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I could build a query to come up with a target list. It would still be a daunting number of buildings to contend with, and I would never have time to search them all.

But if my theory was right, I wouldn’t have to.



* * *



—

Twenty-nine minutes after walking into the office, I walked out again. Nadine and Edwin were sitting across from each other in the long, silent corridor.

“That was fast,” Nadine said.

Edwin watched me intently. I walked over and looked down at him. “I need a bio-SWAT team,” I said. “Twelve people. Full tactical hazmat gear. Thermal-imaging drone. The works. They’ll need rafts. I’ll need a two-person kayak. For my loadout, I want NightShades, Chainmail body armor, a dozen C-4 door-breach charges, a flashlight, a Spyderco Harpy, a can of compressed air, and an FN Five-seveN with four magazines of armor-piercing rounds. Oh. And duct tape. Always duct tape.” I looked at Nadine. “You’ll come with me? One last raid? Like old times?”

“Um…” She looked at Edwin, then back at me. “Sure. When are you—”

“Now. We finish this raid before dawn.”

“I’m sorry,” Edwin said, struggling up onto his feet. “Where are we going?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Miami.”





NADINE AND I WALKED through the vaulted spaces of the great hall, our footfalls echoing in the church-like stillness that was Union Station at two in the morning.

I stopped at a kiosk and purchased two tickets to New York City, paying extra for a private pod.

Nadine said, “I thought—”

“Edwin’s compromised.”

“How do you know?”

“Saw it in his face.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

We walked into a passageway, under a sign that read TO ALL NORTHBOUND TRAINS. By the time we got through security, we were second in the queue.

I scanned our tickets at the gate, and the attendant showed us to our pod. We climbed through the open door into a tight space with two facing chairs, sat across from each other, and strapped ourselves into the three-point harness system.

A modulated female voice said, Departing for New York City in sixty seconds. Time to destination: twenty-nine minutes. Please secure all personal items under your seat. Thank you for riding Virgin Glideways.

The pod glowed inside with gentle purple lighting and a calming soundtrack of synthesizers played over ocean waves.

We began to move.

There were slit windows built into the hyperloop tube at ten-meter intervals. I got four glimpses of the gates below Union Station and then we were off into the tunnel under the city.

“So what’s the plan?” Nadine asked.

“We’ll have to do this on our own.”

“Do you know where in New York Kara is?”

The lights of the subterranean tunnel whipped past faster and faster until they were nothing but a blurred line of light through the curved smart-glass of our pod. At slower speeds, like now, the effect was distressingly strobe-like, providing jarring glimpses of the world outside. But at cruising speed near the sound barrier, these portholes flowed by so fast that they made a zoetrope, smoothly animating the world outside and creating the illusion that the pod was traveling under a continuous piece of glass.

I woke the touchscreen between the seats and dimmed the glass so we couldn’t see the portholes.

“Lower Manhattan.”

I could feel the 0.5g acceleration kicking in, watched the speed creeping up on the touchscreen: 300mph.

325mph.

350mph.

375mph.

Nadine took her phone out for the first time since we’d left Constitution Center. I took out my phone as well, sent the text to Edwin I’d written on the ride over to Union Station.

Nadine looked suddenly frustrated.

“Everything all right?” I asked.

“You have a signal?”

“Yeah. I just sent a text to Edwin.”

“Saying what?”

“To shut off your phone.”

Her head snapped toward me with a sudden intensity.

I felt our pod lift out of the subterranean tunnel.

“When did she get to you?” I asked.

I could almost feel her body tensing. For a long moment, the only sound was the ocean waves coming through the speakers. Considering our rate of speed, the ride was preternaturally quiet.

Nadine’s face remained implacable, or rather trying desperately to be so. But I observed her inner turmoil. The manic-thought train hurtling through her mind, wondering what I knew for sure and where I was still in the dark.

For a fraction of a second, she considered lying, and then I saw her realize that it would be pointless. Leaning back in her seat, she let out a quiet sigh.

“Last summer,” she said. “I took some vacation time, went down to Tulum. Saw the ruins. Swam in the cenotes. I was alone. One day, I was sitting by the pool when who walks up but your sister. At first, I thought it was a wild coincidence. And she let me believe that. She told me she was also traveling by herself. Invited me to dinner. We’d had some chemistry that night we spent at her cabin in Montana. It was still there. She was charming and so damn smart.

“We hung out for a few days, and during a hike together in the jungle, she finally told me what had really happened to you. I thought you were dead.”