by Tiffany Snow
I was breathing hard, my heart pounding so fast in my chest, it felt as though it would leap out. The combination of fear, adrenaline, and relief was overwhelming and I just sat there, on top of him, for a moment.
Then I thought, What if he’s dead? Oh God, I didn’t want to kill him. He was just doing his job. I felt underneath his jaw for a pulse, and breathed a sigh of relief when I felt one, strong and steady.
I felt the hands on my arms, lifting me to my feet, at the same time I heard the voice.
“What the bloody hell are you doing in here?”
Devon.
He turned me around and I wasted no time. “Levin’s on his way,” I said.
Reggie was right behind him, both of them looking at me.
“The radio wasn’t working,” I explained. “I came to warn you.”
“We need more time,” Reggie said.
Devon said nothing, just grabbed my arm and dragged me with them. We rushed down the hallway. He had a card identical to mine and used his to unlock the door at the far end. We hurried inside, and I stopped short as Devon let go of me to flip on the lights.
The room made my jaw drop. It looked like a war room, with screens lining an entire wall in front of three tiers of workstations. Reggie had gone to a desk at the back of the top row and had plopped himself in the chair, already typing like a demon on the keyboard there.
The screens in front of me changed and I could see what he was typing. It was all Greek to me, the lines scrolling by so fast it was hard to even tell what they said.
“How much longer?” Devon asked. He’d gone to the windows on the far wall that overlooked the parking lot.
“I’m going as fast as I can,” Reggie muttered. His forehead was dotted with sweat.
Several minutes passed in a tense silence, broken only by the sound of Reggie’s typing. Then, “They’re here,” Devon said.
The sound of him racking the slide on his gun made me jump.
“Just because he’s here doesn’t mean he’ll come in here,” I said hopefully. “Right?”
Devon glanced back at me, but it was Reggie who answered.
“Our tour guide managed to get a message to Levin before we shut him down.”
There was a lot in that sentence I wanted to ask questions about, but I kept my silence.
“I just need five more minutes,” Reggie said.
“Well you’ve got three,” Devon said. “There’s only one way out of this room and we’re about to be blocked in.”
“The code is in, but it has to upload to the servers before it automatically downloads onto the phones. Until it does that, Levin can still stop it.”
I watched the screens. A map of the world was displayed, glowing lights in various cities. Beams of light were arching toward the cities, all from the central location of Amsterdam . . . headquarters sending the software to its remote servers around the world.
“Do you really think they’d just have one exit from this room?” Reggie scoffed. He hit a button and a panel in the far corner of the room slid back to reveal a darkness beyond.
“How long?” Devon asked, eyeing the screens.
“It has to download to every server,” Reggie said, “or else they’ll be able to designate a non-updated server as the master, and its copy will overwrite everything I’ve done.”
“That doesn’t tell me how long,” Devon bit out, heading toward the door. He took up a position directly behind it, arm bent and gun pointed at the ceiling.
“I can lock out their cards,” Reggie said, hitting more keys, and not a moment too soon.
I saw shadows outside the door and the lock beeped, but it didn’t open. They tried it again. Nothing.
A gunshot sounded and I jumped. They were shooting at the lock on the door.
Devon retreated, grabbing my arm and running up the steps to Reggie. “We have to go,” he said.
“I can’t,” Reggie insisted, pointing to the screens. “Four servers still haven’t updated.”
He was right. The longest arcs from Amsterdam weren’t quite at their glowing destinations.
The shatter of glass and another gunshot startled a scream from me, and Devon shoved my head down as we hit the floor. He lifted his arm and fired two shots in return.
Cautiously raising my head, I saw that they’d shot through the glass . . . and hit Reggie.
“Oh my God,” I breathed. Reggie had been knocked out of the chair. The bullet had gotten him in the abdomen and blood stained his shirt.
Reggie coughed as Devon scrambled over to him and tore his shirt open. The wound looked painful, and very bloody.
“How bad is it?” Reggie wheezed.
Devon’s lips pressed into a grim line and he didn’t reply, though it seemed Reggie didn’t need an answer.
“That . . . really sucks,” he managed.
More gunshots that went wide. Devon returned fire.
“Go,” Reggie said, struggling to sit up. “I’ll stay, make sure the software downloads.”
“They’re going to be in here any moment,” Devon warned him.
“Then you’d better hurry.”
Devon propped Reggie against the back of the desk, then handed him his gun. “Hold them off as long as you can,” he said, then he took my hand and began pulling me away.
“We can’t just leave him!” I protested, aghast.
“There’s nothing we can do,” Devon replied, drawing me inexorably toward the hidden doorway. “A belly wound like that is fatal without immediate treatment, which we can’t get. He has minutes left.”
I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it. Reggie was one of the good guys. He wasn’t supposed to die because of this.
Reggie looked at me and our eyes locked. Weakly, he raised his hand and beckoned me. I struggled and broke away from Devon to run back to Reggie.
“Take this,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You may need it.”
I looked down and saw he held the flash drive he’d shown me back in Kansas City. Blood was smeared on the silver surface.
Taking it from him, I said, “But I don’t know the password.”
