The Long Game (The Fixer #2)(59)

The president is shot. I forced myself to go further, to take this line of thought to completion. Once the president is shot, the vice president is imbued with the power of the presidency.

And the vice president’s daughter went to Hardwicke.

They want something. Anna is the leverage. Then again, they’d said high-value targets, plural. There are other students here who they can use for leverage, too.

Hardwicke was Washington.

I had to do something. Find a way to short out the cameras? Cut the power and the lights?

I forced myself to pull up one of the classroom feeds, forced myself to look at my classmates, lying facedown on the floor.

If I cut the power, one of them is going to try something stupid.

If I cut the power, those guards are going to shoot.

I couldn’t risk that happening. I was an unarmed teenager trapped in a building with dozens of armed terrorists. There were snipers on the roof. Soon the terrorists would realize I was missing. Soon they’d be looking for me. The only thing I could do, the only thing I could even try to do, was establish a line of communication with the outside world and tell them what I knew about the terrorists’ operation—where they were keeping the other students, how heavily the terrorists were armed, how many men they had, the fact that Dr. Clark was involved.

Information is power. My paternal grandfather’s words stuck in my mind. You can never know ahead of time which pieces will be worth the most.

The more information the police—the FBI—whoever was in charge of this operation had, the better our chances of making it out of this alive. I had to find a way of getting a message out. How?

My cell phone still wasn’t working. They must be scrambling the signal somehow. But they have a way of calling out. They must.

The terrorists would want to present their demands. They would want to open up a line of communication with the outside world. I just had to find it—and find a way to co-opt it.

If I were a working phone line, where would I be? I stared down at the security footage in my lap. I thought about the rooms that weren’t on there. The security station. If I were committing a hostile takeover of Hardwicke, that would be my base of operations. If I could make it up there, if I could distract the person manning it—

This is a bad idea. I knew that, the way you know that people in horror movies shouldn’t go traipsing off into the woods.

But it was the only idea I had.

They’re going to catch me anyway. Even if I stay here, even if I find somewhere else to hide—they will find me. The question is whether or not I can get a message out before they do.

I might not be Anna Hayden, but I was still a card they’d want in their hands. I’d already been kidnapped so someone could use me as leverage against Ivy once.

If you have to make an example of someone, Dr. Clark had told one of the guards, do try to make it someone disposable.

I’d have to take the risk that so long as they had me in their possession, they would want to keep me alive.

For better or worse, I had to try.





CHAPTER 50

I studied the library camera feed long enough to know its blind spots. Crawling along the floor, slowly enough to avoid being caught by the motion sensors, I made it to the door. Next up was the hallway. I listened for footsteps and told myself it wasn’t any different from listening to a horse come closer, knowing that if you looked up, it might spook.

Now. Go now.

Avoiding the hallway cameras was harder—impossible if I wanted to get more than a few feet.

I made it as far as the closest bathroom and slipped in.

Automatically, I scanned the room for hiding spots, for shelter. Unfortunately, the urinals offered neither. I tested the window to see if I could work it loose.

No such luck.

Watching the cameras and listening for footsteps again, I waited until it was clear, then slipped back out into the hall.

I wasn’t exactly sure where the Hardwicke security offices were, but I knew they were in this building, and I knew they were on the top floor. If there was a way of calling the outside world, I was betting I’d find it there—probably under guard.

Farther down the hall, another bathroom.

Pressing my body back against the tile wall and riding out the rush of adrenaline, I tapped at the screen of the tablet, scrolling through the feed until I got to the staircase. I tried to zoom in, but the maneuver didn’t take.

Instead, a message popped up.

ENACT PROGRAM?

Program? What were you doing, Emilia?

The prompt on the screen gave me two options: YES and NO. Before I could think too hard about what I was doing, I hit YES.

SELECT CAMERA TO CLONE.

There were three stairwells in the main building. If this works, I will worship the ground you walk on, I told Emilia silently. I will owe you favors for all time. I will be your friend, the way you were mine.

I couldn’t let myself remember Emilia standing up and stepping out into the aisle. Instead, I concentrated on the tablet. I hit what I hoped were the right commands, and then I cracked the door to the hallway open and made my last dash to the stairs.

The door closed behind me. Too loud. This wasn’t going to work. It couldn’t. But I thought of John Thomas with a hole in his gut and Dr. Clark training a gun on Anna Hayden and the Secret Service agent lying dead on the library floor—

I made it up two flights of stairs before I’d processed the fact that I was running. When I heard the sound of someone entering the stairwell below me, I made a split-second decision.