Chapter 22 - The Midnight Exhumation
Arlington National Cemetery was swallowed in an unnatural, suffocating silence. The endless rows of pristine white marble markers looked like ghost teeth rising from the soaked emerald grass under the sweeping arc of federal searchlights.
Two blacked-out transport vans rolled past the Ord & Weitzel Gate without flashing headlights. General Holloway’s credentials had silenced the military police guards at the checkpoint, but the look in the guards' eyes told Evelyn that the clock was ticking. Military Intelligence wouldn't stay blind forever; the sudden blackout of surveillance feeds over Section 60 had already tripped alarms at the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Four Combat Engineers from the 75th Ranger Regiment, dressed in unmarked sterile fatigues without insignia, were already at Plot 44-B. A heavy canvas tactical shelter had been erected over the grave to mask thermal signatures from reconnaissance satellites orbiting overhead.
Inside the tent, the air smelled of wet earth and ancient decay. A ground-penetrating radar unit sat on a tripod, its screen glowing in eerie neon greens and reds.
"Talk to me, Sergeant," Holloway commanded, stepping under the canvas flap.
"Sir," the lead engineer whispered, pointing a gloved finger at the digital monitor. "The standard six-foot burial depth shows the bronze ceremonial casket, just as the manifest states. But look beneath it. At nine feet, there is an eight-inch reinforced tungsten-carbide slab. And below that... an air pocket. A climate-controlled chamber drawing two hundred watts of continuous subterranean power."
Evelyn felt the blood drain from her face. "A power draw? From an active burial plot?"
"It’s tapped directly into the auxiliary grid of the Pentagon Annex across the highway," the engineer nodded. "Whoever laid this grave didn't bury a body. They installed an underground datacenter."
"Dig," Evelyn ordered, her voice cutting through the hum of the electronics like a knife.
The engineers didn't use backhoes; hydraulic suction drills tore through the saturated topsoil with terrifying efficiency. Within twenty minutes, the dull clatter of steel striking bronze echoed through the shelter. They hoisted Samuel Hayes’s decorative casket out on heavy nylon straps.
Evelyn stepped forward, her service pistol gripped tightly at her side. General Holloway motioned for the engineers to use pneumatic pry-bars. With a sickening hiss of broken hermetic seals, the casket lid was cracked open.
Evelyn leaned over the edge, her flashlight cutting through the gloom.
The casket was empty of human flesh.
May you like
Resting on the velvet lining was an old, battle-scarred ballistic plate carrier bearing Samuel Hayes’s original Vietnam-era service tags. And resting squarely on the center plate was a cold, flashing biometric terminal—a military-grade interface linked to the tungsten slab beneath.
***
