Page 41

H?let, Eskilstuna, Sweden

KC dumped the Stryker behind the residence, giving its metal side a grateful pat before she traded it for the SUV the ambassador provided.

When Yardley returned with Declan and Kris, covered by Patel, she reported that after receiving Dr. Brown’s burn notice, the remaining team had disassembled the command center and were en route to Evenes.

The information they got from the marines and agents at the residence painted a picture of highly organized evacuation as soon as it went dark, including the removal of evidence from the ballroom that served as a headquarters.

Everyone was safe, but Flynn’s micro drive—under guard and in a safe—had not been there when the agent assigned to retrieve it in an evacuation scenario went to find it.

The guard hadn’t been there, either. He couldn’t be accounted for at all.

Plan B it was. The Hole.

Eskilstuna, a small city of sixty thousand people, remained without electricity, but KC was enormously relieved to be right that software incompatibilities and self-isolating systems had kept the power outage from spreading much farther afield.

Though the collapse of a major node of the internet had borked a variety of essential services—from banking to air traffic control and cell service—all signs indicated it would be a temporary problem.

Small mercies.

Of course, the Hole had power. Its proprietors, the self-named Batwing and her anarchist aromantic life partner, Zinnia, had banked enough juice in the hidden back rooms of the internet café they ran as a cover to keep the server room running for years, probably, and a combination of fiberglass privacy curtains, tight security, and a well-fortified door meant no one would ever know what was happening there unless Batwing and Zinnia wanted them to.

KC came into the main lounge, where Atlas, Gramercy, and Yardley had just finished debriefing in private on a secure link with the president, the director, and several leaders of the free world.

She sat down in a deep leather sofa and gave herself a moment to enjoy the delicious sensations of fleece sweats and a soft cushion.

She might as well be comfortable when she spilled her guts all over the floor.

“Lights should be on momentarily,” Gramercy said. “How’s Flynn?”

“Batwing has her set up, and she’s well into programming the countermeasure.”

As soon as they hit the Hole, KC had officially secured Flynn as her asset, and the two of them began brainstorming how to construct a Hail Mary against the device stolen from the ambassador’s residence.

Kris thought she could do it, but there were a few steps in the middle.

Like figuring out where Dr. Brown was headed and generally what his plan was.

KC hoped everything they were trying to accomplish against the clock would turn out to be possible. But even if it wasn’t, and despite what she’d promised Yardley, she couldn’t keep her part in this mess a secret any longer.

Standing face to face with Dr. Brown in front of the safe at Mirabel’s compound, it had been crystal clear to KC that the two of them were not on the same team.

He’d made his choices. So had she.

She scraped her thumbnail over the thin skin beside her thumb.

“Gramercy. Atlas. I need to tell you something.” She waited until they’d both looked up from the pile of papers spread over a coffee table.

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to file a report or what.

I can do that, I guess. But I need you to know that I made it. The device. I made the device.”

She forced herself to keep her eyes on Gramercy, replaying the memory of his crooked smile on a loop to help her remember that he liked her.

These people had saved her life tonight, and none of them seemed to have thought twice about it. They were her colleagues. Her teammates. But they were also her friends, and it was that connection KC had to ask herself to trust right now.

“When I built it, I was following Dr. Brown’s orders.

He said we had authorization for a black op, top secret to all but a few people, and what happened in Toronto was supposedly a controlled demo.

Authorized. He said it went all to shit and he got hurt and had to go underground, but he looked perfectly fine at Mirabel’s. ”

KC glanced at Yardley, worried that she’d be angry. She’d been so passionate when she insisted at the safe house that KC keep these secrets.

But Yardley was twirling a strand of black hair around her finger, her head tilted at a considering angle. When their eyes met, she smiled just enough to sink double dimples into her cheeks. “I believe you,” she said.

Her faith strengthened KC’s resolve. With a deep breath, KC plunged back in.

“I thought I was doing the right thing, and I won’t apologize for that,” she said.

“I am sorry I didn’t push him harder when I figured out how much harm the device could do.

It wasn’t designed to be a weapon, but I did come to see that it could be used as one.

That was the point when I should have put everything on the line to stop it. ”

A deep sigh escaped her lungs. Confessing all this to two veteran agents was intimidating no matter how much she told herself she had to do it.

