American Sniper: The Last Round – Episode 57
Freezing seawater rushed across the archive deck while Jane Valentine stood between sealed security doors. Elena Cross continued copying the KOVAC archive inside the server room, refusing to abandon years of evidence at eighty percent. The water climbed above Jane’s boots and pulled loose equipment toward the open bulkhead. Server alarms competed with the roar of the sea, turning the corridor into a narrowing space between evidence and survival.
Carl Oliver watched through the failing camera feed from the support vessel. The boarding authorization had arrived, but allied teams remained minutes away. He could see the flooded corridor without reaching it, forcing him to solve a rescue through Jane rather than for her.
Lewis found the vessel’s original construction plan beneath its diplomatic registry. The archive deck had once stored refrigerated cargo and contained pressure shutters designed to isolate a hull breach. Sergei had disabled electronic controls, but a manual wheel remained inside the flooding compartment.
Jane located the wheel beneath the waterline. Turning it required standing directly beside the open bulkhead, where the current could pull her into the sea. She tied a maintenance cable around her waist and anchored it to the server-room frame.
Two guards entered through the far security door wearing breathing equipment. Sergei expected the water to weaken Jane before they recovered the brass cartridge. She released the cable lock as they approached, allowing the current to sweep a storage rack between them.
The collision knocked one guard down and forced the other against the wall. Jane reached the manual wheel while Elena used the server-room fire door to block their weapons. Each turn reduced the incoming water until the pressure shutter sealed. Jane’s hands had gone numb before the mechanism stopped, leaving her uncertain whether she still held the wheel.
The archive transfer reached completion. Elena stored one copy inside the brass cartridge and another on a waterproof drive. She then triggered a secure transmission to Ruiz, using the auction buyers’ own satellite channel to carry the evidence beyond the vessel. Every buyer unknowingly helped distribute the archive through the network built to protect them.
Sergei cut the satellite connection at ninety-six percent, but Ruiz confirmed the missing data consisted only of duplicate surveillance. The master accounts, buyers, prisoner locations, and LAST ROUND design files had arrived intact. The One’s secrecy no longer depended on whether Jane escaped.
Allied boarding teams attached to the stern as the ship altered course toward deeper water. Sergei ordered his guards to arm the remaining autonomous rifles. Buyers began fighting security when they realized the vessel’s diplomatic protection had failed.
Jane and Elena took breathing masks from the restrained guards and entered a maintenance shaft above the corridor. Carl guided them toward the boarding point through the construction plan. His voice remained calm, although every lost camera forced him to trust directions he could not verify.
They emerged above the engine room. Sergei’s crew had rigged the propulsion system to overload, planning to sink the vessel with evidence and witnesses aboard. Elena estimated twenty minutes before the cooling system failed. Heat already shimmered above the turbines, confirming the countdown was more than a warning on her screen.
Jane could continue toward rescue or descend to the controls. She chose the engine room because hundreds of passengers, including guilty buyers and innocent crew, remained trapped aboard. Justice required them alive enough to be identified and tried.
The chief engineer refused to cooperate until Jane showed him the KOVAC files proving Sergei intended to kill the crew. He revealed an emergency shutdown sequence requiring physical access to turbines on opposite sides of the room. His loyalty ended when he saw that years of service had earned the crew a place inside Sergei’s planned grave.
Elena took one station while Jane crossed the overhead catwalk to the other. Armed guards entered before they completed the sequence. Carl had no direct line through the hull, but Lewis found an external ventilation grille aligned with the engine-room ceiling.
From the moving support vessel, Carl fired across wind and waves. His bullet passed through the grille and broke a steam valve above the guards. The sudden cloud blinded them without piercing the engine equipment or anyone inside.
Jane and Elena completed the shutdown. The vessel lost propulsion but remained afloat. Boarding teams entered the engine room and secured the guards while medical crews began evacuating the auction guests. Each buyer left beneath a recorded mask scan, preventing influence or diplomatic status from turning evacuation into escape.
Sergei appeared on the shipwide screens. He congratulated Carl on another impossible shot, then revealed a captured Coast Guard uniform and access badge. During the confusion, he had left the command deck disguised among rescue personnel.
Lewis checked the live boarding feeds and found one rescue launch moving away without authorization. Its passenger count showed three, though the camera displayed only two crew members. Sergei was hidden beneath the forward canopy.
Carl raised his rifle, but genuine medics stood between him and the launch. A lethal shot risked people who did not know they were transporting a fugitive. Sergei had again wrapped himself in innocent lives.
The launch accelerated toward the harbor, carrying a portable LAST ROUND control unit. Elena discovered it could activate autonomous rifles already smuggled ashore. On the city map, hundreds of hidden targeting nodes began waking at once. What appeared to be Sergei’s retreat was actually the final stage of a weapons demonstration built around an entire population.