61. Kate
KATE
Someone had followed me home three nights in a row.
The first night, I told myself it was a coincidence.
The second night, I changed my route twice and watched the same black sedan make both turns behind me.
On the third, it stopped pretending.
I stepped out of the federal building into a bitter wind and felt the warning move across my skin before I saw the car.
It waited across the street.
Black sedan. Tinted windows. Maryland plates.
The same vehicle from the previous night.
I didn’t look directly at it. People revealed more when they believed they hadn’t been noticed. I adjusted the leather bag on my shoulder and continued toward the parking garage.
The sedan remained where it was.
That didn’t make me feel better.
I’d spent twelve years studying violent offenders. Predators didn’t always chase. Sometimes they waited for their target to enter a place where no one would hear the first scream.
I pressed the button on my key fob.
My SUV responded from the second level of the garage.
Forty yards.
Two security cameras.
One guard stationed at the entrance.
The sedan’s engine started behind me.
I reached inside my coat and wrapped my fingers around my weapon.
The car pulled away from the curb and passed the garage without slowing.
I watched it disappear around the corner.
“Subtle,” I murmured.
But the driver hadn’t wanted to remain hidden.
He’d wanted me to know I was being watched.
That made him either careless or confident.
Careless men made mistakes.
Confident men believed they could survive them.
I entered the parking garage and took the stairs instead of the elevator. On the second level, I paused behind the door and listened.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Measured.
Someone was already inside.
I drew my weapon and eased the door open.
A man in a navy suit stood beside my SUV.
Fifty years old. Graying hair. Expensive shoes. No visible weapon.
He turned as the door moved.
“Agent Collins.”
My gun remained at my side, hidden by the doorframe. “You’re standing beside the wrong vehicle.”
“I don’t think I am.”
I studied him.
His hands were visible, but the right one was too stiff. He was forcing it to remain open, which meant he was accustomed to carrying something in it.
A weapon.
A badge.
Maybe both.
“Identify yourself.”
“Deputy Director Edmund Vale.”
The name struck harder than it should have.
Vale had once held one of the most powerful counterterrorism positions in the country. Officially, he’d retired two years ago after developing a heart condition.
Unofficially, he continued attending classified briefings that had nothing to do with retired government officials.
I knew because his name had appeared in three of my active cases.
It wasn’t supposed to.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“To save your career.”
“My career isn’t in danger.”
“Not yet.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, but it wasn’t a smile.
Vale glanced at the nearest security camera. Its indicator light had gone dark.
He’d chosen his position carefully.
So had I.
I remained inside the stairwell, where the camera above the door could still see me.
If that one was operating.
“You’ve been requesting access to emergency-response files,” he said.
Those files were supposed to be sealed.
“How do you know that?”
“I know everything that passes through the offices I once supervised.”
“Then retirement must leave you a lot of free time.”
His expression didn’t change.
Men like Vale rarely became angry when insulted. Anger required them to consider another person important.
“I’m offering you professional advice, Agent Collins. Stop looking for a connection between those cases.”
“Which cases?”
“You know which ones.”
I did.
A family found dead inside their SUV in Atlanta after receiving an emergency evacuation warning.
Thirty-two tourists who abandoned a hotel in San Diego because of a gas-leak alert that local authorities had never issued. Four were killed when they ran into traffic.
A church congregation in Denver that locked itself inside the basement after a message warned of an active shooter outside. Someone pumped smoke into the ventilation system.
Different cities. Different methods. No apparent connection between the victims.
But every event had one thing in common.
The people had obeyed instructions that appeared to come from someone they trusted.
“The victims weren’t selected randomly,” I said.
Vale’s eyes hardened.
It was the first genuine reaction he’d shown.
I’d been right.
“The Atlanta family received a warning from a state emergency system,” I continued. “The hotel guests were contacted by someone claiming to be the fire marshal. The church members heard a recorded message in their pastor’s voice.”
“You’re chasing tragedies, not a conspiracy.”
“No. I’m studying rehearsals.”
Something cold entered his face.
The three incidents had been tests.
Someone was learning how quickly frightened people obeyed. How much authority they needed to imitate. Which words made rational men and women stop questioning what they were told.
And how to lead them to their own deaths.
Vale stepped closer. “You have no idea what you’re involving yourself in.”
“I know you just confirmed my theory.”
His gaze shifted toward the stairwell.
That was when I heard a second set of footsteps behind me.
I pivoted, my weapon rising.
The stairwell was empty.
When I turned back, Vale was walking away.
“Stop.”
He continued toward a dark sedan parked near the far exit.
I moved after him, keeping my weapon lowered but ready. “Deputy Director Vale, I said stop.”
He paused beside the rear passenger door.
“You’re an intelligent woman, Agent Collins. Intelligence should come with a survival instinct.”
“Was that a threat?”
“It was the only warning you’ll receive.”
The sedan door opened from the inside.
Vale got in.
I caught a glimpse of the driver before the door closed. Dark hair. Pale scar along his jaw.
The same man who had sat behind the wheel of the car outside my apartment two nights ago.
The sedan sped down the ramp.
I reached for my phone and photographed the license plate, knowing before I ran it that it would lead nowhere.
They’d followed me.
Disabled the cameras.
Entered a federal parking facility.
Then Edmund Vale had approached me using his real name.
He wasn’t afraid of an investigation.
He was afraid I would uncover something before he could stop it.
My phone rang.
The screen showed UNKNOWN CALLER.
