The bunker was deeper than memory.
Michael descended each step with the weight of two decades pressing down on his spine. Concrete sweated in the dark. Water dripped in rhythmic taps like a clock losing time. His boots echoed against walls that had once heard confessions, executions, orders given in voices stripped of names.
He hadn’t been here in nine years.
Not since the HYDRUS job. Not since the man he was had buried a truth too ugly to forget, too dangerous to release.
The biometric lock blinked, scanned his iris, and unlocked the past.
Inside, the light flickered like it had a memory of its own.
On the far wall, etched into steel by a combat knife: DEATH MAKES MEN HONEST.
Michael stared at the phrase for a long time.
“Let’s see,” he muttered.
He stepped inside.
The room hadn
