Terminated

Chapter 4

“Here,” Riley said, and pressed a protein bar into her hands; Bryn wasn’t even really aware of her hunger, except as a gnawing constant, but she realized that she’d been staring fixedly at Brick’s neck, and that probably wasn’t a good thing. She licked her lips and tasted salt, and nodded to Riley as she unwrapped the foil from the food.

It tasted like sawdust, sweet glue, and fake chocolate, but it did, surprisingly, help—not as much as a thick, bloody steak would have done, but it made her less likely to imitate a raving zombie in the close confines of the truck. That would be inadvisable, not to mention messy.

She ate three of the bars . . . and so did Riley, which meant that the other woman was just as protein-challenged as she was. That was inherently dangerous, but at least they were still thinking, still understanding that the cliff was ahead of them, and taking action to change course.

But the cliff . . . well, the cliff was always there, and she knew Riley was acutely aware of it, too.

“Highway 50,” she said, and pointed at the off-ramp. The convoy took it at a speed just under insane, and she held on for dear life. “Head west and floor it. We’re heading for the Kansas Underground Salt Museum.”

“Wait, a museum?” Brick said. “You understand that this drone could be set to bomb the holy shit out of—”

“It’s a mine,” she said. “And it has a secured slant-drilled shaft they use to ferry heavy equipment in and out, which means we can drive our own vehicles inside—instant cover. The mine itself is about seventy miles of tunnels under solid rock, and a block of salt so hard you can’t even drive nails into it. The drone won’t be able to blow through that.”

“We going to have to worry about civilian casualties?” Brick asked, which was a reasonable question, and Bryn had already checked it on her phone.

“They’re closed Mondays, so I think we’re good,” she said. “It isn’t like they’re overstaffed. Our enemies might send in a team, but it’ll be damn hard for them to get to us. If we lock off the elevator and secure the vehicle exit, it’s a long way down—six hundred fifty feet of narrow stairs. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t risk it, because just one of us could hold that forever.”

“Not ideal, but it’ll do,” Brick said. “They can’t keep the drone up there long; people get the idea that they’re conducting military drone ops on American soil, and it gets ugly. They were hoping for a quick, fatal strike in the middle of nowhere. Taking out a tourist attraction won’t have nearly so much appeal. They ain’t that desperate.”

“Yet,” Riley said.

He didn’t argue. They all rode in silence as the engine of the SUV roared, and Kansas miles disappeared under the whining tires. It felt effortless, the way momentum always did, but it wasn’t. Bryn was acutely aware of the drone somewhere out there in the cloud-clotted sky, making its way to them with equally ruthless efficiency. She wouldn’t even know it when it happened, most likely. The weapons the drone carried would make the trucks infernos, and she doubted the nanites, no matter how upgraded, could survive a direct strike like that.

Good way to go, some traitorous part of her said. Maybe it would be for the best if it ended right here, right now. Before I do things I can’t take back.

But if she gave up now, there was nothing to stop the Fountain Group—and their agenda was something they were willing to do horrible, ruthless things to accomplish. They didn’t have pity, or mercy, or second thoughts. And she needed to stay alive and stay fighting if she wanted to have even an outside chance of stopping them.

So tempting as that fireball would be, she knew they needed to win this one.

The sign for the Underground Salt Museum flashed past, signaling they were coming up on it soon, and Brick activated his radio. “Hard right coming up, guys—be ready. What’s the ETA on our little friend?”

“Getting ready to say howdy,” his man said. “About one minute out. Going to be close, boss.”

The drone wasn’t, strictly speaking, just an automated killing machine; drones could be used for all kinds of purposes from simple reconnaissance and supply delivery all the way up to bomb-dropping, and they were always piloted—remotely—by highly trained teams. That was part of why the damn things were so effective—they were flexible, and they could react to new information at a moment’s notice. This one didn’t have to be on a WMD mission, but it was safer to assume that it would be if the opportunity presented itself. In the wide Kansas countryside, it sure wasn’t coming in to map unfamiliar territory or track down the Taliban.

Bryn found herself trying to look for it in the sky, but that was useless; drones were hard to spot even when you knew the exact trajectory. She grabbed for the panic strap as the SUV, true to Brick’s warning, began the precarious hard right. The left side wheels left the ground, but they didn’t quite topple, and they also didn’t slow down, at least enough to matter.

They hit the low parking lot barrier hard enough to shatter it open and throw bits of chain into the air like hard confetti. Ahead, in a modest-sized car lot, was a rounded blue building, but that wasn’t where they needed to go. Bryn pulled up the aerial map and zoomed in. “Back of the building,” she said. “You’ll see a chain-link fence with a gate. Go through the gate and straight—the ramp down will be about a hundred feet in. Once we’re under the concrete, the drone will lose us, but they could go ahead with the missiles in hopes of collapsing the place on top of us before we go deep. So don’t let off on the speed.”

She was hoping, desperately, that the Salt Museum wouldn’t have state-of-the-art surveillance or security; she also hoped that the drone operators would hesitate to throw heavy weapons around at a public attraction, on American soil, without a clear target. If the drone was military—and they were all supposed to be—then even if the particular op was run by someone friendly to their enemies, there would be dissension in the ranks, chains of command, lots of places for the op to get hung up and fail.