“Anyway, I wanted you to know before you included me in any next steps,” she said. “In case you need to put it before the director and he yanks me out of the field and locks me up for the sake of national security.”

Atlas rubbed their fingers over their chin. “Thank you for your honesty,” they said. “I don’t see the need for this intelligence to go beyond this room at the moment. Gramercy?”

KC’s handler crossed his legs, drawing her eye to the fresh shine on his wingtips. “No. I believe your assessment is correct, Atlas.” He turned to KC. “Yours, however, requires adjustment.”

“Sir?”

“When we spoke at Evenes, I told you Dr. Brown sequestered you to make himself look good. One consequence of that behavior is that he didn’t give you an opportunity to participate in this agency in a way that might have impressed upon you what the most essential component of this work is. ” He lifted one dark eyebrow at KC.

“Information?” she guessed.

“Relationships,” he said. “Nothing we do is possible without human connections. If you’d had more people in your circle of trust, you would have been able to make better decisions in the situation you found yourself in. Including the decision to stand up for your beliefs.”

It was a solid perspective, to be sure. KC tested it out against her memories, asking herself what she might have done if she’d been able to trust Gramercy enough to go to him for advice. Or if she’d been able to confide in Yardley.

Her guilt washed away in a rush of indignation at what Dr. Brown had decided for her, followed immediately by relief that she still had decisions left to make.

“I understand,” she said. “Thank you.” The next breath she took was her first in a world in which she no longer had to drag the weight of Dr. Brown’s treachery and her own guilt behind her. “I’m very keen to get our hands on the stolen drive,” she said. “What’s our intel?”

“There isn’t any.” Atlas sipped something from a giant Pokémon mug.

“Nothing back from my net,” Yardley said. “I even recruited a few folks at the party to pitch in, since their fun was cut short. That Harry Davies on Mirabel’s security team really likes you, for example.”

“Whitmer does have a plan,” Gramercy said. “I’ve lost track of what letter it is. Plan D? F? Where are we at?”

“Let’s hear it, then.”

“London, baby,” Yardley said. “We’ll head out as soon as MI6 gives us the go-ahead.”

“What’s in London?”

“Miller.”

KC tapped her chin, reaching to remember where she’d recently heard the name. “Didn’t you mention him when you were trying to keep me off the mission in front of the president?”

Now that she understood the game better, she couldn’t hold Yardley’s attempt against her, although KC did make a mental note to add that conversation to her “later” list.

She was looking forward to it.

“Miller is an agency deep cover embed with a gentlemen’s club that counts major politicos among its members,” Gramercy said.

“He does almost nothing but drink scotch and gossip,” Yardley said, “but I’ve never been let down by his intel on a brush contact. He’s our Obi-Wan Kenobi on this one, because Dr. Brown’s his handler.”

“Our only hope?” KC clarified.

“Is a middle-aged white guy. Absorb the irony. However”—Yardley turned in KC’s direction—“the fun part is that Tabasco will get to decide what to do with Miller’s intel.

I hope it involves a near-orbit space plane.

Or parachutes. Maybe a very fast car where I am in the passenger seat while you make improbable maneuvers through narrow streets. ”

“Are you flirting with me?” KC asked this question, for the first time, right in front of Gramercy and Atlas.

They had kept enough secrets from her and Yardley, and they needed to understand she was a death-to-the-patriarchy operative and would not accept anyone’s idea of what was best for her anymore.

Yardley went pink. “It’s extremely hard not to. My upbringing has taught me to secure power when I see it.”

Gramercy rose to his feet, gathering up papers. “That’s my cue. I have two more critical meetings, at least, before I can rest or die, so I’m going to remove myself to whatever monk cell Batwing has designated for me. Atlas?”

“I think these two can take it from here.” They stood up, and the pair left together.

“How much sleep do we get before we’re cleared to go to London?” KC was only asking to say something. To stay with Yardley. To see what it felt like to do nothing but sit on a sofa with her in a dim room.

So far, so good.

“I’m hoping for a couple of hours.”

They hadn’t been alone together since the linen closet at the ambassador’s residence.

An incredibly bizarre lightness entered KC’s middle. It took her a second to identify it as joy.