The abandoned Chesapeake Paper Mill loomed over Baltimore like a rusted relic—its towers jutting into twilight like broken sentinels. Dusk bled crimson through broken windows, casting long shadows across machinery silent since the crash of '29. The Ford cooled with the gentle ticking of metal, its engine still breathing heat into the evening air.
"There," Catherine pointed to a service entrance half-hidden behind rusted conveyor belts. "Petrov said to meet him on the main processing floor."
Rick checked his Colt .45, muscle memory counting rounds without conscious thought. Seven in the magazine, one in the chamber. Not enough. Never enough.
"You sure he'll be here?"
"He's here." Catherine's voice carried weight and something else—calculation, maybe regret. He caught that familiar edge. She didn't flinch when distant metal groaned in the wind. She'd always been better at endings than beginnings.
Scott groaned as Rick helped him from the backseat, his face grey as old newsprint. Blood had soaked through his bandages again, leaving dark stains that looked black in the fading light.
"I can't move fast," Scott said, each word costing him.
"Just stay alive long enough to matter," Rick replied.
The service door opened with a shriek that echoed through the vast interior like a dying animal's cry. Inside, amber light filtered through factory windows. Massive paper-making machines stretched into the gloom—industrial dinosaurs with steel bones and rust-eaten flesh.
Rick's combat instincts kicked in, cataloguing sight lines, cover positions, and ambush points. The place was a maze of catwalks, conveyor belts, and storage tanks. Perfect for hunting. Perfect for dying.
"Petrov!" Catherine called, her voice swallowed by the cavernous space.
A figure emerged from behind a roll of newsprint the size of a small building. Thin, nervous, with the pale complexion of a man who'd spent too many years hunched over code books. Wire-rimmed spectacles caught the dying light like broken mirrors.
"Miss Ashford." His accent was thick as molasses, Russian syllables rolling off his tongue. "You are late."
"We had complications." She held up the manila envelope containing the photo negatives with their ciphered overlays. "Can you decode these?"
Petrov's eyes went wide behind his spectacles. "Project Thunderbird? But this is..." His hands trembled. "In Moscow, men vanish for whispers half this loud." He reached for it with trembling fingers. "Yes, I can decode this. But it will take time."
Rick's skin crawled with the familiar sensation of being watched. His eyes swept the factory floor, searching shifting patterns in the gloom.
"How long?"
"An hour. Maybe more." Petrov moved toward a makeshift workstation between two paper rolls. Telegraph equipment, a mechanical tabulating machine, stacks of cipher wheels and code books. A single electric bulb hung from a jury-rigged cord, casting harsh light across his workspace. "Military-grade cipher work, but I have been studying similar rotary systems."
The workstation was wedged near the west wall. Rick positioned Scott behind a concrete pillar thirty feet east of the old pulping tanks, providing cover from multiple angles.
"Stay alive," Rick told him. "That's your only job."
Scott managed a bitter smile, his breath fogging the cold air. "Got it."
00:58 remaining
The first shot came from the catwalks above, muzzle flash blooming. Rick dove left as concrete exploded where his head had been, rolling behind a massive gear assembly reeking of machine oil. His return fire sparked off steel, thunder rolling through the factory's bones.
"Contact!" he yelled, the word lost in sudden rifle fire that turned the air into a storm of hot lead.
They came from everywhere—black figures rappelling from catwalks, emerging from behind machinery, materializing like deadly phantoms. Professional. Coordinated. Silent except for boot whispers on concrete and the metallic click of bolt-action rifles.
Rick counted muzzle flashes. Six. Maybe eight. Hard to tell when they moved like smoke.
He dove behind a conveyor belt just west of the pulping vats, the rubber cracking under incoming fire. Ricochets sang past his ear. Reached up blind and fired three shots at the catwalk shadows, rewarded by a grunt and the wet sound of someone hitting concrete hard.
Six left. Two rounds. No margin for mistakes—not tonight.
00:52 remaining
The factory layout worked in his favor—too many corners, too much cover. This wasn't their environment anymore.
He low-crawled beneath the conveyor system, using machinery bulk to mask movement. Above, boots rang on metal catwalks. One called out in German—short, clipped commands echoing off concrete. A boot slipped on oil somewhere in the gloom, followed by a muffled curse.
A stick of dynamite with sparking fuse sailed near his position. Rick sprinted for a paper roll twice his height, diving behind it as the explosion turned air into a furnace of splinters and force. His ears rang, but he was alive and moving.