If it was private security who’d gotten their hands on the same tech, and had nothing but dollars at stake, then all bets were off.

Brick’s driver was good, really good. They smashed the chain-link gate open at the back of the building without slowing, and in less than ten seconds the concrete box that overhung the ramp loomed up, a square of darkness that looked, for a heart-stopping second—like a solid barrier . . . and then they were hurtling down a ramp in the dark, blowing through another chain-link gate along the way. He’d flipped on the lights, and by the time she caught her breath, they were roaring at the same speed, angling down, through a narrow tunnel.

The other SUVs were right on their rear bumper.

Bryn was waiting for the explosion, braced for it with every muscle twitching and tight, but it never came. The driver slacked off on the speed after another twenty seconds, and the four-truck convoy coasted down the incline, deeper and deeper. The bedrock walls of the tunnel changed to what looked like limestone—aquifer level—and then took on a gray, diamondlike shine.

Salt.

They’d made it.

The oppressive darkness made it feel as if the shimmering walls were pressing in, but then the headlight beams suddenly seemed to dim. . . . No, not dim—spread. They’d reached the end of the ramp, and coasted out into a large open space—round and cluttered. Definitely not the public areas of the museum’s tunnels; this was some kind of storage area for equipment using for tunneling and maintenance. They also bumped over a large iron grate, like a cattle guard. A water diversion, Bryn realized, like a sewer grate, designed to drain off any rain that rolled down the ramp. Couldn’t have the rain soaking into the salt, or the entire place might dissolve. She shuddered to think about that.

The four SUVs pulled into a line and shut off their engines, and Bryn got out and looked around at the walls. She found an electrical box, opened it, and pulled the switch, and overhead work lights popped on.

It was a grayish fairyland of glitter, streaked here and there with muted browns from minerals trapped in the salt. She ran her fingers over the surface. The crystals felt hard as steel, and sharp enough to cut if you weren’t careful. She licked her finger, ran it over the surface, and tasted. There was something miraculous about the fact that the walls were . . . edible. Just bizarre.

Which reminded her that she was hungry, again.

“We’re out of the drone’s target zone,” Brick said from behind her, “but we’re gonna need a strategy for extraction. It’ll take time for them to get boots on the ground for a strike team, but they’ll be coming, and I don’t want to be here when they are. My job is to get you people where you’re going, and I’d sure as hell like to deliver you to Kansas City without losing any more of my own people. After that, fair warning, I’m out. This has turned out to be a whole lot more expensive and nasty than anybody thought.”

He was standing with Joe Fideli and Riley Block, and Bryn went back to join them. She missed Patrick’s calm, solid presence. Badly. “What if we split up?” she asked. “The three of us can go on foot through the tunnels, find the public museum area, and get out that way while your team goes out the way we came in. This tunnel is a work space, so it ought to be clearly marked and lit, and it ought to dump right into the public spaces. Your four cars hit the freeway and split up, we go on foot and meet up with one SUV down the road. Divide and conquer. They’ve only got one drone, and they can’t keep it out for long.”

He thought it over, and nodded. “All right,” he said. “Harm, you take one vehicle, assign drivers to the other two. We’re going to sit tight for twenty minutes, then bug out.”

“You should give it more time,” Riley said. “Drones have plenty of fuel capacity. They could circle it a long time.”

“They could,” he agreed. “But they won’t.”

“Because?”

He grinned. It was intimidating. “Because we’ve already worked back channels, and the drone ops is off book. Chains of command are being informed, and trust me, in twenty minutes it’ll be shut down, recalled to the barn, and the operators won’t even remember they ever flew their toys over Kansas. Those who do remember will be seeing Leavenworth real close. There are some rogue commanders out there that Jane’s paying, but none of them want to get court-martialed over it. Knowledge is on our side, not theirs. So far, anyway.”

“Don’t get cocky,” Joe said. “But if we’ve got the chance, we need to take it. No room for hesitation in this game.”

“Agreed,” Riley said. “Let’s do it, people. Narrow window, if the drone’s off the table for them as an option. They’ll be fielding a team, but we can get out before they arrive if we hustle.”

“Take go-bags,” Brick said, and nodded at Harm, who jogged off to the nearest SUV and came back with four camo backpacks. “We kicked in some Glocks and extra clips. Sorry I can’t give you anything with more firepower, but we’re running a little short, and we like to keep it street legal for anybody who isn’t on the payroll.”

“It’s good,” Bryn said. She took the Glock out of her backpack, loaded it, and clipped the holster to her waistband at an easy draw angle. “Ready?”

Joe Fideli threw the backpack over his shoulder. He was still carrying a shotgun, liberated from Brick’s stores most likely, and Riley, like Bryn, had taken out a handgun.

They set off toward the clearly marked tunnel that said HARDHAT AREA. There was a map in a lighted case next to the entrance, and Bryn checked it quickly. The tunnel they were entering led straight and true through to an area shaded in light green—the public area. There was some sort of train, though that didn’t seem like a great idea to use for the three of them, and also something labeled CARTS.

“Outstanding,” she said. “This way.”

