Denton sat hunkered over his Toughbook—a rugged laptop designed for extreme environments—in the darkened Security Control room. He watched the single dot onscreen—Montoya’s subdermal GPS implant—tell him Sophia and her insurgents were trying to escape in a second railcar. Major Novak stood at his shoulder, his breath warm on Denton’s shaved head. He hated it when Novak did that. Especially when his idea of breakfast was an omelet that smelled like its only ingredient was onion.

‘Oscar Five Delta to Tango Zero Golf,’ Denton said into his throat mike. ‘Hold position at railcar platform. I repeat, hold position at railcar platform. Over.’

‘Tango Zero Golf to Oscar Five Delta. Acknowledged. Out.’

‘Oscar Five Delta to Echo Four India,’ Denton said. ‘X-Rays are inbound. Stand by for intercept. X-Ray leader is to be taken alive. Undercover operatives will comply. The hostage scientist and the insurgents are expendable. Over.’

‘Echo Four India to Oscar Five Delta. Copy that. Out.’

‘Oscar Five Delta to Echo Four Golf. Change direction and pursue X-Rays. Over.’

Denton waited for a response, but there was none.

He glanced up at Grace, the shocktrooper commander. Her violet, disc-shaped goggles unnerved him slightly. He checked his watch. The countdown for the bunker-buster bomb read 32:13.

Knocking back his sixth Guaraná Jesus, he reached for his briefcase and opened it beside his Toughbook.

He said to Novak, ‘There’s a chance they’ve hijacked the radio frequency jammer. Destroy it. I have my own.’

***

With Renée’s arm draped over her shoulder, Sophia dragged her into the Vector labs. More glaring lights, white walls and metal benchtops. One half of the lab was blocked off by a glass wall. On the other side, Benito and Jay were lying the unconscious Damien on an operating table. The rest of the team quickly took up observation posts.

Jay’s left arm was bandaged. It hung limply at his side. Jay didn’t even seem to notice; he was too focused on Damien. Sophia couldn’t think of anything to say to him.

Blood spurted from Renée’s thigh. Sophia looked down to see Renée’s crimson hand slide away from the wound. She felt heavier: she’d passed out. Sophia pressed her own hand over the wound and applied pressure. Jay appeared beside her, his expression resigned, but at least willing to help. He wrapped one of Renée’s arms over his shoulder and helped lift her onto an operating table. Sophia’s hand slipped. Blood sprayed towards the ceiling in a miniature fountain.

‘Femoral artery,’ Sophia said. ‘Benito, we need you.’

Benito left the needle he was preparing for Damien and rushed over. He swapped Sophia’s hand for his own, pressing down firmly on the artery.

‘Jay,’ she said, ‘I need my com right now.’

‘What about electronic countermeasures?’ Jay snapped.

‘Taken care of,’ she said. ‘I’ve remotely hijacked the facility’s broadband jamming system. It’s continually and simultaneously jamming the full spectrum of RF comm frequencies from twenty megahertz to 3000.’ She removed a memory stick from a pouch in her vest. It reminded her of blue chewing gum. ‘Encryption and security keys are on here. Load them into your radios.’

She wasn’t sure if Jay understood that the transmission security keys, once loaded into their radios, would tell the jamming system to let their communications go through. But he didn’t seem confused, so that was a good sign.

‘And yours?’ Jay said.

‘Preloaded.’

‘You have everything fucking covered, huh?’ He wasn’t smiling.

‘Almost.’ Sophia looked down at Renée. She was still unconscious. ‘Give her some fluids, she doesn’t have much time.’

‘You give her blood plasma,’ Jay said to Sophia. It almost sounded like an order. ‘I’ll help Benito save Damien.’

‘We need to check on troop movements,’ Sophia said. ‘Which means I need my com.’

‘I think your comrade’s life is more important than a com,’ he snapped.

‘Don’t tell me what’s more important.’ She turned to Benito. ‘Load the vectors; inject half into Damien’s bloodstream.’

‘And the other half?’ Benito said.

‘We need it to save Renée. She’s lost too much blood.’

With her hand back over Renée’s torn artery, Sophia said to Jay, ‘Take Renée’s webbing off. She has a supply of plasma in the pouch near me.’

Jay reluctantly left Benito in charge of Damien. Using his only working hand, he retrieved the blood plasma from the webbing belt Renee, like all of them, was wearing. Sophia didn’t supply any further instruction. He knew what to do from there.

‘Give me the com,’ she said.

Jay connected the catheter to the bag, but didn’t say a word.

‘Jay,’ she said. ‘Give me the goddamned com!’

He dug into a vest pouch and gave it to her.

Lucia, Nasira and Cassandra burst into the lab. Sophia realized she was aiming her P90 at them. She was just as startled to see them as they were to see Renée unconscious.

‘What the heck happened?’ Lucia said.

‘She’s stable.’ Sophia lowered her P90. ‘Why aren’t you at your posts?’

Cassandra tapped her earpiece. ‘Something’s wrong with our frequency.’

Sophia’s jaw clenched involuntarily. ‘Define wrong.’

‘Screw the frequency, we’re easy targets here,’ Nasira said. ‘We gotta pull out before we’re surrounded by these motherfuckers.’

‘Too late.’ Lucia sniffed the air. Her head was tilted back slightly, lips parted.

‘Talk to me,’ Sophia said.

‘There’s a lot of them. They’re not far.’

Sophia checked her com. ‘No kidding.’

‘What the fuck?’ Jay said.

‘I have hyperosmia,’ Lucia said. ‘Enhanced sense of smell. It’s my natural ability.’

‘I have that too,’ Jay said.

‘Then you have her to thank for your upgrade,’ Nasira said. ‘You should use it more, train yourself.’