“It’s . . .”
But I couldn’t hear him. I leaned close, putting my ear by his lips as he tried again.
Hands landed heavily on my shoulders and nothing I did prevented Devon from grabbing me up bodily and hauling me with him through the hidden escape. I spared one last look for Reggie, who was watching us, and wanted to sob.
Devon slammed his hand on the interior button and the panel slid closed. Lights illuminated a small staircase made of concrete.
“Let’s go,” Devon said, propelling me along with his hand wrapped firmly around my arm.
He was moving fast, so fast I had a hard time keeping up. Fear was a bitter tang in my mouth. Reggie’s death crystallized the reality that we might not escape from this.
I thought we’d go down, but instead we went up. We hit the top landing and headed for the door. Devon pulled me back behind him, carefully opening the door just a fraction and peering out before exiting the building onto the roof.
Suddenly, Devon tapped at his ear. “Confirm, secondary extraction point,” he said.
Confused, I stared at him as we ran across the roof until a shout made me look back.
There was a whole group of men pouring from the staircase after us, weapons drawn.
They started firing immediately. I ducked as I ran and Devon pulled me in front of him. That’s when I heard the sound of a helicopter.
Looking up, I saw the black outline of the chopper swirling above. Devon ran toward it as it dipped low.
It didn’t even land, just hovered about six feet above the roof. Devon picked me up and hoisted me until I could grab hold of the open door, then he latched on as well. I was pulling myself up to the interior when it happened.
A bullet tore through Devon’s back.
One of his hands lost its grip immediately and I grabbed his wrist. The chopper di
pped lower and Devon struggled to get in. Blood seeped from the wound in his back, making him falter. Desperate, I grabbed his belt at the back of his pants and pulled. His legs still dangled off the side, but his torso was in and the man behind me finished pulling Devon in the rest of the way.
Devon’s face was coated with sweat, a grimace of pain on his features. I didn’t know what to do or how to help him.
“Agent down!” the man who’d helped pull us in called into the headset he wore. He flipped Devon over onto his stomach and the wound in his back made me gasp. Blood was everywhere and the man used a knife to cut off Devon’s jacket.
The helicopter swooped and turned and I prayed we were heading for a hospital. Devon had passed out by now. I held one of his lax hands in mine, the roar of the motors and rush of air loud in my ears, my eyes on the blood still seeping from Devon’s torn flesh.
It seemed an eternity but was in reality barely a couple of minutes before we were landing again. I could have cried in relief to see hospital personnel racing toward the landing pad. They took Devon off the plane, carefully loading him onto a gurney, then raced away.
I went to follow him, but the man in the chopper grabbed my arm, preventing me.
“Let me go,” I demanded, pulling against him.
He ignored me, giving a hand signal to the pilot, then we were in the air again.
I watched in dismay as the roof of the hospital receded in the distance. What were these men going to do with me? Where were they taking me?
But it was pointless to ask. They couldn’t hear me over the motors and there was nothing I could do about it anyway—save jumping from the chopper, which I didn’t want to do.
Ten minutes later, we were landing again, this time at a small airport outside a hangar. The engine was cut and as the noise died down, the man with me motioned for me to get out.
I swung my legs out and climbed down from the chopper. Staying bent from the still slowly rotating blades, I hurried a few steps away. Glancing around, I saw a car waiting, its headlights pointed at me. As I watched, someone got out and began walking my way. It wasn’t until they were close that I recognized the figure.
Vega.
“Ivy,” she said, coming to a stop a few feet from me. “I must say, I’d much rather you had been shot than Devon.”
Yeah, me, too, I thought but didn’t say.
“Get in the car.”
“What if I don’t want to?” I asked.
“You don’t have much of a choice, now, do you?” she replied, sounding almost bored.
I got in the car.
She got in the other side, sitting next to me in the backseat. Once she closed her door, the man began driving. I didn’t ask where we were going, not that I thought she would have told me.
“How’s Devon doing?” I asked. My gut was churning. All I could think about was how much blood there had been, how unresponsive he’d been, and the paleness of his face when they’d put him on the gurney.
“That’s none of your business,” she replied. “So tell me . . . what went wrong tonight?”
“Nothing went wrong,” I said. “The plan worked. They just weren’t supposed to show up.”
“No, that’s not what went wrong tonight,” she said. “What went wrong was that you were with him. If Devon had not been trying to get you out of there, he wouldn’t have been hurt.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“So tell me why I shouldn’t have you shot right now and dump your body in the canal.”
I sucked in a breath at the coldness in her voice. She wasn’t joking, and she wasn’t bluffing. Even as I thought this, the car had drawn to a halt, the engine idling. Glancing out the window, I saw we were on a deserted bridge. Dark water streamed lazily below us.
When I looked back to Vega, the driver was pointing a gun at my head.
“Wait!” I cried, panic-stricken. “I-I have something.”
Vega held up her hand and the driver remained motionless.
I reached in my pocket and pulled out the flash drive that Reggie had given me. “This.”
“And what is that?” Vega asked.
“It’s the biosecurity software,” I said. “Reggie stole all of it and put it on this flash drive.”