Jogging felt good. Her body liked movement, and her muscles were grateful for the chance to stretch. Ri-

ley easily paced her, and Joe ran behind—not nanite-enhanced, but pretty fit nonetheless. His endurance wouldn’t be equal to theirs, of course, but they didn’t have that far to travel. It was about a half mile down the tunnel, and then there was a steel door—locked, but between the two of them, Riley and Bryn’s enhanced strength shattered the mechanism enough to let them swing open the bent door.

The problem was that the lights on the other side were on a different circuit, and it was like stepping into space.

Joe already had an LED flashlight out, and as the door swung shut behind them he lit up the walls of the vast chamber. The same salt made up the entire surface, and the floor was smooth and gritty with it. He swept the light around, spotted another junction box, and went over to open it and flip the switches.

The overheads—more finished-looking than those in the parking area where they’d started out—marched on in ranks, illuminating a huge open space with a low ceiling, ten feet or so, enough to feel oppressive. The air was fresh, at least. This area seemed to be part of the tourist experience, and there were ranks of electric trams plugged in and ready to go. Bryn headed for one and disconnected it from the plug, and Riley and Bryn boarded behind her as she started it up. There was an old early-twentieth-century train that was clearly only for historical display—boxcars and wooden boxes labeled DYNAMITE that hadn’t seen real explosives in a hundred years. Bryn pressed the accelerator, and with a hum, the cart rolled forward. She floored it—after all, they didn’t need to worry about visitors—and sped past offshoot tunnels, dark and blocked off. It’d be easy to get lost in here, if you wandered off the public paths.

There were signs posted—new restrooms, apparently, plus an event area . . . and film storage. She supposed this would be a perfect environment for rare films—dry, cool, unlikely to burn.

Too bad they didn’t have time to sightsee. She kind of loved history.

But survival had to come first.

The ride was smooth and flat, and she followed signs down the wide arched tunnels, with their sparkling, striated gray walls and ceilings, until it opened into a huge domed area. A sign called it the Great Room, and she had to agree. Pretty great.

“Elevator,” Riley said, and pointed to a large industry cage at the far end. Bryn headed for it, and braked just a few feet away. She bailed out and reached to press the CALL button. . . .

But before she touched it, a rattle from above sounded.

Bryn backed off and cast Riley and Joe a glance. “That wasn’t me,” she said. “Someone’s coming down.”

“Shit,” Joe said. “How long?”

“This depth? About ninety seconds,” Riley said. “We need cover.”

Their advantage, Bryn thought, was that whoever was on the way down would be pinned inside the elevator. Sitting ducks. And it wasn’t a closed steel structure; it had open grating, which wouldn’t be much, if any, protection.

She felt a little sick at the idea of what was going to happen, but she also knew better than to regret it. If it was Jane, or Jane’s people, there would be no hesitation, and no mercy asked or given. “Scatter,” Bryn said. She broke for a large, square block of salt, one of the tactile exhibits, and as good as a steel barrier for bullets. Riley went for a support column, and Joe went for a free-standing informational board.

It was a long ninety seconds, listening to the clattering lurch of the descending elevator. And Bryn double-checked her Glock, wiped her palm, and braced herself against the salt block, aim sure and steady as she glimpsed the first signs of movement. The cage had come down in darkness, so she had no visual on who was within it, or how many, and she took a deep breath as the metal door slid aside.

With a cold start, she took her finger off the trigger. Security guards. Two of them, uniformed—one young and fit, one overweight and graying. They had pistols—revolvers—but they didn’t look particularly dangerous. Just nervous. Of course the place would have security. . . . She remembered that there was film storage, probably rare material. There was always a market for rarity. They’d probably have silent alarms to protect that stuff, at the very least.

That was the problem with having to make snap decisions and no time to research. You missed the obvious.

The two men stepped out and did a quick visual check, but missed Bryn, who was pretty much in plain view. It didn’t say a lot for their abilities.

“Probably nothing,” the younger one said. “I’m telling you, we get those motion detector alarms all the time. Usually it’s just some kind of animal. They don’t hang around. Nothing in here for ’em.”

“Did a stray cat turn on the lights, too?” So, the brains of the operation was the older man. He also was the first to really focus on Bryn, and the weapon she had aimed at them. His flinch was visible, but he didn’t dive for cover, he just shifted his aim back at her. “Drop it, miss! Drop it now!”

“Can’t do that,” she said. “Sir, you’re covered from two other angles. Please drop your weapons and lie down flat on the ground.”

“You’re bluffing,” the younger man said, and grinned as he brought his own weapon to bear on her. “We caught a thief, Bud.”

Bud didn’t seem so convinced of that. Her confidence had caught him off balance. That was good. She definitely did not want to hurt these men.

“She’s not bluffing,” Riley called from her cover, and edged around to point her weapon at the two men.

“Shotgun trumps revolver,” Joe said, stepping out from behind the information board. “It’s like rock-paper-scissors, but with more pellets.”

That did it. The older man made an instant, smart decision to drop his weapon to the ground, while the younger one was still staring wide-eyed at the newcomers. Four seconds later, with his partner (or boss) already spread facedown on the ground, the kid realized that he was about to get himself shot, and threw the gun away in a panic, thrusting his hands straight up in the air. More like he was planning a high dive than surrender.

