Holly glanced at her watch. Crap, she was way over time. Spending too long in a database that wasn’t part of her current workload would definitely raise red flags. It might be so suspicious that even Johnson could figure things out. She rushed to copy the files of the folder onto a USB of her own before switching to the DARC USB, uploading Tansy’s files onto the CIA server. A dialogue box opened, displaying a small status bar scrolling across to completion.

Please hurry . . .

Johnson’s computer was a high-performance machine, and the file wasn’t supposed to be very large. So what was taking so long?

As it neared completion, she heard the ding of an elevator from behind the workplace, down the hall of the otherwise silent office floor. Panic set in, her shoulders stiffening with the deep freeze of winter.

Why isn’t she alone? Why hadn’t they warned her?

She had DARC eyes all over the building, and yet they were silent.

And then she remembered. The earpiece was still lying on the table. It wasn’t silent. It was still screeching, matching the same alarm tone in her head as she snatched up the USB stick and stood from the desk as quickly and quietly as she could.

Whoever she was about to meet in the hall, no matter how it went down, her job in that office had been completed. The files had loaded. She just hoped Tansy had everything he needed.

She also hoped she’d see Logan when she left the room, turning down the hall. It was improbable, illogical, and perhaps would be a bad sign if she did see him there. But she wanted to see him. Better Logan than someone sent by Godev. That Russian bastard probably had a mole working on the inside, someone who could get around without raising too much suspicion. Maybe that’s how they’d tracked her down. Maybe one of the construction guys tonight was—

“Oh, hey, Holly. Hi.”

The freeze deepened down her spine. Holly stopped awkwardly in mid stride. The voice was familiar, American. Not Logan.

“Holly?”

She turned to find Gary Johnson smiling at her like it was just another midday workday exchange and not some shady after-hours break-in. Everything normal.

Bullshit. His folder, his photos . . .

He probably knew about her break-in from the beginning, watching remotely from his own private command center.

“Where are you going?” he said, looking puzzled when she tried to slink past him.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this right now.”

“What?” Gary said. “Do what?”

She had to bullshit right back. She had to come up with something at least approaching “normal.” She tried with, “You know. I’m upset about losing a good friend. A good boss.”

“I know,” Gary said.

“Do you know what makes a good boss?”

“No,” he said. “What makes a good boss?”

“When they treat you like family.” She watched him, but there was no change. “It’s like I lost a member of my family.”

“What were you doing in there?” he said, motioning to his office. “Do you need to tell me something?”

She thought she just did.

Gary said, “You were in my office.”

“I needed to get some work done, but my machines are down.”

“Your machines?”

“My computer. My laptop stopped working, so . . .” She looked past him to the exit sign, wondering how long it would take before she saw one of the DARC men rushing in. “So,” she said, “I gotta go.”

“No, you don’t. Hold on.” When he side-stepped to block her way, she noticed the familiar bulge of a holstered gun at his side. He turned his hips away from her, gun away as if realizing she’d seen it.

How the hell did he sneak an unauthorized gun inside the building? She could barely get a box of pizza in for the guards.

Then she remembered. The weapons trade they’d broken up, selling parts and plans for 3D-printed guns that could bypass the metal detectors. This one here, under Johnson’s coat, had definitely not missed Holly’s own internal danger detector.

While the fear still shot through her, Holly wondered when the last time he’d fired it was. Who he had aimed it at and where they were now. If they were still breathing or not. Reliability of the final product varied.

“Gary?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“What are you doing?” She tried to squeeze past him and the wall and then stopped, took a step back. “You’re blocking me. What are you doing?”

“Slow down,” he said. “Can we talk before you go rushing off like that?”

“No.” She made a move again, and now he pushed her backward, his face contorting with the effort. “Stop it,” she cried, feeling more alone than ever in her life. Even more so than she had in the warehouse. Feeling like Logan and his DARC agents were millions of miles away. Feeling on her own, millions of miles away from Beth.

Gary shoved her back and then drew his gun, training it on her steadily, barrel aimed at her face.

It was all over if she died here. Beth would have no one left to help.

“Don’t worry,” Johnson said.

“Don’t worry?”

“Just relax and don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll take good care of your cousin.”

Could she kick him in the balls and crumple him that way? Could she do it and get it off without him having time to shoot her?

She remembered hearing once that there were always a few seconds between a groin strike and the proceeding debilitating pain.

“You’re actually pretty stupid,” he said with a laugh. “It’s worse than I thought. You went and blabbed your stupid little mouth for outside help, and then you screwed things up even worse for yourself. If you just could have played along, we’d all be fine. Beth would be fine. You’d have her back with you, safe, instead of having a gun pointed at your face.”

It was still fucking pointing at her . . .

“And that little stunt you pulled in there. In my office.” He walked up close to her, his hand gripped hard around her throat. “That was great. Did you realize that you just unleashed the Russian code?” He squeezed her windpipe, and it became even harder to breathe. She was already having trouble with the gun pointed at her. She felt faint.

She tried to struggle a few words out, “Stop, please.”

“You should have stopped while you were ahead. You should have just taken the fall like a good little lackey. That’s what you were, from the beginning. A fake. I tried telling people that. I tried to warn them about you. You’re an idiot, Holly. I don’t know how else to say it.”

He shoved her against the wall, hand still around her throat, his face moving in so close to hers that she could smell the stale medical waft of an old breath mint.

“All along, I’d said you were unfit. You don’t even know what you did tonight.” He laughed again. “I’ll guess I’ll finally get some sort of recognition for killing you. They were always a lot nicer to me than you and these other suck-asses here have been.” Then he backed away from the wall, grabbing her arm and taking her with him. With another push down the hall, he said, “Go ahead, let’s go back to my office and see what you did.”

There was no point saying anything. Holly was glad she’d kept her mouth shut. But she wondered for how long she’d be able to hold back the anger. Or fear. Or pain.

She moved slowly on her own before the gun stabbed into her back. Holly stepped faster, thinking of Logan, needing him more than she’d ever needed anyone in her life. But it was probably too late for that. She supposed there was at least a consolation prize. She closed her eyes and thought about it, Logan at least having chance to finish what Holly had started, to save Beth after she was gone.