I answered without lowering my weapon. “Collins.”
“Don’t get in your vehicle.”
The man’s voice was deep and controlled. The kind of control that came from training rather than temperament.
I scanned the garage. “Who is this?”
“Michael Sarilla.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“I don’t know a Michael Sarilla.”
“No. But Vale does.”
My gaze snapped toward the exit where the sedan had disappeared.
“How do you know Vale was here?”
“I don’t.”
I heard men shouting in the background.
Then gunfire.
Not recorded.
Not distant.
Whoever Michael Sarilla was, someone was shooting at him.
“You mentioned him,” he said. “Which means my timing is either excellent or we’re both having a very bad night.”
“Where are you?”
“Alaska.”
More gunfire erupted.
A man shouted an order. Sarilla didn’t react to it.
“Listen carefully, Agent Collins. There may be an explosive attached to your SUV.”
My attention moved to the vehicle.
I saw nothing unusual.
“How would you know that?”
“Because someone sent me a photograph of you fifteen minutes ago.”
The garage suddenly felt too quiet.
“What kind of photograph?”
“You leaving your office.”
I remembered the black sedan parked across the street.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Who sent it?”
“We don’t know.”
“We?”
“Shadow Division.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in federal service had heard the rumors. An unauthorized team operating beyond normal command structures. Some called them traitors. Others insisted they’d exposed a group responsible for murdering American servicemen.
There were no official files.
No photographs.
No confirmed identities.
Only whispers.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
The answer came without hesitation.
“I expect you to stay alive long enough to decide whether you should.”
A sharp metallic sound came through the phone.
A weapon being reloaded.
“Move away from the SUV,” he continued. “Use the stairwell behind you.”
I glanced toward it.
“That would put me inside an enclosed concrete shaft.”
“Yes.”
“With only two exits.”
“Correct.”
“And you think that’s safer?”
“I think the man approaching from the west entrance is carrying a remote detonator.”
I turned.
A security guard walked onto the level.
Blue uniform. Heavy jacket. Baseball cap pulled low over his forehead.
He held one hand near his radio, but his attention wasn’t on the parked cars or the stairwell.
It was on me.
“Is he wearing a security uniform?” Sarilla asked.
“Yes.”
“He isn’t a guard.”
The man raised his head.
A pale scar ran along his jaw.
He’d been driving Vale’s sedan.
I aimed my weapon. “FBI! Show me your hands.”
His right hand lifted.
He held a small black device.
“Run,” Sarilla ordered.
The driver pressed the button.
I threw myself behind a concrete support column.
My SUV exploded.
Heat slammed into me. Glass burst across the garage as the blast lifted the vehicle and hurled it sideways. I hit the ground hard enough to lose my breath.
The phone skidded from my hand.
Fire rolled across the ceiling.
The man in the security uniform advanced through the smoke.
I reached for my weapon.
My holster was empty.
The pistol lay beneath the burning wreckage of another car.
The man drew his gun.
I searched for anything I could use as a weapon, but my right arm refused to support my weight. Pain tore through my shoulder when I tried to rise.
He stopped on the other side of the flames.
Not close enough for me to fight.
Close enough that he couldn’t miss.
His gun came up.
Then his head snapped sideways.
A shot rang through the garage.
The man fell.
For one stunned second, I stared at his body.
Then I heard the voice coming from my fallen phone.
“Kate.”
Sarilla.
I crawled toward it and grabbed the phone.
“You said you were in Alaska.”
“I am.”
“Then who fired that shot?”
“That’s what you need to find out.”
Another figure appeared through the smoke.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Black tactical clothing. A rifle held ready against his chest.
He stepped over the dead man and moved toward me.
I tried to stand, but pain drove me back to one knee.
“Michael,” I whispered.
“I see him.”
“How?”
“I have access to the garage cameras now.”
The stranger stopped ten feet away.
His rifle lowered slightly.
“Special Agent Collins?”
I didn’t answer.
Sarilla’s voice sharpened. “Look at his left shoulder.”
A silver sword was stitched into the stranger’s jacket.
Dark wings spread from either side of the blade.
The symbol of Shadow Division.
“He’s ours,” Sarilla said.
The man reached down to help me.
A second shot cracked through the garage.
Blood sprayed across the silver sword.
The operative fell at my feet.
“Sniper!” Sarilla shouted through the phone. “Second shooter!”
The lights went out.
Smoke swallowed everything.
Footsteps pounded behind me.
More than one set.
I grabbed the fallen operative’s rifle and forced myself upright.
“Kate, get to the stairwell.”
“They’re between me and the door.”
“Then go up.”
I looked toward the parking ramp.
Flames climbed the wall on one side. Armed men emerged through the smoke on the other.
There was nowhere to go but the roof.
I tightened my grip on the rifle and ran.
Behind me, the first man opened fire.
Bullets struck the concrete railing as I reached the ramp.
“Michael?”
“I’m here.”
I didn’t know him.
I had never seen his face.
Yet with the garage burning around me and killers closing in from both directions, his voice was the only thing holding the darkness back.
“Tell me how to get out of here.”
For the first time, Michael Sarilla hesitated.
When he answered, the control was gone from his voice.
“They’re not trying to kill you, Kate.”
A bullet struck the wall beside my head.
I ran faster.
“What do they want?”
“They want you alive.”
“Why?”
“Because you found the pattern.”
I reached the next level and turned toward the roof.
Michael’s next words followed me into the smoke.
“And they need you to finish it.”