“Down, son,” Joe said, and gestured with the barrel of the shotgun. “Just like your friend there.” The young man dropped to his knees, arms still up, then looked confused about what to do next. Joe sighed. “You can use your hands to lower yourself.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, and stretched out.

Riley, who had the most experience in this kind of thing, given that she was FBI, took charge with calm efficiency, zip-tying their wrists and confiscating the weapons, which she added to her backpack. “Right,” she said, and patted Bud on the shoulder. “The alarms. Did they go straight to the police, too?”

“Yes,” he said. “They’ll be here in about two minutes. So you’d better clear out, fast.” He sounded confident, and Bryn would have bought it, except she—like Riley—was watching the younger man. He seemed confused.

“Yeah, nice try,” Riley said. “Bryn, the alarms are local only. We’re fine for now. Tell you what, we’re going to call it in for you on the way out, so you don’t have to worry about being stuck here like this for long.” She rose to her feet, and walked into the elevator, and Joe and Bryn joined her. Bryn slid the gate closed, and the second she did, the elevator began to rise.

“Did you press the button?” she asked Riley, who was next to the control panel. The elevator rose past the ceiling level, and the light from the cavern cut out, leaving them in pitch darkness in the popping, groaning metal of the elevator. A dark ride, for sure. It felt claustrophobic and rickety, and Bryn had to take in slow, deep breaths to stop herself from feeling so trapped.

“No, I didn’t press anything,” Riley’s voice finally said, flat and calm. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have company up top, and they won’t be rent-a-cops.”

“On the plus side, they might assume that we are, at least for a second,” Bryn said. “If they know that security’s on the premises and just descended.”

“You think it’ll slow them down any? Because if it’s Jane’s people, they’re not worried about innocent bystander breakage.”

That was true. Worryingly true. Bryn counted the seconds, and when she reached seventy she quietly said, “Get ready. Stay against the sides.”

Joe and Riley took the left, and Bryn took the right, and as the light spilled into the elevator’s cab through the grate, so did a rattle of noise, and the smell of gunfire. Worstcasescenario, Bryn thought in a burst of adrenaline, and time seemed to slow down.

She moved faster.

Opening the grate was too slow; they’d be hit multiple times, probably in the head, before that could happen. So she simply took hold of the grate and shoved, popping it loose from its moorings, and the heavy thing toppled fast and heavy—landing on and smashing two of their attackers to the floor of the lobby. Bryn didn’t pause; she jumped out, aimed, and it seemed almost as if she were laser-targeting each gunman with split-second accuracy.

Seven shots, delivered as fast she could pull the trigger, and seven people went down, hard. Riley was shoulder to shoulder with her, also firing, and before Joe had even moved out of the elevator, the lobby was silent, save for twitches from the fallen bodies. The smell of blood and relaxing bladders and bowels mixed with that of the gunpowder.

Jane’s people, but Jane wasn’t with them. And none of these, as far as Bryn could tell, were Revived; at the very least, the head shots had put them down and out for now. Bryn bent and scooped up two assault rifles; she tossed one to Riley and slung the other over her chest, and looked around the place. It was small. There was a gift shop off to the left that sold T-shirts, hoodies, and—inevitably—salt-related items such as lamps and table condiments. She was more interested in the small food counter that was next to it, though, and vaulted the counter and through the swinging doors to the back, where the refrigerator was kept. They did simple food here, like burgers—sure enough, the raw materials were in place. Bryn grabbed several tubular packs of raw ground beef, and shoved them in her pack.

Riley knew what she was doing, even if Joe wouldn’t have; they exchanged nods, and Joe went on checking their downed enemies for pulses. He looked up when he reached the last one and shook his head. “Okay, officially it’s a bloodbath, and ladies, I am a little creeped out,” he said. “Time to get the hell on the road. We’ve just become public enemies.”

Bryn agreed. There were two menacing-looking trucks outside belonging to Jane’s people, but she had no doubt they’d be jacked up with GPS; stealing them was a nonstarter, unless she wanted to lead Jane right to them. “Let’s go.”

On the way out, though, she picked up the phone and dialed 911. “Seven gunmen dead at the Underground Salt Museum,” she said. “Two security guards alive but in need of assistance below.” She hung up as soon as she was sure the operator had gotten the information, and joined Riley and Joe, already halfway across the parking lot.

They headed out on foot.

There was no real cover out here, but they used what there was—trees, mostly, and some ditches. They intersected the main road, and looking back toward the museum, Bryn spotted a black SUV heading toward them at high speed. The timing was nearly perfect.

The SUV barely hit the brakes long enough for the three of them to pile in.

Brick looked up from his map as Bryn slammed the door shut, and the truck accelerated smoothly forward. “Any problems?”

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Riley said. Joe didn’t say anything, but there was a tight muscle in his jaw. He hadn’t liked any of that, but he was professional enough to keep it to himself. “Any sign of pursuit?”

“Jane’s people are converging,” Brick said, “but they split up chasing the other vehicles. The ones you killed back at the museum would have been in charge of this side of the box.”

So, he knew there had been trouble, and the question had just been to establish how fast they’d lie to him. A test they’d failed, of course. Riley’s gaze brushed over Bryn’s, and she saw the FBI agent was aware of that, too. “Sorry,” Riley said. “But I meant what I said. We handled it.”

