The word on the wall wasn’t just paint, it was placement.
“SABLE,” stenciled above a metal door set deep in the curve of the tunnel, just beyond where the old track rails ended in a wall of crumbling brick. The letters were faded but deliberate. Military-style. A relic of wartime architecture where code names replaced compass bearings.
Alon ran his hand over the lettering. The surface beneath it was smoother than the surrounding stone, reinforced steel beneath a thin veneer of concrete. A false wall.
“It’s a vault,” he said.
Nora scanned the seams with her light. “And someone welded it shut.”
“Which means there’s something inside worth keeping that way.”
She dropped her pack and pulled out a small cylindrical charge, non-destructive, designed to fracture weld lines without compromising structural stability. They placed it quietly, hands moving without words.
When it blew, it was soft. A breath more than a bang. Just a ripple of force and a hiss of steam.
The door groaned.
Shifted.
Opened.
Inside was a single corridor. Narrow. Dry. Lights embedded in the ceiling, most long dead. But a few flickered to life as they stepped through.
The chamber had been built during the Cold War. That much was obvious. It bore the architectural signature of emergency bunkers, compact, utilitarian, every surface designed to suppress sound.
The kind of place where things could be said, and never heard again.
At the end of the hall was a room.
A circular one.
Walls lined with old reel-to-reel machines, half-disassembled. Microfilm cabinets. Dust so thick it coated even the cobwebs.
In the center: a single chair bolted to the floor. Facing a wall of glass.
Alon stepped forward and realized it wasn’t a wall.
It was a recording chamber.
Beyond the glass sat a second room. Small. Soundproofed. A single microphone suspended from the ceiling like an accusation.
Nora scanned the dust. Her eyes stopped on a section of the wall.
“There’s power,” she said. “Residual draw. Something’s still running.”
She followed the wires to a black box in the corner, an old server unit half the size of a coffin. Lights flickered weakly. An operating light glowed faint blue.
Alon opened the top and found a drive. Not modern. Not digital. Magnetic tape. Thick. Fragile. Loaded into a playback dock hardwired into the wall.
He looked at her.
Nora gave a tight nod.
“Play it.”
The speaker hissed.
Then cracked.
Then,
A voice.
Female. Steady. English accent. Low, precise, emotionless.
“Protocol entry 147. Project: Shemesh.
Oversight authorized by internal directive 9-4-Beta.
Initiated: June 12th, 2003.
Objective: Contain, disrupt, and, if necessary, eliminate internal agents deemed emotionally compromised or ideologically divergent from national policy.”
A pause.
Then:
“Agent Regev. Alon.
Filed under observation level ‘Orion.’
Recommended for surveillance due to repeated deviation from operational protocol in assignments spanning: Damascus, Beirut, Amman.
Status: Pending.”
The tape clicked. Whirred.
Alon didn’t move. His jaw clenched, but his eyes didn’t shift from the speaker.
Nora stared at him.
“You were already on the list.”
Alon said nothing.
The voice continued.
“Subject Rimon, Yael.
Role: Systems architect for Barak Echo.
Divergence detected in post-deployment review.
Status: Terminated. Authorized by Eli Koren. Directive signed by, ”
Click.
The tape halted.
Silence.
Alon stepped forward and pressed the eject key. The tape slid free with a slow mechanical sigh.
Then he turned toward the mirror. Not to see himself, but to see what kind of room had been built for people like him.
A place to confess.
A place to record.
A place to vanish.
They left the chamber in silence.
Nora sealed the door behind them with a steel bar. Not out of respect.
Out of necessity.
Some things belonged buried.
But the tape,
That came with them.
Back at the flat, Alon sat by the window, staring at the fog creeping along the Thames.
Nora stood behind him, arms crossed.
“You were right,” she said. “It doesn’t circle back to Eli.”
“No,” Alon replied. “He’s just a weapon.”
“Then who lit the fuse?”
Alon opened the tape case.
Inside, on the inner rim of the reel, was something he hadn’t seen before.
Handwritten.
In red ink.
“You already know his name.”