A figure dropped from the catwalk directly above the eastern storage tanks, landing in a combat crouch. Rick put two rounds in his center mass before the man's boots stopped skidding. The body fell backwards, Mauser clattering into the void. No sound. Just efficient collapse.
Five left. Empty cylinder.
Scott groaned behind his pillar—not all the phantoms in this factory were dead yet. Rick remembered Verdun. The smell of damp blood never really changed.
00:45 remaining
"How much longer?" Catherine kept her revolver trained on approaches to Petrov's workstation while the cryptographer's fingers flew over cipher wheels.
"The encryption has layers," Petrov muttered, sweat beading despite the chill. "Like nesting dolls of steel and secrecy." He scribbled furiously—pages piling with strings of broken code and half-deciphered names.
Catherine could hear the gunfight raging—the sharp crack of Rick's .45 punctuated by rifle booms. How long before they were overrun?
"There!" Petrov's voice cracked. "First layer breaking. Bank accounts, wire transfers, meeting notes..." His eyes went wide, face pale as milk. "Mother of God. Senators, generals, defense contractors..."
"Names," Catherine demanded.
"Senator Morrison, War Department Committee. General Patterson, Army Chief of Staff. Marcus Webb, Consolidated Aircraft..." His voice trailed off as more data emerged. His hands began shaking. "But there is more. Something bigger."
He'd been muttering "Prometheus" under his breath for minutes. Now his hands froze over the cipher wheels.
"Prometheus Protocol," he whispered. "This isn't just money or names. Instructions. Contingencies. They planned for war—not with Europe." His voice dropped. "They don't want to win the next war. They want to reshape the world that comes after it."
Catherine felt blood drain from her face. She stared at the decoded sheets, implications hitting like a physical blow. A long pause stretched between them, filled only by distant gunfire.
"Keep working," she managed, voice barely steady.
00:38 remaining
Gunfire surged. Muzzle flashes strobed through the windows like fireflies with a kill order.
She called across the factory floor. "Rick, how are you holding up?"
His voice came back distorted by gunfire, breath ragged: "Still breathing. How much longer?"
"Thirty-eight minutes."
"Make it twenty."
00:03 remaining
The shooting had stopped.
Only the low hum of Petrov's equipment and the soft drip of water from somewhere in the rafters punctuated the silence. Catherine kept her revolver steady, breath shallow. Rick stepped into view, face slick with sweat and soot, gun still raised. His eyes scanned the floor, one instinct refusing to rest.
Then he saw it.
"Scott?"
No answer.
He moved fast, heart pounding, boots echoing through the vast factory as he crossed to the pillar behind the pulping tanks.
Scott was slumped against the concrete, legs splayed, a crimson trail smeared behind him. One arm was stretched toward his sidearm, inches too far. Blood seeped between his fingers. His face—no longer grey, but pale and emptying—twitched when Rick knelt.
"Jesus..." Rick pressed down on the wound, but it was too late. The bullet had found something vital.
Scott's eyes fluttered open. He focused on Rick, just barely.
"They... they knew I'd talk," he rasped. His voice was dry, like parchment burning. "Didn't matter what side I picked."
"You stay with me, dammit. Don't give them the satisfaction."
Scott gave a faint laugh, bitter and broken. "You think this was ever gonna end with me walking away?" His fingers trembled, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper—blood-specked, damp. Rick took it.
"Names," Scott whispered. "More than what Petrov's got. Backup ledger. Blackmail... leverage."
He coughed, pain folding his body inward. "I thought I could play both sides. But with these people... there are no sides. Just fire."
His voice cracked. "I should've left Berlin when I had the chance."
Rick shook his head. "You could've done a lot worse than tonight."
Scott looked up at him. There was no redemption in his expression. Just fatigue. Maybe the faintest trace of relief. His last words came with effort.
"Tell Catherine... I didn't mean to get her killed."
Then he was gone.
Rick sat there for a beat, holding the paper, blood soaking into his sleeve. Catherine approached slowly, revolver lowered, face drawn. She saw Scott's body. Her eyes flicked to Rick.
"He said anything?"
Rick stared ahead, jaw tight. "Yeah."
"What?"
He stood, folded the paper, and slid it into his coat.
"Nothing useful."
00:00
Behind them, Petrov's typewriter clacked one last time. The Prometheus Protocol was decoded.
And the war had already begun.