“You’re leaving a messy trail of bodies,” he pointed out. “And some of them were back at that train, and might point straight to me. So excuse me if I’m not feeling the love and trust right now.”

“Are we breaking up, Brick? Because I’d like to keep my engagement shotgun,” Joe said. He sounded flippant, but he wasn’t. The atmosphere inside the truck was grim and tense, and there was a moment when it felt like things might come to violence.

And then Brick smiled. A false smile, but a signal he was willing to let it go. “Date night’s not over yet, Joe,” he said. “I’ll let you hang on to it for a while. But fair warning: don’t you ever lie to me again, any of you, or this ride ends. Got me?”

“Yes, sir,” Bryn said. Riley was a little late, but she nodded, and so did Joe. “Sorry. It’s been a little bit more than we bargained for, and we thought we knew what we were getting.”

“No plan ever survives the first engagement,” Joe said. “The great ones are the ones who can change the plan and keep moving toward the objective. We’re doing it, Bryn. Chin up.”

She forced a smile, one she didn’t much feel, and closed her eyes for a while, as the SUV rocketed toward the next destination.

Surprisingly—and menacingly—there were no further attacks on them, all the way to Wichita, and then to Kansas City. No one mentioned it, but they all took it for an ominous sign. Still, maybe it meant that lack of military support had knocked the props from under Jane’s response plans, and losing so many foot soldiers so early had forced her to reassess her strategy.

Bryn hoped for that, anyway. But she didn’t count on it.

Brick’s SUV made some turns once they’d entered suburbia, and pulled into an industrial area—aging, mostly deserted, filled with unrentable factory space and weeds. There was another SUV waiting there, engine idling.

“Right,” Brick said. “It’s been nice, but this concludes our business arrangement. Riley, love you—don’t call me again. It ain’t worth it.”

“I owe you for the SUV,” Riley said, and offered her hand. He shook it, and smiled.

“You owe me a lot more than that, and it’ll be on the bill,” he said. “Vehicle’s fully stocked, clean, can’t be traced back to any of you. It’s got a laptop in it that’s clean, too. If you need more than what’s there, I hope you’re as resourceful as you are lucky.” He offered his hand to Joe next, and they shook solemnly. “Job offer’s open anytime, man.”

Joe nodded. “Good to work with you.”

Last, he focused on Bryn, and she said, “You won’t sell us out, will you?”

He laughed, but oddly enough, he didn’t take offense. “I get bought, I stay bought,” he said. “If somebody hires me to take you out in a year, that’s a different thing, but I’m not going to change into the other team’s jersey right now. And I promise, nobody in my organization will sell you out.”

“Okay,” she said, and took a deep breath. “One more thing. Could you check on my family? I’m worried Jane might come after them as leverage. I’ll pay.”

His eyebrows twitched, just a little, and he was silent for a minute, then said, “Your relatives are just normal folks?”

“Normal is a stretch. I have an aunt with four thumbs. But they’re not involved in any of this, and I’d like to keep it that way if I could.”

He thought about it for a moment, then said, “I’ll look into it. Fair warning: I may not take the job. But I’ll consider it, and if I don’t, I will let you know what’s happening with them. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, and they shook on it. “Thank you, Brick. I’m sorry we met like this.”

“Yeah, me too. I might like you otherwise, sunshine.”

She nodded, grabbed the backpack he’d given them before, and bailed out. As she, Riley, and Joe walked toward the other vehicle, the driver of it got out and crossed in the opposite direction, like a prisoner exchange. It was all done silently and efficiently, and by the time Joe had taken his place behind the wheel, and Bryn in the front passenger seat, Brick’s vehicle was already cruising smoothly out of the parking lot. One quick turn, and it vanished.

“Suddenly I feel jilted,” Joe said, and put the truck in drive. “Strap in, ladies. Bumpy ride ahead. Bryn, navigate me.”

She’d already found the address that Pansy had sent, and punched it into the truck’s GPS positioning system. “It’s five miles away,” she said.

“Outstanding. We don’t have to wonder long what kind of reception we’ll get.”

He pulled the truck out to the street and followed the map’s glowing directions. Bryn took deep breaths and looked out; it was late afternoon, sliding toward evening, and traffic was light in this area even during rush hour—whatever rush hour meant, in Kansas City. Around them, people were living normal lives, even if normal life here in this part of town involved pushing a rusty shopping cart and scavenging from trash cans.

Speaking of that . . . Bryn hated to do it, but she grabbed her backpack, unzipped it, and took out one of the tubes of lukewarm hamburger meat. “We’d better power up,” she said to Riley, who nodded. Riley sliced open the tube with a knife, and took a handful of the raw beef. Bryn made a face and plunged her own fingers in; it felt . . . gross. But the smell hit her in a wave, and woke an insane tsunami of red-hot hunger that made her jaw ache, and suddenly, she was shoveling the slippery meat into her mouth and chewing, and the taste was like ambrosia and honey, like the best and rightest food in the world.

She ate four handfuls of it, then forced herself to stop. Riley took an extra. There wasn’t much left in the tube.

