Page 51

KC switched her channel to audio sourced from inside the house, silencing any incoming chatter.

Dr. Brown had music playing, a country-western artist he’d once told her his dad loved.

She could hear him walking across the wood floors, and she turned on the visual feed on her monitors.

Yardley and Atlas were looking at the same feed.

Gramercy sat in front of a different display that connected him to Homeland Security and the military.

The POD was quiet as they watched Dr. Brown enter the kitchen.

He started a coffee maker and sat down on one of the leather stools at the island counter, pulling his phone from the holster he wore on his belt.

The resolution from the feed was so sharp, they had all noted the shape of the micro drive bulging in his left trouser pocket.

The computer where he was most likely to connect the drive was in his study.

“It’s Monday night,” she said, mostly to herself. “Nine o’clock. That means it’s six in Flagstaff.”

Yardley spun on her stool to look at KC. “Catch us up, Tabasco.”

KC watched Dr. Brown swipe, tap, and then tap again. She watched his face break out in a smile and heard him say, “Hello, Sunshine.”

“He’s calling his daughter. He calls her every Monday night while she’s making dinner.”

“You want to pull in the audio?”

“No. This is it.” She looked at him, the feed in perfect high definition.

His mouth was smiling, but what KC bet no one else could see was that his eyes were sad, and when she watched him reach up and rub the bridge of his nose, laughing at something his daughter said, she turned to Yardley.

“He’ll deploy after he gets off the phone. ”

“Copy. Give me your go when you’re ready.”

No one asked KC why she thought so or if she was sure. The confidence loosened her muscles and quieted her thoughts to the task at hand. “I’ll knock when he hangs up. I’m on the move.” She hopped down from the back of the pod.

“Copy. Tabasco on the move. Cover in position.”

It was a quiet night, the November air a little brisk as she ambled across the street.

The night she’d met Dr. Brown, when he showed up at her dorm room door, he took her to a wood-paneled seafood restaurant in Boston with a view of the harbor. At least three-quarters of what was on the menu she’d never tasted in her life. The prices ran to the triple digits.

That was where he’d threatened her with arrest and then bought her seventy-dollar pancakes and told her what she was going to do.

It was breathtaking to compare that to what she’d learned from Yardley in a cheap Swedish apartment and a banquet hall in London—with how many people they’d worked with, how many were their friends, and how much more interested she was in her own life than she’d ever been before.

KC walked up the driveway to the small porch over the grand front door.

“He’s hung up his phone call,” Yardley said. “The security system notified him of your arrival, and he checked the cameras on his phone. He’s on his way to you.”

KC knocked anyway. He opened the door before she had put down her arm.

“So you really came.” Dr. Brown smiled. It looked like a real smile to KC, despite his red-rimmed eyes.

“I’d hoped you would take the chance on me in Lidingo,” she said. “It would have been a lot easier. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to surface long enough to be here and do this.”

KC and the rest of the team had gone around and around about this approach. She was the only one who wasn’t surprised when they got confirmation from Canadian intelligence officer Jack Tremblay that Dr. Brown remained certain KC was on his side.

It was like she’d told Yardley. She knew him better than he’d ever known her.

“After you.” Dr. Brown opened the door and moved to the side. He didn’t scan her for electronics or even look closely at the street behind her. KC’s general impression was that, now that she had arrived, he was happy.

He wanted her to be impressed with him. He always had.

“My study.” Dr. Brown smiled again. “I think you’ll be pleased with what I’ve assembled. I have everything you asked for.”

KC followed him into the room. It was crisp and dry from whatever environmental control he was using to cool the rack of servers alongside his desk.

There were three monitors and a desktop CPU in a clear case, an extremely fast and expensive model.

Beneath the central monitor was a row of unused ports.

She did a quick scan as she sat down in the Herman Miller chair, then looked over her shoulder at him.

“Do you mind if I confirm everything is as it should be?”

“After you.” He smiled and pulled out another chair.

