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I waved a hand. “Like … shooting thorns, or entangling roots, or spawn little baby treants.”

She looked at me strangely. “Baby treants?”

“Just an example,” I muttered. Not sure where that had come from.

“You’ve heard of Bruce Lee, right?”

“I was born forty-seven years ago. Of course I’ve heard of Bruce Lee.”

“Right. So you know how he was like ‘I don’t fear the man who knows a thousand kicks, I fear the man who knows one kick and has practiced it a thousand times’?”

“You saying he was a supe?”

She paused. “No … I’m saying most supes develop one or two abilities at the most. It takes years to master them, right? I have my sword, and a light spell that I’m not so hot with. Kara?”

“Just my whip.”

Iyoni nodded to the dryad. “And she Bruce-Lee’s the whole vine thing.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense.”

It was another reminder that I’d been basically an ignorant norm until this had all kicked off.

While we’d been playing at ‘teach Xan’, the last of the targets had been blasted with fire, speared with an ice shard and strangled with vines, and Reyes called a halt. He came out to talk to us.

“Assistant Director. Are you looking to use the range? We have it booked all afternoon, but you’re welcome to join us.”

“Actually, Captain, it’s you I’m after.”

Reyes crossed his arms. “Ominous. What can I do for you?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk?”

“Sure,” he said, giving me a curious look.

He stuck his head around the door of the range.

“Farron, take over here.” He waved us on, and we followed him to a small meeting room with a table barely large enough for the four of us.

We sat down while he spun a chair around and straddled it. “So what can I do for you, sir?”

“Are you aware that Dr. Firth has been”—I phrased it delicately, unsure if he’d been briefed—“undertaking some internal investigations?”

“Yes.” His eyes narrowed fractionally, the only reaction he gave. “Are you here in that capacity?”

“An FSO alert came through,” I said, as he’d need to know. “We’ve received a warning a bomb has been planted, set to detonate this Friday evening.”

Reyes hissed a breath, eyes tightening. “Shit.”

“Quite. Marlow’s put Firth on tracking it down, so she’s asked me to take over the mole hunt. She suggested I work with you.”

He looked surprised. “I would’ve thought we’d all be deployed to help find the bomb.”

“Finding the mole is our priority. Doing so might help find the bomb.”

Reyes frowned. “Are you implying there’s a connection?”

“I think ‘hoping’ is the better word.”

He nodded slowly. “While I don’t doubt the possibility of a mole inside SPAR, finding him is going to be a task and a half.

Firth mentioned the mole leaked your patrol route, which was recent.

Add in the bomb—if the two are related—and right now, he’ll be careful and nervous.

” He clicked his tongue. “If we try and do this in a rush, he’s going to know we’re looking for him.

Not to mention it will undermine internal morale, too. ”

“We don’t have any choice,” I said grimly. “We’ve basically got forty-eight hours. Anything after that might not be soon enough to help us get to the bomb in time.”

“Uh-huh.” He drummed his fingers on the back of the chair.

“There’s two thousand people in SPAR. Whittle that down to those in a place to act, and you’re looking at interviewing six hundred plus.

” He shook his head. “Never gonna happen in forty-eight hours. Picking the right person will be a lottery, and even if we did, we’d still have to learn enough to suspect them. Impossible task.”

“In truth, Captain, I have no experience in this line of work. But what about running background checks? Accessing accounts for irregular payments? Exploring which agents have vulnerabilities that could be used for coercion?”

Reyes waved a hand. “Every member of SPAR has already been vetted, so background checks will tell us nothing. We can’t dig into personal finances without probable cause, and even if we tagged it under a tier-one priority, there’s only so many we can do in forty-eight hours.

And vulnerabilities?” His eyes hardened.

“Everyone has friends and family. Everyone is vulnerable.”

I tensed. A little too close to home, that one. “Then you have your work cut out for you.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll start straight away, but I’ll need something in writing from Marlow. Just for cover-my-ass reasons.”

“Sure. I’ll make sure Marlow sends you through something.” I glanced at Kara. “Could you ask Natalie to remind her?”

“Yes, Assistant Director, sir,” she said, straight-faced. I gave her a flat look.

“I’ll need the progress Firth has made already,” Reyes went on. “I haven’t been involved so far.”

“We’ll get that too, as soon as possible.” I couldn’t resist teasing Kara. “My assistant will handle it.”

He focused on me. “Are you going to run oversight on this?”

“Er … I think I’d get in your way. I’m going to run a parallel line of investigation. Who do I need to speak with to get a list of all recent raids SPAR has undertaken?”

His eyebrows went up in surprise. “Why would you need that?”

“Let’s just say I’m playing a hunch.”

“Well … I can get that for you. What time frame?”

Dacien had said it had been several weeks, but I didn’t want to be too obvious. “How about the last three months.”

“Sure, that won’t take long.”

“Good. In that case, Captain, we’ve both got work to do.”