EPILOGUE
“He’s here,” Miranda said. “He’s at his office. He’s accompanied by the bruisers.”
“Outstanding!” Chastain said. “Send the dog after him.”
“Doing it now,” Miranda said.
She glanced at the dog. He wasn’t there.
She stopped dead and turned around. Asset Sierra-9 remained where she was by the table in the coffee shop. She sent another command. She knew Asset Sierra-9 received it because she could feel the dog’s mind absorb it, but the dog still didn’t move.
Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. “Sir, we might have a problem with Asset Sierra-9.”
“Again?” Chastain said over her earpiece.
“I’m going to see if I can get through it,” she said.
She knelt in front of the dog, still smiling, and kept her voice soft. “Hey, baby. You okay? Don’t be scared.”
She locked her eyes on Asset Sierra-9 and repeated her command, along with a promise of what she would do to the dog if it didn’t comply.
Asset Sierra-9 met Miranda’s eyes, and an image came to her. The bruisers, not fooled by Miranda’s disguise, recognizing her and Asset Sierra-9 from the descriptions Dr. Friedman had given them.
A sharp pain burst behind her eye. She cried out and flinched backwards, shaking her head.
“Ma’am?” a concerned passerby asked. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” Miranda said, blinking some more. She looked at the stranger, a young woman wearing the lanyard ID of a junior analyst, and smiled. “Just got an eyelash in my eye.”
“Oh, yeah, I know all about that,” the analyst replied, as though the fact that they both had eyelashes was something momentous they had both accomplished together.
Well, you did use that as your excuse.
She grabbed Asset Sierra-9’s leash, waved goodbye to the analyst, and headed toward the exit. “Sir, something just happened.”
Chastain sighed. “Can you accomplish the mission, or what?”
“I can, but not the way we planned it. Asset Sierra-9 showed me an image of the bodyguards recognizing me and putting a stop to the attack.”
Chastain was quiet for a long moment. When he broke his silence, he made no attempt to hide how incredulous he was. “The dog showed you the future.”
“Not… I don’t think so. It was more like she disagreed with my plan.”
“More like who disagreed with your plan?”
“Asset Sierra-9.”
“Who is a…”
Miranda lifted her hands, earning an odd look from the security guards at the gate. She smiled at them and lowered her voice, keeping her gait neutral. “A dog, sir.”
“An it. You called it a she.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “The point, sir, is that the plan we have didn’t take into account the presence of the guards, or the possibility that they would recognize us.” She frowned. “Not to mention the staff.”
“He needs to die, Whitaker.”
“He will. We’re going to do it in the parking lot. We’ll wait behind his car, and Asset Sierra-9 will take him when he arrives. I’ll shoot the two guards.”
“Too messy. And it’ll look like an actual attack. The point was for this to look like an accidental mauling.”
Miranda pursed her lips. “Very well. I won’t shoot the guards. We’ll lose Sierra-9, but we’ll get Dr. Friedman.”
Chastain sighed. “I suppose that will work. And you’re not growing sentimental toward your asset, so that’s good.”
“Yes, I apologize for acknowledging that the asset is indeed female, sir.”
“Don’t get snippy, staff sergeant. When do you anticipate you can get this job done?”
“It’ll have to be…” She stopped and raised an eyebrow. “Now, actually.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he’s walking to the parking lot, bruisers in tow. Huh. I guess he was just at the office for a few minutes today.”
“Well, we won’t look a gift asset in it’s mouth. Let me know when it’s done.”
“Will do.”
Miranda looked down at Asset Sierra-9. The dog was calm and focused on its target. Good.
His voice carried as he approached the vehicle. “When you get a wife, you’ll understand. She needs me home, so work can wait.”
“I think we might take off when you get home,” the big Caucasian guard said. “We don’t want to intrude on your privacy.”
“Don’t forget to ask about her sister,” the big African American guard said.
Dr. Friedman rolled his eyes. “Not gonna ask about her sister.”
Miranda’s shoulders tensed. Okay, she sent to Asset Sierra-9. N—
Tires screeched, breaking Miranda’s concentration and causing her to flinch.
A van skidded to a halt next to Dr. Friedman and his guards.
The driver pointed a small handgun at them and fired three times.
Darts pierced the necks of all three. Dr. Friedman pressed a hand to his throat, then sank to his knees almost immediately.
The guards lasted a few seconds longer. The Caucasian groggily reached for his pistol while the African American tried to step in front of Dr. Friedman.
Then their knees buckled, and they fell too. Miranda watched, shocked, as the driver—wearing a ski mask—hopped out of the van, grabbed Dr. Friedman, and pulled him inside. He jumped back into the driver’s seat and took off. The whole thing lasted fifteen seconds.
She looked at Asset Sierra-9 and saw a small smile on the dog’s face. It was a damned smile too.
“You knew,” she said. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Asset Sierra-9 looked placidly at her.
Voices carried to her, and she looked up and saw security officers rushing to the scene.
She ducked behind the car and led Asset Sierra-9 away, staying low so they wouldn’t be seen.
She popped up behind their car, parked three rows away, and stayed behind it while the security officers tended to the fallen bodyguards and called for vehicles to chase the fleeing kidnapper.
She tapped her earpiece. “Sir?”
“Is it done?”
“Uh… Well…”
***
David groaned. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at the roof of a vehicle. He tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness came over him, and he lay back down.
He had been kidnapped. Someone had shot him, Greg, and Jeff, and now he was in their van. Greg and Jeff weren’t here, so they must have been left for dead.
He gasped. Oh God. They’d gotten to him. The 93rd had gotten to him!
He frowned. So why was he still alive?
The van came to a halt. David got to his knees, still groggy, but determined to fight at all costs. He had to get back to Faith. He had to tell people what was happening. Most of all, he really wanted not to die.
The door opened. David launched himself at the silhouette of the man in the doorway. The man sidestepped his punch and wrapped him up in a wrestling hold. David struggled for a second, then his stomach turned. He retched, and the next instant, he found himself bent over, vomiting onto the ground.
A young man’s voice said, “You need to stay calm. We need to get you out of here before the 93rd finds us.”
David blinked. “What?”
“Come on.”
The man led him to another vehicle, another van, but this one a plain white passenger van with deeply tinted windows rather than the old gray cargo van he was taken out of.
His captor opened the side door. “Get in, strap your seatbelt on, and feel free to drink some water. No snacks for at least an hour so the sedative can wear off.”
David blinked and looked stupidly at the boxes of granola bars, trail mix, and snack sausages and the case of water bottles sitting next to them. “What?”
The man sighed and pushed him inside. “Come on, go. I’ll explain on the way.”
David dropped into a chair and belted himself in.
The passenger door closed, and the driver’s door opened.
A second later, the engine started, and the van pulled onto a dirt road.
A minute after that, they pulled onto a paved road, and the driver—now maskless and revealing close-cropped light brown hair and soft blue eyes behind thin-rimmed glasses—breathed a sigh of relief.
“Okay, you’re probably wondering who I am. ”
“Uh, yeah,” David said. “You’re not the 93rd?”
“I am, but they don’t know I’m here.”
David blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“My name’s Jayce Broward. I’m the informant who sent you those emails.”