang of old blood and stale fear. Eleanor pressed her back to the damp concrete, the fire gem now nestled against her sternum, its warmth a strange comfort.

Outside, the lab still smoldered, but the true inferno was about to ignite. Bass knelt beside Ethan, cutting the last of the zip ties.

The man who was supposed to be dead looked up with sunken eyes. "You son of a bitch," Ethan whispered.

"Three years in this hole." "I had to," Bass said, his voice raw. "If anyone knew you were alive, they'd have come for the truth.

And the truth would have gotten everyone we loved killed." "Then tell us the truth now," Zoe demanded, her Australian accent sharp as a blade. Ethan licked his cracked lips.

"Alistair didn't just fund the Manhattan Project. He siphoned off blueprints, research, the key to miniaturizing atomic devices.

The base under us—beneath the whole damned Valley—is a network of tunnels stretching for miles. And inside?

Enough enriched uranium to turn San Francisco into a crater." Noah's scarred face paled. "Why?" "Because that was the plan all along.

From 1945. If Germany fell, they'd take the enemy's industrial heart with them.

The network lay dormant until Violet activated it. Tonight, at midnight, bombs in twenty cities go off.

Not just here—London, Moscow, Beijing. The world's elite are in their crosshairs." Eleanor felt her blood chill.

"My daughter is in London." "Then you'd better make sure you're on a plane," Bass said grimly. He stood, his broad shoulders filling the cramped space.

"But first, we've got bigger problems." Gunfire cracked outside, and the door burst inward. Marcus strode through the smoke, his SS pin catching the light like a serpent's eye.

Behind him, a dozen soldiers in black, their faces hard and empty. "How touching.

The traitor and his rats." Bass moved without hesitation. He shoved Eleanor toward the rear of the cell, where a rusted hatch gaped in the floor.

"Go! All of you, now!" "But—" Noah started.

"That's an order!" Bass roared. He grabbed Ethan's arm, hauling him upright.

"We'll hold them." Zoe pulled Noah toward the hatch. Eleanor hesitated, staring at Bass.

"You'll die." "I've been dead since the day I stole the Kepler Drive and let Ethan take the fall." He unstrapped a bulky wristwatch—a detonator, she realized. "When I built this place, I knew one day I'd have to bury it.

The C4 is already armed. All I need is a clean line of sight." Marcus raised a Glock.

"Do you think I'll let you?" "You don't have a choice." Bass grabbed Eleanor's hand and pressed the fire gem into her palm. The stone seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.

"This is the key. Keep it safe.

The other gems—they're a puzzle. Alistair's journal said the four together can unlock something.

A weapon, or maybe a counter. Find it before Violet does." Eleanor choked on a sob.

"Bass, please." "Finish this for all of us." He smiled, a sad, crooked thing. "You were always the one with the real steel, Eleanor.

Not me." Noah dragged her down into the hatch as Bass turned to face the Nazis. The detonator beeped.

The last image burned into Eleanor's mind was Bass, standing alone against the tide, his massive form a wall of flesh and fury as the first bullets hit. The explosion didn't just destroy the lab—it swallowed the sky.

Eleanor and the others emerged from the storm drain, coughing, to see a pillar of fire climbing into the stars. The ground shook with a second, deeper boom, and somewhere under Silicon Valley, the Nazi base began to collapse.

She held the fire gem to her chest and wept.

Kill One, Unlock One Fortune

Kill One, Unlock One Fortune

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