Page 313

There was a silence. Then Balidor made a soft clicking sound through the transmitter, his words even more grim.

“You don’t want to know what Yumi thinks,” was all he said.

“We can’t get to him?” Jon blurted.

He glanced behind him, noticing only then that they had an audience.

The others had begun to gather around Wreg and Jon, listening to them speak to the Adhipan leader. Loki stood nearest, followed by Argo, Ille, Declan, Raddi, and Oli. Fear rippled their light as they picked up impressions from the conversation, and likely read between the lines of actual words.

Jon saw Kat standing there, too, a few yards down the dune, arms folded. He couldn’t help scowling at her, even though he felt the worry on her light.

“No,” Balidor said, after a lengthy-feeling pause. “No, my brothers, I’m afraid we can’t. Get to him, that is. No one is near enough.”

“What the fuck are we supposed to do, then?” Wreg snapped. “Just stand here, holding our dicks, while Menlim takes them both out?”

The line fell silent.

In that silence, Jon felt seers consulting on the other end of the line. He felt another sharper pulse of fear off Wreg’s light, and clasped his arm, instinctively sending him warmth.

When Balidor came back on, he didn’t try to reassure them that time, either.

“I honestly do not know, my brothers. All you can do now is what Nenzi asked, and wait.”

“Wait for what?” Wreg growled. “For Shadow’s troops to come collect us?”

Balidor clicked under his breath.

Jon could almost see him shaking his head through the line.

“Wait to see if we need to enact the contingency,” Balidor said. “The same one Nenzi told us to enact, if it looked like they wouldn’t be able to get out.”

Jon didn’t move. Neither did Wreg.

They both knew what Balidor meant.

The carrier was equipped with long-range nuclear warheads.

The contingency Balidor referred to was the last-ditch one Revik gave them. The one where Revik told them to take out the entire city of Dubai, if it looked like Shadow was going to get him and Allie alive.

Jon fought to think past the possibility, realizing how little he’d let himself contemplate it at the time they’d been planning all this. He stared numbly around at faces as the other seers continued to gather around him and Wreg, as if waiting to be told what to do.

Jon was still looking at nothing, when out of nowhere, something else clicked.

Then he was scanning faces for real.

When he couldn’t find the one he wanted, the frown returned to his face.

“Where the hell’s Chandre?” he said, still looking for her dark red eyes and black braids from among the seers standing on the back end of that high dune.

Confused expressions crossed the nearest of those faces, presumably those who’d heard Jon say it. He watched others turn and look around at the seers standing next to them, as if they, too, were looking for those same distinctive features. But Jon never glimpsed Chandre’s high cheekbones, muscular form, or sharply-angled face among them.

Nor did anyone else.

“Chandre!” Jon called out, louder.

When no one answered, Jon looked at Wreg.

“Where the fuck is she?” he said.