Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
Steph kicked open the door to the observation building at the volcano crater. Alarms inside the room blared, making her head hurt more than it already had been. She glanced around. “Vesper!”
Her sister wasn’t here.
Steph ran to the closest computer monitor and looked at the readouts. “Oh, yeah. This volcano is gearing up to blow.”
Someone darkened the doorway behind her, and she spun too late. Gunshots filled the small building, the accompanying flash of light almost blinding.
She dove to the side, rolled, and came up firing.
The person fell out of the doorway, and another came in. Steph got behind one of the desks and lifted up, planting her elbows on the desk, her hands cupped under the gun. She squeezed off two shots and ducked back down.
The second shooter peered around the door and fired wildly.
Steph waited a beat, then fired again just as he looked. The second shooter fell away.
“Any more of them?” Vesper’s callout came from behind her.
“What are you doing? We have to get out of here!” Steph checked the doorway was clear, then ran to her sister. Vesper had a flash drive plugged in the computer terminal. “Checking your work?”
“As if you care.” Vesper hammered the keys.
Steph grabbed her shoulder and tugged her back from the desk. “We have to go. You don’t want to die here when the volcano goes, do you?”
Her sister didn’t quit typing. “Now you care. Ran all the way up the side of a volcano just to find me. And for what? It’s not like you really want to hang out and get to know each other. You’d rather stop me and turn everything over to the CIA in exchange for your job back.”
“I might not believe in what you do, but I don’t want you to die.”
“Now she gets it.” Vesper shook her head, still typing.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding the portion of Polaris that’s housed on this island and deleting the program. Which won’t take it down, but its thinking capabilities will be severely hampered if it loses the data stored here.”
“Won’t the volcano do that?”
Vesper shook her head. “It’s connected to their system. I have to firewall it before Earthnet realizes it’s about to be destroyed and transfers the data to redundant servers.”
“Uh, pretty good clue to alert them to the impending blow when the whole island started to shake.”
“You can’t just blow a volcano. It has to…warm up first.”
“Now you’re scrambling.”
“That’s you thinking you can save me.” Vesper hit one of the keys twice, then pulled out the flash drive. “Got it.” She jumped up from the chair, a look of triumph on her face, and shoved Steph out of the way. “I guess we—”
A double gunshot cracked in the room, and Vesper’s body jerked.
Steph grabbed her sister, who started to fall, and wound up sitting on her behind. She looked for the shooter, fear racing through her like water over falls. A man stood in the door for a moment before he fell to the ground, and she saw Adam in the door, his weapon smoking.
“You killed her.” Steph whispered the words.
“I killed the shooter. Saw him about to fire and got him in the back.” Adam stepped over someone and came to her. He crouched. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here fast enough.”
Dampness coated Steph’s fingers, and her lap. She didn’t want to look down but did, seeing the lifeless look in her sister’s eyes.
“We can carry her. Take her with us,” Adam said. “But we have to go.”
Steph couldn’t even put to words an explanation of what Vesper had been doing.
Apart from it being what she always did, which was whatever it took to fulfill the mission.
At least according to her. Vesper had her own solution for everything—even Steph.
They’d never seen eye to eye and never would have, not if they were to both live a hundred years.
Steph laid her sister on the floor and shifted out from under her. She closed Vesper’s eyes and kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry.”
She stared at her sister for a long second, then took the flash drive Vesper had come for and slipped it in her pocket.
She took Adam’s outstretched hand. He raced out of the structure with her in tow. But not on to the path she’d taken. Instead, he led her to a cable car over to the right and entered the open door.
“This is how you got up so fast?” she asked.
He shut the door and pressed a green button a control panel. “Hold on. It’s bumpy.”
She grabbed the rail and watched out the window as they ventured out into the air, ten feet off the ground at least. The cable car swung back and forth, rocking with the motion as the mechanism carried them down a thick cable. “Was this on the surveillance?”
“Ice wasn’t sure it still functioned. When you disappeared, I figured I knew where you’d gone, so I checked it out.” He touched his chest. “Better than running.”
“As if being injured has even remotely slowed you down yet.” She shook her head.
“Don’t worry, I’ll crash pretty soon. It’s been a long day.”
She chuckled. “It’s been a long week.”
Adam leaned against the rail, the gun across his body. A man who would run across an island to help someone but also needed a minute to sit because he’d been injured and he wasn’t some kind of superhero. He was human.
“She was wrong, you know.” Steph glanced out the window.
The ground rumbled, and the cable car swayed them back and forth as it descended the hillside.
Adam said, “Vesper?”
Steph nodded. “She said I would turn her over to the CIA to get my job back. But there’s nothing left there for me.”
“Because they cut you loose. Their loss.”
“I need to know if she was right about my father.”
“I can help you do that.”
Did she really want to rely on him? If she asked, he would probably let her live at the castle. But then, she would always feel indebted to him. She’d know she was only there because he was a nice guy. Eventually, she would outstay her welcome.
Steph swiped away tears, even though she didn’t know what she was crying about. “Do you think Winston would let me be his assistant?”
Adam came over, shifting the gun behind him and smiling at her.
He grabbed the handholds hanging from the ceiling, giving her a sense of safety that came with the proximity of a strong man.
A good man who used that strength to protect people and understood the value of freedom—and loyalty.
“If you want a job, I think we can find something that suits your skill set.”