“And you’re giving it to me?” Her tone was skeptical.
“I’m trading it to you,” I clarified.
Her lips curved in a smile. “My dear, you aren’t in any position to trade. I can just take it from you.” Reaching out, she did just that.
“It’s encrypted,” I said. “The data will destroy itself if you try to crack the password.” Vega’s gaze met mine and her eyes narrowed. “Reggie wasn’t stupid, and neither am I.”
A beat. “So it would seem,” she said. “All right then, what shall we trade?”
I swallowed. “First, I want to know Devon’s status.”
Vega reached into her pocket and produced a phone. She pressed a couple of buttons and held it to her ear.
“Yes, what’s the status of Agent Clay?”
I tried to read her expression as she listened, but it remained unchanged.
“I see. Thank you.” She ended the call and pocketed the phone again. “Devon did not survive.”
I stared at her, and it took everything I had not to fall apart. “Are you sure?” I asked. My voice shook.
“Quite.”
Vega showed absolutely zero emotion at Devon’s death. It was as though she were telling me the weather forecast, which made me suspicious. She’d lied to me before, was she lying to me again?
I slowly shook my head. “No. I don’t believe you.” Devon couldn’t die. He just . . . couldn’t.
In an instant, she was in my face. “I don’t give a damn what you believe,” she hissed. “Because of you, one of my best agents is dead. That alone makes me want to shred you with my bare hands until I see your bones. The only thing preventing me from doing so is this.” She held up the flash drive. “Now do tell me, Ivy,” her voice dripping with bitter condescension, “what are the rest of your . . . demands?”
I was shaking from shock and fear in the face of her seething anger. I struggled to think, to pull myself together. Devon would have wanted me to get out of this alive, and the only way to do that was to be smarter than Vega.
“I want you to take me back to my hotel and I want my flight booked out of the country,” I said. “I want to go home.”
“Easy enough to accomplish,” she said. “Done. Now what’s the password?”
“You’ll get the password once I’m in the air.”
Vega considered this. “Done.”
The driver put away his gun and began driving again.
“If the software on this drive isn’t exactly what you say it is, you will pay the price,” Vega said. She didn’t say it in a threatening way, just matter-of-fact.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She didn’t speak again until we were at the hotel. “Flight arrangements will be made. You’ll be informed.”
I didn’t thank her; I just got out of the car. It was taking all I had not to think of Devon. She’d been convincing, but I knew her to be a liar. I’d have to see for myself that Devon was really dead before I believed it.
As I walked into the hotel—nearly deserted at this time of night—I wondered what I would have done if Reggie hadn’t given me his “insurance.” The only other card I had to play was the vaccine, and of the two evils—stealing people’s biosignatures or giving someone the tools to unleash an incurable virus—I thought the former was a better option than the latter.
It wasn’t until I was back in the room that I let myself think about Devon.
What if he was dead?
I gasped as a shaft of pain went through me, my steps faltering, then halting altogether. I spied the bed where we’d last made love. I hadn’t known it would be for the last time.
I dropped to my knees on the floor, a sob building in my chest that I couldn’t hold back, desp
ite my desperation to try to keep it together. Not since my mother died had I felt such agony, but back then I’d bottled it up inside along with the guilt I’d felt for the sacrifice she’d made.
Now Devon had made a similar sacrifice. Vega had been right. If I hadn’t been there, dragging him back and slowing him down, he’d have escaped. I was sure of it. If he’d climbed into the helicopter first rather than me . . .
I didn’t recognize the sounds I was making. Harsh, ugly, pain-wracked sobs that tore from the depths of my being. Tears streaked my face as I bent over until my forehead rested on the carpet. I squeezed my arms tight around my middle, hugging myself as if that alone would stop me from breaking apart.
The sun was rising when I was finally spent. I had nothing left. My emotions felt raw, like naked wires, crackling and exposed. Devon might be gone, but I could make it on my own. I would make it on my own. I’d survive this. And I’d find out for sure if he was dead.
I showered and packed, carefully checking my purse to make sure the pages were still there. I didn’t resist the impulse to take one of Devon’s suits with me, carefully folding the expensive fabric and choosing my favorite of the ties he’d brought.
The hotel phone rang around mid-morning. When I answered, a disembodied voice said, “A car will pick you up at nineteen hundred hours and take you to your flight.” Then they hung up.
Okay, then.
I was reasonably sure Vega would try to kill me once I gave her the password. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that yet. But I had something more important on my mind.
Now that the sun was up, I felt safe enough to go back to the hospital. If Devon was alive, then we’d figure out what to do next. If he wasn’t, then this would be my chance to see him one more time, for closure and to say goodbye. Looking at a map of the city the concierge had helpfully provided, I found the hospital where they’d taken Devon last night. Grabbing my purse, I flagged down a taxi.
My hands were shaky as I paid the fare and walked into the hospital. If Devon was alive, chances were good there would be operatives from the Shadow here. I might be walking right into a trap.
“Excuse me,” I said to the harried-looking woman behind the front desk. “Can you help me?” I was really hoping she spoke English.