Two troops were moving in from opposite sides. They’d be here soon. Sophia’s heart raced. Their only chance was to slip through a crack in the ambush. Providing there was a crack. But with Renée and Damien in critical condition, she knew that wasn’t going to happen. If they left Renée and Damien behind, the pair would be killed. Yet if they all stayed here and tried to save Renée and Damien, they’d all be killed.

Lots of good choices.

She’d messed up. And everyone was going to pay for her mistake. And all she could think about was how scared Leoncjusz must’ve been when Denton and his Blue Berets raided the library. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

She tried to remember why the Akhana had chosen her in the first place. Leoncjusz had told her she consistently made remarkably better combat decisions than other operatives. That meant, as far as Cecilia was concerned, if Sophia couldn’t pull this together, no one could. Now she had to live up to that expectation.

Benito was injecting the vector into Damien’s arm. Jay had just finished bandaging Renée’s thigh. He used Sophia’s memory stick to load the transmission security key to his radio and then Damien’s. She wanted to tell him not to waste his time, but didn’t have the heart to.

‘She’s awake!’ Lucia said.

Sophia turned to see Renée sitting upright. Not exactly bouncing with energy, but she’d be mobile in no time, with assistance.

‘Benito!’ Sophia yelled. ‘Inject Renée. Now.’

Benito did as she ordered, then Lucia and Cassandra helped Renée off the table.

Sophia checked her com again. The Berets were almost on them. She snatched her memory stick from Jay, then checked the west corridor. If there was any chance of escape, it would have to be here.

‘Damien’s stopped breathing,’ Benito said solemnly.

Sophia saw a silent rage burning in Jay’s eyes.

‘Two troops closing fast,’ Sophia said to Lucia. ‘We have to get Renée out of here.’

Nasira covered Cassandra and Lucia as they helped Renée move. Having done all he could for Damien, Benito followed Nasira out. Jay intercepted him and took the syringe with the remaining vector inside. He’d done all he could for Damien. The only person that remained was Jay. He stood by Damien, struggling to inject his own arm.

What the hell was he doing?

‘Fuck.’ He fumbled some more.

She didn’t know why he was bothering. The bandage on his injured arm was tight and would limit the distribution of the Axolotl Chimera vector through his bloodstream.

‘Jay!’ she yelled. ‘Move it!’

He strode over and handed her the hypodermic syringe. ‘Inject me. In my good arm.’

‘It’s experimental, we don’t—’

‘Those Blue Berets are going to pay for what they did. I need this. Do it!’

She felt his saliva hit her face. It would be quicker to do this than argue. He held his good arm out. Fuck it. She sank the needle into a thick blue vein, injected the Axolotl vector that had failed to save Damien.

‘Get out of here,’ Jay said.

She removed the syringe. The Berets wouldn’t attack Jay. As far as they knew, he was still playing for their team. Unless they’d been ordered otherwise.

She didn’t bother looking at her com. There was only one way out and checking troop movements a third time wasn’t going to help her get there any faster. Her boots hit the PVC tiles in a frenzied rhythm. Adrenaline poured through her, stinging like acid on freshly severed veins. The rhythm of her boots became louder, faster. Then she realized it wasn’t just her boots any more. The Berets were almost in the lab.

***

Damien’s lungs burned, ached for air. He felt his arms. His legs. His body. Heard the sound of boots. Fluorescent light penetrated his eyelids. His fingers tingled. He opened his eyes.

‘Thank fuck,’ Jay said. He started laughing and raised his hands over Damien. ‘Rise and walk, my child.’

Damien blinked. ‘What happened?’

‘The faithful don’t ask questions. They just thank Jesus for the miracle,’ Jay said. ‘But you can thank me later.’

Damien sat upright and was rewarded with a wave of dizziness. He didn’t say so, but he was relieved to see Jay. For a moment, he wished nothing had changed. That everything in the past hour had been erased from time. He looked down to find himself topless. He peeled the dressing off his wound to find it had scabbed over.

‘Where’s Sophia and—’ He looked up to see an entire troop of Berets staring at him from the other side of the glass wall.

‘The insurgents attempted to interrogate you.’ Jay’s voice was officious now. ‘I managed to wound one of them. That should slow them down.’

‘Instant healing, huh?’ the Blue Beret sergeant said. He had a bad complexion that reminded Damien of a pineapple. ‘Nice trick.’

Damien looked down at his healing wound. ‘I wish it was instant,’ he said. ‘And it’s not nice.’

‘Colonel Denton has re-established communications,’ the sergeant said, still staring at the scab on Damien’s chest.

‘Good,’ Jay said, helping Damien to his feet.

‘We’ll be able to coordinate a search of the facility,’ the sergeant said.

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Jay strode out of the lab. ‘We know where they’ll be, Sergeant.’

Damien followed Jay out. He felt light-headed, and bumped into the corridor wall twice as he tried to catch up with Jay.

Once there was enough distance between them and the Blue Berets, he grabbed Jay’s shoulder. ‘What are we doing?’

Jay looked at him as though he’d asked what color the sky was. ‘We’re going to see Denton, what else?’

‘You know what I mean.’ Damien didn’t let go. ‘Are we in with Sophia?’

Jay brushed him off and kept going. ‘That was the plan, right?’

Damien closed the gap between them. ‘No, I mean not just pretending like Denton wants us to. Actually in?’

‘We’ve discussed this,’ Jay said. ‘We’re in. I’ve got it under control.’

Damien grabbed his arm. This time Jay didn’t flinch. ‘What if Denton gives us the order to kill her? And the others?’

Jay pulled his arm away. ‘Then we do what we think is right.’