“We’re locked in,” Yardley said in her ear. “You’re free to run the checks we planned.”

KC got to work, supplying the agency with as much evidence as she could about his system, as well as giving Kris the heads-up in case there was anything she needed to know before KC deployed the countermeasure.

As she discreetly sent data packet after data packet, she was chilled by how extremely prepared Dr. Brown was.

“I’m ready,” she said, as much for the team as Dr. Brown. “Let’s do this.”

He reached into his pocket, and KC wondered again why she couldn’t simply lay him out, snatch the device, and let the National Guard members stationed yards from his property take him into custody. It would be very simple.

Yardley’s argument against it was that there wasn’t any way to guarantee KC’s life in that scenario.

The agency’s argument was that they wanted to collect as much evidence as possible.

He stood, the green case in his hand. “You don’t mind?” He gestured at her chair, inviting her to get out of it.

It took more effort to pull her body from the chair than KC had expected. She knew the next moments had been meticulously planned. She’d drilled for hours on every possible contingency.

None of which had any effect, in the end, on the fact that she didn’t really want to watch him do this.

Dr. Brown took the chair. He set the tiny drive on the desk. It already had a cord attached to its USB-C input. Her heart rate must have spiked, because Yardley’s voice filled her ear with a soft purr. “Easy.”

The countermeasure was, literally, up her sleeve. An identical micro drive, but in a pale-yellow case—incidentally, the color KC had had in her online shopping cart all these months. Her pulse thrummed against it.

“It would be easier to monitor the spread and make sure it reaches its maximum effect if I could get back in there when you’re done.” She sounded normal. Interested.

“I’m not worried.” He reached over, and KC kept her focus on the end of the wire with its small USB connector, forcing herself to breathe.

Then, he put a connector into the port.

But it wasn’t the connector coming out of the drive.

She followed the cord, certain she must be incredibly wrong.

It originated from the clear computer case of the CPU to the right of the monitor, the one running the stack of servers in the corner of the room.

The case was whirring, lit up with colorful LED lights, and KC saw with a sick wrench of her stomach that there were four fat bricks of Semtex inside it, taped together with packing tape and snuggled against a simple LED detonator.

It was blinking. Powered, now, by the cord he’d just plugged in.

“Fuck,” Atlas breathed in her ear.

“I’m sure you don’t want to deal with the world on the other side of the interrogation table.” Now, Dr. Brown snugged the micro drive into a second port.

“Look, I don’t plan on being caught or dying today,” KC said.

“You must realize I got into this in the first place, when I was just a kid, to see what would happen.” They only had seconds.

The device was active. Unlocking doors. Taking control of systems. Moving like a dark whisper through the digital pathways that covered Leesburg, Virginia, and snaked outward to cross the entire Eastern Seaboard.

“I do know that,” he said. “But you should know I’m not an arsonist like you. This isn’t about me.”

Bullshit , KC thought. It’s always been about you.

The small light on the end of the micro drive began to blink at the same time she heard the first helicopter. She shook her arm, caught her own micro drive in her palm, lurched over Dr. Brown’s arms, and plugged it in.

Its blue light illuminated, and then he was up, his body against hers, her arm bent behind her back.

She moved to a crouch to flip him over her, but he swept his leg at her knees hard enough that she lost her breath from the pain.

KC threw herself at his side while he still had one leg up, toppling them both to the ground with her on top.

The helicopters were loud now, their bright lights blasting into the small, high window of the room.

She became aware of her own breathing and Dr. Brown’s, louder even than the chatter in her ear.

The engines were roaring. KC could hear shouting outside. Dr. Brown dragged himself to his feet, his mouth set in a sour grimace. “I should have let you get yourself arrested.”

She heard the shouts of soldiers at the front door, followed by the huge bang of a battering ram creating her way out.

She glanced behind her just in time to see Dr. Brown pull the USB cord on the bomb.