Bryn wiped her mouth and sat back, and caught Joe staring at them. The expression on his face wiped out to impartiality, but there was no doubt that he’d found what he’d just seen disturbing, at the very least.

“Sorry,” she said, and swallowed the taste of iron and meat. “Better to go in full strength.”

“Copy that,” he said, and put the truck in gear without another word.

The elation the meat brought with it was unsettling. Despite that, Bryn felt sad and disoriented, and realized that it wasn’t so much for herself—she’d given up hope that she’d come out of this in any way normal—but for the world around her that had no idea it was on the verge of change. Because change it would; it wouldn’t have a choice. Whatever happened, even if they miraculously stopped the Fountain Group dead in its tracks, word about Returné would begin to creep out. People would seek it out of desperation and pain and anguish. And someone, somewhere would meet that need.

It would turn clinging to life into a drug-addicted plague.

She blinked as Joe steered the truck to a stop, and looked around. “We’re here,” he said, and nodded ahead. “See that building? That’s the address. Call me crazy, but it doesn’t exactly look like the high-dollar establishment I was expecting from these guys.”

It was a clinic. A free clinic, one of those charity operations that served the down and out and disenfranchised. Bryn felt a sudden sweep of chill, as she thought about the sick, old people who’d been used so cruelly at their supposedly safe memory care unit by the Fountain Group. “They like to pick off the weak,” she said. “Use them. This is a place they might find attractive.”

“Or maybe it’s a person we’re looking for,” Riley said, leaning forward. “Call Pansy.”

Bryn dialed the burner phone, and it rang three times before Pansy picked up, sounding breathless. “If you’re calling to offer me low rates on my credit card, it’s not a good time,” she said.

“It’s me,” Bryn said. “Everything all right?”

“That all depends on your definitions,” Pansy said. “Manny’s come out of his bunker, so that’s good. Your sister is bored out of her skull, which is bad. Liam is making amazing meals out of our food stores, and did you know he could cook? I think we might keep him. Oh, and we’re completely surrounded, and Jane’s people are trying to dig us out.”

Bryn took in a sharp breath and looked at Joe. “Are you going to be all right?”

“Sure. Nothing we can’t handle,” Pansy said. “Not if you can do your job and get this thing resolved within the next week, anyway. That’s about how long it’ll take them to break in, we think. What do you need?”

“We’ve reached the address you sent us to. What are we looking for?”

“All I was able to get was a last name: Ziegler. He, or she, was specifically named in Fountain Group comm that we decrypted. But I don’t know what role this person plays, only that he seems highly involved.” There was a shout on Pansy’s end of the phone, and her sunny tone grew brisk. “Okay, Manny’s calling, gotta run. Good luck, Bryn.”

“You too,” she said, but Pansy was already gone. Bryn shook her head, folded the phone, and relayed the information to her two remaining allies.

“Well,” Riley said, “I’m the logical choice to go collect intel. My new look fits in.”

She was right; the punk esthetic she’d put on would probably blend better than either Joe or Bryn could. “Keep your phone on,” Joe said. “We’ll be fifteen seconds away.”

Riley nodded, concealed the handgun under her shirt at the back of her pants, and bailed out of the van. She walked the short block, hands in the pockets of her jacket and head down, with slow, wandering steps.

If Bryn hadn’t known who she was, she’d have missed her altogether. “She’s good,” she said.

“Surprised?”

“A little.”

“By the time she reaches the door, she’ll already have a backstory worked out for her character, and she’ll have some specific medical problem that fits in with what they normally see.”

“But she won’t be sick.”

“Doesn’t matter. A lot of people coming into these places aren’t, they just want drugs. It’s pretty much foolproof,” Joe said. Just then, Bryn’s phone rang, and she put it on the console between them and pressed the speaker button. “Riley, you’re on, we’re here.”

Riley must have been holding the phone to ear while standing at some sort of reception desk, because she said, “Hold on,” and then, “Yeah, I need to see a doc. My back hurts real bad.”

The receptionist sounded muffled and world-weary, but clear enough. “Fill in these forms here. Have you been before?”

“Yeah, I saw Doc—um, Ziegler, maybe?”

“Dr. Ziegler’s here,” the receptionist said. “Take a seat. We’ll call you.”

Riley’s clothes rustled, and then she said in a low voice, “I’m on the list. Will redial when they call me back.”

“Riley, no, don’t hang up—” But it was too late, and Bryn was talking to a dial tone. “Dammit.”

“She’s trying to save on battery power,” Joe said. “It’s a clinic. Could be an hour before she sees anybody but homeless dudes and crying kids.”

“It could be seconds before they drag her off, if Ziegler was a hot name,” Bryn said. “Right?”

“Not arguing that, but we have to let this play out. It ain’t Riley’s first prom.”

“Maybe not, but this is the Fountain Group, and they’re not playing, Joe.”

He thought about it for a second, then sighed and nodded. “Okay, you win. Check that first aid kit there for bandages.”

“Uh—okay?” She opened the kit built into the wheel well and pulled out a roll of gauze. “This?”

“Yep, that’ll do. Spool some off and get ready.”

“For what?”

