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Seeing the blank look on Wreg’s face, Jon was about to direct his question to the rest of them a second time, when Loki pointedly cleared his throat.

Jon swiveled his gaze, staring at the Middle Eastern seer.

Loki’s complexion darkened. He made a noncommittal gesture with one hand, glancing around at the ring of seers who now stared at him, too.

He flushed more, gesturing again.

“He told me not to say anything,” he said, as if that explained it.

Looking at him, feeling his shoulders tighten, feeling Wreg’s light spark in understanding next to his?Jon found himself thinking it probably did.

Explain it, that is.

* * *

Chandre crouchedat the top of a pile of slatted composite crates.

She had not been here long in objective time.

In subjective time, those twenty or so minutes felt much longer. If she’d gotten here any later, however, it would have been too late to effect any difference at all.

She might still be too late.

She held her breath, watching dark-clothed seers filter through the maze of tunnels and narrow aisles between stacked shipping containers. They moved silently, quiet as ghosts, and she held her breath as she watched them, hiding her thoughts as well as her body?perhaps more so for the former, given where she was.

The rifle never left her shoulder.

She used the infrared scope, shielded by an organic casing that generated a Barrier field in addition to the physical one. The shield allowed her to use the gun’s electronic components, which was good since, without that, she wouldn’t be able to see the warehouse floor, much less the Dreng infiltrators, not in sufficient detail for her purposes.

Even so, she pulled her eye off the scope a few times, trying to obtain an accurate count?partly due to the magnification of the infrared lens, and partly just to make sure she didn’t miss anything her senses might catch better.

She couldn’t help but be impressed by the complete lack of footprint the black-clad soldiers left in the Barrier. Granted, she couldn’t use her ownaleimimuch, not down here, but she still would have thought she’d get a flicker ofsomethingfrom such a large group of armed seers.

That could be an effect of the construct, too, of course.

The boss gave her explicit instructions, but Chandre still couldn’t help feeling some relief?along with a ripple of nerves?at how close things had gotten, in terms of her making it up to her perch before the Dreng reinforcements arrived.

Once she’d seen her people heading for the boathouse with that Rook, she had to work hard to get ahead of them.

She managed it by running ahead through the swampy field in the dark while they walked the lit path. After locating a side door near the far end of the warehouse, she cracked it, using a de-encryption tool Dante made for that purpose.

The fact that it worked, that it got her inside minutes before the double doors rolled open on the other end, was the only reason she was still in play.

As it was, she’d barely had time to reach a real vantage point before Terian began leading the Bridge and Sword through that maze of crates.

The boss gave her access to a mobile construct, providing an elaborate set of Barrier key codes to access the same?but only in the event of an emergency. If she desperately needed the intelligence, she could have risked using that, but really, it was meant to be a last resort, and only if the boss and the Bridge needed immediate extraction.

Chandre was deeply wary of using it before that state of emergency was certain.

She knew the boss wouldn’t thank her for it, if she did.

The Sword hammered that point harder than usual while they’d discussed this ploy on the carrier, and then repeated it again on the ground outside the Dubai nightclub. Namely, that he didn’t want her sending up any alarms to Balidor or Commander Wreg until she knew for certain they didn’t have a shot at taking out Menlim.

Having Chandre there as backup to his own attempt would be worthless if she got taken out by the construct prior to the moment when he really needed her.

It was a warning Chandre took seriously.

Now, watching the black-uniformed seers melt through the rows of boxes like liquid smoke, she tightened her hands on the gun, glancing at the cluster of her own people standing in the lit area between two rows of iron-barred cages.