She smiled. “Got room on your team for a washed-up spy who probably needs to be on anxiety meds?”
He barked a laugh. “Who doesn’t these days? Guess we should try and cultivate a low-stress life.”
The island rumbled again, this time causing the car to sway wildly. She reached up for a handle above her, and Adam’s arm slid around her waist. She held on, and he held her. She looked up at him, his face close to hers. “You were saying?”
“Maybe when we get back to the castle, we can figure it out.” His gaze drifted to her lips.
“I like that idea.”
“We’ll need snacks, maybe a whole meat and cheese board. Winston is a master of charcuterie. Apparently, it’s called ‘girl dinner.’”
Steph grinned. “I like where this is going.” She felt like she hadn’t eaten in days.
“And big poster paper with markers so we can brainstorm.”
Steph couldn’t remember what they were supposed to be coming up with ideas for, but she also didn’t really care. “What we need is a plan to stop Earthnet, to make sure they don’t do this to anyone else.”
“Taking up your sister’s cause?”
She thought about the flash drive in her pocket. “Maybe in some way, but not how she chose to go about it. That’s for sure.”
“I figure we can add that to the list of things to figure out.” His gaze drifted over her shoulder. “Almost there. And I see a ship at the dock.” He lifted his chin. “Hopefully, that’s Vesper’s people here to pick us up.”
She caught movement over his shoulder. Black, outside the window. Like a big bird—a whole flock in fact.
A high whine entered Steph’s awareness. “Get down!”
Gunfire from drones shattered the windows, peppering the inside of the cable car with rounds.
She ducked down, lifting her gun, and fired until she lost count.
Until the slide clicked back and stayed there.
Adam sprayed the drones with bullets from his M4, continuing the fight while she watched them fall one by one.
When the last one buzzed in through the open window, he shot it. But he was too late.
The round struck her vest and knocked her back before it crashed to the floor on the far side of the cable car.
Adam turned to her. “You good?” He shifted the M4 out of the way again, effectively rendering him defenseless so he could help her sit up.
Steph held on to his arms, lifting her upper body so she was sitting.
Which was when she slid her hands to his shoulders and kissed him.
Maybe her whole world shifted on its axis, or maybe the cable car swayed some more.
It wasn’t long enough for her to tell which it was.
Or contemplate how much her life was about to change.
She drew back. “Thanks.”
Adam cleared his throat. “You’re um…welcome.”
Steph took his hand, and he helped her to stand.
“You have another clip? I’m out.” She rubbed the spot on her vest where the bullet had impacted.
“Those suckers hurt.” Ice had been hit with one in Zurich, but she hadn’t been too concerned.
Now she knew he probably had a bruise the size of a 747 on his chest.
“Let’s get out of here.” She looked out the front of the cable car, where a structure between the trees came into view. “I’m ready to get off this island.”
“Me, too.” Adam exhaled. “There’s still plenty to tackle, and a huge team debrief. But if we don’t get off this island…”
“We’ll never get that cheese board,” she finished for him. “And that would be a tragedy.”
He chuckled. She considered that a victory. Allowing him the release of laughter.
Steph could still see the face of her dead sister, there behind her eyes practically every time she blinked.
Maybe she would grieve later. Or she would just feel this nagging sadness.
But as far as tragic loss went, they just hadn’t been that close.
She patted her pockets and found the flash drive, reassuring herself that she could honor her sister in her own way.
The cable car stopped about twenty feet out from where it should be. Hanging in the air.
“Come on.” He went to the door. “We can jump down. It’s probably only about six feet.”
Steph went first, sitting at the open door and sliding herself into the air. She tumbled to the ground and rolled, coming up so she could make sure no more drones waited to kill them. Hanging in the air like a murder of crows.
The AI knew where they were.
But would it stop them reaching the boat and fleeing this island?
“I hear gunfire in the distance.”
Adam nodded. “No way to tell what we’ll be walking into.”
“At least neither of us will be by ourselves.” She took a deep breath, trying to get air despite how much her chest hurt from being struck by a bullet in the vest.
“Stay behind me.”
He took off running before she could object to that, but kept a measured pace so she could catch up. Still, she could tell he badly wanted to make sure his friends were finally going to be free of Earthnet.
She heard a loud popping and looked back to see the volcano spew molten lava out of the funnel part at the top.
It was just the beginning of the light show to come, one that would eventually swallow the whole island.
She didn’t plan to be on land when that happened, so she sped up, running faster after Adam and urging him on.
Worrying that the AI would launch another attack that kept them here.
Wondering if someone would pop out and shoot them.
Her chest burned with every exhale as her mind continued to spiral, and she had to fight off the familiar tightening sensation of a coming anxiety attack. Were they really going to make it off this rock?
Adam glanced back. “Don’t fret, remember?”
“Sure, I’ll try to do that.” She managed to get the words out, but only barely.
Meanwhile, he was running along like he could keep going forever. “Focus on what you can control, and trust that the rest is in hand.”
Steph said, “Put that on the list of things to talk about over a nice cheese plate.”
They broke through the trees and passed a couple of old metal boats on the rocky beach, one of which had a huge rusted hole in it.
People had gathered on the docks, waiting for the ship to fetch them.
Most were the workers she and Adam had freed.
His friends were among the group, giving orders to people to stay calm.
A few of them were bleeding with fresh wounds, and all of them looked scared.
The island rumbled.