Sophie took a deep breath, weighing Overton’s comments against her own instincts. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take. Open the doors, Alexia. Sergeant Overton, I want you and your men positioned inside that hangar. Nothing, and I mean nothing, gets in besides the child!”

“Yes, ma’am,” Overton replied with a scowl.

Sophie took one more look at the monitor before racing back into the hallway. The logical side of her brain was telling her it was nearly impossible for the boy to have found his way there, but deep in her gut she was being told something else. This was no trap; this child needed their help. And she would be damned if she left the boy outside to die.

A bright ray of light tore through the gap in the blast doors, dividing the dark hangar in two. On the left side, Finley and Bouma knelt with their pulse rifles trained on the entrance. On the right, Sergeant Overton crouched behind a pyramid of metal crates with his rocket launcher at the ready. Sophie watched from inside the safety of the train, her hand hovering over the controls just in case her gut had been wrong and it was a trap after all.

As the doors screeched open, Sophie could see the narrow shadow of someone approaching. She watched Finley and Bouma straighten, their fingers gripping the rifles tighter in anticipation.

“Alexia, stop the doors,” Sophie whispered into her headset.

The massive metal eased to a stop, the opening just large enough for a human to pass through. Silence washed over the hangar as the team waited for the boy to slip through the crack. Sophie couldn’t hear anything but the hollow sound of her own heartbeat.

Overton’s patience was starting to wear thin. The door had been open for too long, further compromising the safety of the facility. He balled his hand into a fist and prepared to flash his men the signals to advance when the child stepped through the opening. The boy halted at the entrance between the two doors, squinting into the darkness.

Even from a distance Overton could see the boy’s face was smeared with dirt. The only clean spots were on his cheeks, where tears had washed away the grime. His shaggy blond hair was matted to his head like a hastily made bird’s nest, and his clothes were filthy.

Overton shot Sophie a quick glance, giving her the most reassuring look he could manage. But deep down something didn’t smell right. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe some five-year-old boy had trekked all the way up Cheyenne Mountain and knocked on the front door of one of the government’s oldest military installations.

Either makes him really smart, really lucky, or really dangerous.