“This,” he said, and pulled out his combat knife from a wrist sheath. Before she could ask what he was about to do, he sliced a cut in his forehead, above the eyebrow. It was about half an inch long, but the blood immediately sheeted out down his face in a shiny red stream, pooling around his eyes, snaking down his chin and pattering in thick drops on his shirt. It kept coming, a steady red rain, and she was mesmerized by it. Glad I ate, she thought, because the smell of the blood tantalized.

“Old fighter trick,” he said. “You can give me the gauze now.”

She blinked, flinched, and handed it over with guilty haste. He pressed it to his forehead and said, “How do I look?”

“Gruesome,” she said.

“Excellent. I’m just going to lurk. This cut’ll seal itself in about thirty minutes; all I need is a couple of butterfly bandages and a cleanup, but it gives me an excuse to sit and watch Riley.”

“Be careful,” she said.

“My phone will be on,” he said. “You hear me say the word wife, get your ass in there, because something will be on fire. Probably me.”

She nodded, and then Joe got out and walked toward the clinic. Like Riley, he did a good job of selling his distress, but instead of looking like someone in need of a fix, he walked fast, a little unsteadily, like a man urgently in need of help.

Her phone rang when he was still outside the door, and when she put it on speaker he said, “Going in, radio silence.”

She listened as he did the same exchange with the receptionist, who sounded just as disinterested with a bloody man as she did with drug-seekers, though at least she asked him a few more triage questions. He sold it just enough to need to see a doctor but not enough to be rushed through to the front of the line, and Bryn heard him settle into a chair. “In place,” he said in a low voice. “Riley’s secure. . . . Wait one.”

In the distance, Bryn heard a voice calling a name she didn’t recognize, but Joe muttered, “She’s going back. Hang on. Stepping it up.”

He must have stood up, because she heard him say, in a louder voice, “Hey, can I get some help here? I feel kinda—”

And then there was a loud, concussive thud, as if he’d keeled over and hit the floor.

Bryn resisted the urge to speak, but she quickly armed herself with a handgun and extra ammo, and got out of the vehicle. She took the keys with her, and locked it, since there were weapons inside she didn’t want to see walking away in the hands of scavengers. Then she faded into the shadows of a doorway, well out of range of the fading daylight, and watched the clinic’s brightly lit entrance.

She heard sounds and mumbling that signaled Joe being escorted to the treatment area, she guessed; within about thirty seconds he was professing that he was fine, and they must have left him alone because he muttered, “In the back. Riley’s got a bed across from me, but she’s curtained off. Will try to get a look.”

“Careful,” she whispered back, but she wasn’t sure he could hear her, and it was superfluous advice, anyway. He rose, and she heard the scrape of curtain rings as he exited his treatment area, then another similar sound as he entered Riley’s.

And then he said, in a slurred, confused voice, “Wait’ll I tell my wife about this!”

Wife.

She gasped in a breath and burst from cover, crossing the thirty feet to the clinic in seconds. The swinging door slammed open under the force of her outstretched arm, and she vaulted over the reception desk feet first, sending the openmouthed lady sitting there over backward in her rolling chair.

Bryn didn’t stop for more than an instant to get her bearings, and didn’t need to, because she could hear the sounds of things falling and breaking from her left. She charged that way, just in time to catch Joe as he staggered backward down the hall. His head wound was still bleeding, but he was now also sliced down the arm, and it looked deep. She steadied him and pushed him behind her, and took in what was in front of her.

It wasn’t good.

Riley was pinned down in her bed by a man in a lab coat armed with a scalpel. He was an older man, maybe in his early fifties, with a graying fringe of hair that clung to the curve of his skull and desperate dark eyes shining behind wire-frame glasses.

The scalpel was at Riley’s neck, pressing hard enough to draw a red bubble that burst and ran threads down her pale skin. She was absolutely still, but her eyes were open and burning.

“I may not be able to get her head completely off before you stop me, but I’ll do a fair job of trying,” the doctor said to Bryn. There was a glittering mist of sweat on his brow, but his surgical hand was absolutely steady. “A blade this sharp will make the soft tissue part like silk. Back off.”

“Riley?” she asked.

“Dr. Ziegler, I presume,” Riley said, and Ziegler looked down at her with an almost comical surprise. “You’re coming with us.”

He got in one slice that sent a fountain of blood rushing for the ceiling, but Riley had hold of his wrist by then, and she was rolling him off the bed and to the floor, and Bryn joined her fast. Together, they wrestled the scalpel away from him, and Riley sat back against the tile wall, gagging and holding a hand to her sliced throat.

“She’s dead,” Ziegler said, and bared his teeth. “And you won’t get anything from me!”

“Who exactly do you think we are?” Bryn asked him. “Riley?”

Riley gave her a silent, shaky thumbs up. Ziegler did a double take that was just about priceless in its sincerity, and watched as Riley’s arterial blood loss lessened, then stopped.

Healing.

“Oh God,” he whispered. “Oh God.”

“Not hardly,” Bryn said. “Up. We’re going.”

She grabbed a stitching kit and bandages on the way out, not for Riley, but for Joe, who was looking legitimately green now. He took the medical supplies and led the way out. Bryn had the doctor in an armlock, and hustled him out as fast as possible. The people in the waiting room had either vanished, or were trying to be invisible, like the receptionist, who was crouched down on the floor looking terrified.

Riley was right behind them.

