The Sandbox (The Sandbox Series Book 1) by Brian Andrews & Jeff Wilson

Author:Brian Andrews & Jeff Wilson [Andrews, Brian & Wilson, Jeff]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Published: 2023-07-24T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 26

platform cognition

As Valerie swung her Ford onto the access road leading to the Platform Cognition campus, she was overcome by déjà vu. The parking lot was just as she remembered it from her last visit. The incident with Kimberly Knowles seemed like a lifetime ago, and yet it had happened yesterday. Cruisers, a SWAT truck, the mobile command post, multiple ambulances, and an army of fire trucks dominated the landscape.

She glanced at Winter.

He clenched the over-window handle so tight the knuckles of his right hand were white. “My God,” he muttered, looking at the chaotic scene.

Those were the first words he’d spoken since leaving the station. She’d been too busy trying to get information to chat. She’d first tried to get Land on his mobile phone, but every call had gone straight to voicemail. She’d then asked dispatch for information, but they had precious little to report. This was an active hostage situation. No reports of shots fired. No explosions. No ransom demands, as yet.

After clearing the checkpoint, she maneuvered her Interceptor through the cruisers and other cars, past the ambulances where paramedics treated walking wounded. At first glance, she didn’t see any bodies under sheets, thank God. She crept past the SWAT truck and stopped at the mobile command vehicle—a long dark-gray SUV with Henrico PD Mobile Command on the side in yellow.

“Stay here a moment,” she said, killing the engine.

“I’m coming with you,” Winter said, grabbing her forearm.

She looked down at his hand and he pulled it away.

“You will,” she said. “Just give me a minute.”

She left Winter in the car and headed toward the cluster of people talking beside the command vehicle. She spied Land in the group of white shirts—senior officers in the Henrico PD—who were talking to the SWAT commander.

“What the hell happened?” she asked, stepping up to the huddle, gesturing to everything in front of her.

“We still have no friggin’ idea,” Land said. “A 911 call came in reporting a hostage situation was in progress at Platform Cognition and that the building was on lockdown. As soon as I got here with SWAT, we tried to initiate contact with bullhorns but got no response. Major Cooley was worried about snipers on the roof, so we’re maintaining a perimeter until we can get a drone up—which should happen any second.”

“Any gunfire?”

“No, none, but we’ve got close to a hundred people trapped inside the lobby. We can see them, but breaching is out of the question until we know where the threat is coming from.”

“A hundred? My God. They can’t all be police forensics and FBI,” she said, clenching her jaw and fretting over the fate of her law enforcement brothers and sisters inside.

“More than half are Platform employees—civilians.”

“What?” she said with shock. “This is an active scene one day after a terrorist attack. Why did we let civilians go back to work?”

Land shrugged. “FBI made the call. Over three thousand employees work on this campus. Apparently, there’s a government division doing top secret work in there, work we had no idea about.

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