Dawn broke over Baltimore like a bruise—purple and yellow bleeding into grey. The Ford idled two blocks from First National Bank, engine ticking as it cooled. Rick watched the street through tired eyes, cataloguing movement, counting patterns.
"They'll be watching the bank," Catherine said. Her voice was hoarse from Reed's attack, each word costing her. "Morrison knows about Scott's files. He has to."
In the backseat, Reed had finally stopped shaking. Or maybe he'd just run out of adrenaline. His face was grey, hollow. A man who'd realized too late what he'd helped build.
"Scott was careful," Reed said quietly. "The box is under a false name. Corporate entity. Apex Holdings. I'm listed as authorized signatory, but Morrison doesn't know about it. Scott kept it separate from everything else."
"You sure about that?" Rick asked.
Reed met his eyes in the rearview mirror. "No. I'm not sure about anything anymore."
The bank opened at eight. They had forty minutes. Rick used the time to reload his father's Colt, checking the action, counting rounds. Seven in the magazine, one in chamber. Still not enough. Never enough.
Catherine studied the bank's exterior through the windshield. "Two entrances. Main lobby, employee door on the side. Security guard at the front—one, maybe two. Safe deposit boxes will be in the basement level."
"Three minutes to get in, access the box, get out," Rick said. "Any longer and we're exposed."
"If the files are even there," Catherine added. "If Scott wasn't lying. If Reed isn't leading us into a trap."
Reed flinched. "I'm not—I wouldn't—"
"You tried to kill me two hours ago," Catherine said flatly.
"I panicked. I thought you were—" Reed's voice broke. "I'm trying to help now. That has to count for something."
"It counts for not getting shot," Rick said. "That's all."
At 7:58, they moved.
Reed went first, walking with the careful posture of a man expecting bullets. Rick and Catherine followed twenty paces back, covering different angles. The street was empty except for a milk truck making deliveries and a woman walking a small dog.
The bank's interior smelled of marble and old money. A guard sat behind a desk reading the morning paper—headlines about the Pittsburgh riots screaming across the front page. He looked up as Reed approached.
"Help you?"
"Safe deposit box access," Reed said. His voice was steady now, back in bureaucrat mode. "Box 447, Apex Holdings."
The guard checked a ledger. "ID and key?"
Reed produced both. The guard studied them, looked at Reed's face, compared it to something in his ledger. For five seconds that felt like five hours, nothing happened.
Then the guard nodded. "Sign here. Basement level, to the left."
They descended stairs that smelled of concrete and disuse. The safe deposit vault was a rectangular room lined with bronze boxes, each locked with dual keys. Reed found 447 in the lower right corner—larger than standard, the size of a briefcase.
His hands trembled as he inserted the key. The lock turned with a soft click that echoed like a gunshot.
Inside: manila folders. Dozens of them. Photographs. Ledgers. Documents with official seals. Rick pulled out the first folder, opened it.
Bank transfer records. Millions of dollars moving through shell corporations. Names he recognized from Petrov's decoded sheets—senators, generals, industrialists. Dates going back to 1938. Prometheus Protocol's financial architecture laid bare.
The second folder: photographs. Webb meeting with Japanese officials in Mexico City. Morrison accepting a briefcase from a German attaché in New York. Cross at a secret meeting with representatives from Mitsubishi and Krupp Steel. Evidence of coordination that went far beyond American conspirators.
The third folder made Rick's blood freeze.
Operational plans. Typed memos detailing Thunderbird's three phases. Chicago, December 4th—riot at Pullman Steel Works, Japanese Type 99 rifles to be "discovered" at scene. San Francisco, December 5th—explosion at Mare Island Naval Yard, timed charges hidden in maintenance tunnels. Pittsburgh, December 6th—factory fire, staged to look like sabotage, Japanese ordnance planted in debris.
And underneath it all: contingency plans. If Forsyth and Dupré survive Fort Monroe, they become useful. Documentation to place them at each attack site. Witness statements—prepared in advance—identifying them as radical agitators. Manufactured evidence of foreign contacts.
They'd already written the story of Rick and Catherine's guilt. All they needed was the bodies.
"Jesus," Catherine whispered, reading over his shoulder.
Rick kept digging. Another folder: correspondence between Morrison and Naval Intelligence. Proof that Magic decrypts had intercepted Japanese fleet movements. Proof that Washington knew Pearl Harbor was coming and had decided—deliberately, consciously—not to warn Admiral Kimmel.
Not incompetence. Not intelligence failure. Strategic choice.
Let Pearl Harbor burn. Let Americans die. Use their deaths to manufacture the outrage needed for total war.
"We have enough," Rick said, loading folders into a canvas bag Reed had brought. "This is it. This is everything."
"Where do we take it?" Catherine asked.
Rick had been asking himself the same question since they left Washington. The FBI was compromised—Reed worked there, which meant others might too. Local police couldn't handle something this large. The press might be bought or intimidated. Who could you trust when the conspiracy included senators and generals?
Then he remembered his father's notes. The ones from the beginning, before everything went wrong. His father had trusted one man—James Hartley, Deputy Director of the ATF. A straight arrow. Someone who'd helped with the initial investigation before Prometheus Protocol silenced it.
"ATF headquarters," Rick said. "Washington. There's someone there my father trusted."
"Washington?" Reed's voice cracked. "That's Morrison's territory. He'll have people watching—"
"Then we'll have to be careful," Rick said.
They emerged from the vault, bag heavy with evidence that could topple a government. The guard barely looked up as they signed out.
Outside, dawn had given way to morning. The street was busier now—people heading to work, living normal lives in a world that was four days away from changing forever.
Rick felt the weight of it. Four days until Pearl Harbor. Less than twenty-four hours until Thunderbird's first phase in Chicago. They were racing against a clock that was already running out.
They drove. Baltimore to Washington. Two hours through Maryland countryside that looked peaceful and indifferent to conspiracy. Catherine dozed fitfully, her injured arm pressed against her side. Reed stared out the window, silent, perhaps contemplating what help or betrayal or redemption might look like.
Rick drove and thought about his father. About the investigation that had gotten him killed. About whether doing the right thing was worth dying for.
He decided it was.