It was a long hundred feet to the SUV, and Bryn handed the doctor over to Riley as she dug the keys from her pocket and unlocked it; Ziegler went into the backseat with Riley and Joe, and Bryn took the driver’s position. She peeled out fast, checking for any police lights, but nothing popped in the mirrors.

Apparently, responding to an altercation at the free clinic wasn’t a hot priority. Thankfully.

“Hey, Doc,” Joe said. “Whatever happened to first, do no harm? Isn’t that still a thing?”

“Screw you, you freaks—” Dr. Ziegler’s voice faded as he looked at Joe more closely. “You’re not healing.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

“You’re not one of them?”

“I’m not even sure who them is right now.”

Ziegler looked confused now. And scared. “You—you’re not with that psychopath Jane?”

“Definitely not,” Bryn said. “But you’ve definitely got my interest, Doctor. Please, go on.”

“Your friend needs attention.”

“Then do it. There’s a suture kit right there, and Betadine here in the first aid kit on the seat. But talk while you work. We may not have long.”

The doctor didn’t fuss about it; with Riley’s silent help, he opened the suture kit, gloved up and threaded the needle, then washed Joe’s arm slash with Betadine before he began the handiwork. “Sorry about the pain,” he said. “No local.”

“It’s cool,” Joe said. “One thing I love about docs—they might slice you up, but they sew you back together afterward.”

“You’ve lost a fairly significant amount of blood. You’ll want to rest.”

“Does that really look likely to you?” Bryn said, and got silence in response. “Doctor, we got your name from decrypted Fountain Group materials. What is it exactly that has you involved with them?”

“Research,” he said, and wiped his forehead with his sleeve, then continued to stitch. Bryn tried to hold the truck steady, and Riley focused a flashlight on Joe’s arm as the doctor worked. “I’ve been involved in the program for years. But I got out.”

“Let’s get specific,” Bryn said. “Tell me about the Fountain Group. Names, places, details.”

“I can’t,” he said. “They’ll kill me. They’ll kill my family. They’ll kill everyone I ever met.”

Riley must have recovered enough to speak, because she said, “Too late, Doctor. They’ll know we have you, and that makes you toxic already.” Her voice had a hideous hoarseness to it, and that leant a scary conviction to her words. “It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it? That’s why you were hiding out at the free clinic. I can’t imagine it’s your usual digs.”

He shuddered and avoided her stare, preferring to talk to Joe’s surgical fix, apparently. “I was out of work. Fountain Group recruited me for a new program.”

“And exactly what were you doing?”

“Research!”

“Don’t be a dick, Doc,” Joe said. “You know what she’s asking you.”

“I’m not answering any more of your questions,” Ziegler said, and tied off his stitches—which, from Bryn’s seat up front, looked surprisingly expert. “Just let me out.”

“No,” Riley said, and the word was as rough as gravel in a blender. She didn’t look in a forgiving mood, and as blood-drenched as she was, she looked more dead than alive. “You’re telling us everything you know. One way or another. So just say it now, and save yourself the pain.”

Bryn was almost sure that was an empty threat, but it didn’t sound that way, and Ziegler seemed to take it very seriously. Riley took the rest of the suture kit away from him, and he folded his hands in his lap and looked scared and miserable.

Too bad. Bryn couldn’t summon up much sympathy.

“My name isn’t Ziegler,” he said softly. “It’s Calvin Thorpe. I was in charge of the Revival team at Pharmadene Pharmaceuticals before I—before things went wrong and I left.”

“Left,” Bryn said. “You mean ran. They didn’t let anyone leave alive if they could help it.”

He nodded, eyes still fixed on his gloved hands. “Someone helped me out. A friend inside the company. He—helped me fake my death. I changed my name and tried to find work, but Fountain Group found me first. I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to have anything to do with the filthy process of bringing back those abominations.” He hesitated, and then said in an unconvinced voice, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Bryn said in the same tone. “You’re a specialist in reviving the dead during the administration of the nanite drug—do I have that right?”

“I administer the drugs, measure the results, do the follow-ups. I was the first to raise the issue of . . . maladjustments.”

“What kind of maladjustments?”

“Like that psychopath Jane,” he said. “I nearly succeeded in killing her. If they’d let me finish my work, I would have done it.”

Bryn braked and steered the truck to the curb, because her heart had started racing, and she was no longer sure she had the attention span for driving while talking. “Killed her,” she repeated. “You mean, before she took on the upgrades?”

He gave her a frowning glance, then looked away as if she was something too horrible to behold full-on. “I mean that I tried to kill her last month,” he said. “Upgrades and all. And I could have done it if they hadn’t spotted me. I had to go under again. I was hoping to try again soon.”

There was a heavy moment of silence, and then Joe said, “Doc, exactly how do you plan on killing Jane? Because I thought that was a pretty tall order.”

“It is,” he said, and for the first time, Bryn saw the arrogance of one of the men who’d decided to play God with human lives. “But essentially, what runs her—all of them—is just a biomechanical program. It can be disrupted. And it can be killed. And I know how to do it.”

“Who else knows?”

“No one,” Thorpe said, and glared at Joe. “Which is why you’d better not threaten me again, if you plan to take that bitch down. I’m your only hope.”