“ Fall back! ” she screamed, moving without conscious thought toward the sound of the battering ram as the detonator began to rapidly blink red.

Later, she would think a lot about what stopped her.

About her complete lack of hesitation when she turned on a dime, ran back into the study, and—in a show of strength she could only thank her hours at the gym and pure adrenaline for—yanked Dr. Brown out of the room.

They emerged onto the lawn to the sight of a line of National Guard behind blast shields.

She pushed him past the line and fell behind it while actively questioning many of the life choices that had led her to this point.

The house exploded, and the world went silent.

When KC opened her eyes, she briefly panicked, feeling like she couldn’t move her body, until she oriented to Yardley’s smiling face—her eyes wet, the lights way too bright—and realized she was under a heated and weighted blanket in a hospital room.

Lights. Thank god.

She pulled an arm out from under the blanket. A hand slipped into hers. She turned her head.

Yardley .

So, so beautiful.

“You’re so beautiful,” KC said. She couldn’t really hear.

There was a far-away ringing that turned her voice into nothing but low vibration.

Her heartbeat was loud. “Really beautiful. Like a goddess. Have I told you that before? That’s what you looked like when I first saw you.

You had a white dress. Maybe a crown. Did you have a crown? ”

Yardley laughed, but KC couldn’t hear it. “ Can you read lips? ” Yardley asked this with her mouth but not with her voice. KC wondered if Yardley would kiss her.

“I learned in training.” KC pulled her other arm out and put her hand against her throat to feel if she was talking. “For the CIA. From being a spy.” She dropped her arm to her chest and felt a painful pinch on her hand.

“ Careful, you’ll pull out your IV. ” It was nice to watch Yardley’s mouth, her cupid’s bow, and how her dimples sank in on words like you’ll .

She tucked KC’s arm along her side with the IV and straightened the tubing.

There was a nasal cannula in KC’s nose. Oxygen.

KC felt a little sleepy, and it made her remember she’d woken up before now, looked at Yardley, and then fallen asleep again. She worked to keep her eyes open.

Then her heart started pounding. She remembered.

“Is everyone okay? Are there any injuries? Is anyone—”

Yardley put her hand on KC’s chest. “ My gorgeous love, you’re a hero. A real hero. You asked all this before. Zero casualties . We got Dr. Brown. We all got lucky. Flynn’s code worked. ”

As soon as Yardley reminded her, KC remembered asking. That’s why she’d been able to fall back asleep. She looked around the room, saw her monitor and all her vitals, her IV pump. There was a whiteboard with her name and weight on it. It said she was a fall risk.

“Am I okay?”

“You’re at Walter Reed. You have a concussion, but they don’t expect complications.

You have a bad ankle sprain. You may need some surgery on it.

A lot of cuts, scrapes, and bruises. A burn that looks like a sunburn over your back from the heat of the blast, but that should heal well. Your hearing will come back slowly.”

Yardley’s fingers were in KC’s hair, sifting, playing, twirling. It felt amazing. She looked amazing. Did she know that KC loved her?

“I love you,” KC said. “Go on a date with me.”

Yardley grinned. “ Very smooth. ”

“I played it smooth the first time. This time, I’m just going to say it. Who cares if I’m smooth if I can love you? Let me love you. Let me love you until you move in with me again. Which you can’t do yet.”

“ No ,” Yardley said. “ Not yet. ”

“Yardley?” KC wished one of the monitors could show what was inside her heart. She wanted Yardley to see exactly how big her love was, with a number. A number that meant no woman had been loved more on this earth than Yardley Whitmer.

“Yes?”

“I can’t tell you, but it’s not going to be very long before you can move back in with me.”

She felt Yardley’s cool hands on either side of her face. They put all of Yardley’s love inside of her. All of her big, everything love.

“Then I’ll have to kiss you.”

KC closed her eyes and fell asleep with Yardley’s kiss gentle on her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead, glad they’d saved the world because Yardley was in it.