From the airport, they were immediately whisked away by another of Jackson’s helicopters, heading toward downtown Washington D.C. to land on the helipad atop Jackson’s DARC Ops headquarters. The chopper was loud, and the vibrations were strong, yet he’d watched Holly, her head slumped against the side of her headrest, nodding off into sleep, her eyes slowly coming to a close.

She must have been exhausted.

Logan was glad that she had been able to get at least twenty minutes of sleep before the chopper made its decent. The change had awoken her, Holly looking down through the window and saying something that Logan couldn’t make out. Instead, he reached over and held her leg for a moment, at her knee, patting it.

Her muscles tensed up under his hand as the helicopter came feet away from the roof, swaying back and forth until it leveled off for the touchdown. The rotors kept whining and spinning. Jackson shouted, “Let’s go.” As they stepped off the chopper, Logan brought up the rear, hunching low unconsciously to avoid the rotors.

A man had been waiting for them at the roof door, holding it open and motioning for Logan to rush in. Inside the cool quiet of the upper floors of DARC Ops headquarters, Jackson led them down another flight of stairs, then a short hallway, Holly’s voice echoing through it. She finally sounded awake and almost chipper. He was glad he’d been able to take care of some of her stress, take care of her. Logan had no doubt that he and DARC Ops would be able to take care of the situation.

She looked even brighter in the conference room. It seemed almost to be giddiness in her voice, the fatigue and excitement of it all. And the possibility that someone had stepped in to help.

“Looks like they’re going for a cinematic quality,” Jackson said. “With the meetup spot.”

Logan nodded. He didn’t really give a shit about all the theatrics. He just wanted the job done. “Where is it?”

They were all sitting around the table, Jackson’s screen having been pulled down and illuminating a map. He zoomed in to the map, an old industrial neighborhood. “There’s your warehouse,” Jackson said. “From what I can gather, it’s long abandoned.”

The image came up on the screen, a street-view photograph of a huge, gutted shell of a building.

“Looks creepy enough,” Logan said.

Jackson said to Holly, “You okay with this?”

“No, but I’m going anyway. You’ll be watching me, right?”

“We’ll have eyes and ears on you, of course.”

“So, I’ll meet up and grab the USB and walk away.”

“Just walk away,” Logan said.

“What kind of eyes and ears will I have?”

“For one, a tracking device.” Jackson opened a small cardboard box that one of his assistants had brought into the room and placed on the table. He pulled out a foam insert, and then popped out a small plastic-wrapped tracking device. “That’s probably the most important, to track you wherever you go.”

“Hopefully not wherever they take me,” Holly said.

“We won’t let that happen,” Logan said. “I know I definitely won’t.” And then he turned to Jackson. “How close can I physically get to their exchange point?”

Jackson’s brow furrowed. “Don’t do anything crazy, Logan.”

“How close?”

Jackson turned to Holly and said, “Did he tell you he’s on probation with us?”

“I don’t want to get him in trouble.” She looked at Logan, her eyebrows raised. “Right?”

“I’d rather I get in trouble than you.”

“No one’s getting into trouble,” Jackson said.

A small snort-laugh came from Tansy. “Except for Godev and his boys. They don’t even know the type of ass kicking that awaits them.”

Jackson spent the next few minutes going through a 3D diagram of the location on the screen, showing the various meetup points. He finally said to Logan, “That’s how close you can go. That’s as close as you can get. Got that?”

Logan nodded and continued watching the briefing. He was still half surprised how fast the DARC team could pull a mission together. He could only guess how Holly was feeling about it—aside from apprehensive.

Probably a little scared, too.

He would fix that. Whatever the cost.

* * *

In the two hours of downtime before the meeting, Logan made sure the code words were well established and memorized. He went over them with Holly, over coffee, sitting together in a public cafe in one of the building’s lower floors. He hoped it wouldn’t be the last time he could sit across from her.

“So,” Holly said, “for when shit hits the fan . . . when I need someone to—”

“Me,” Logan said.

“When I need you to run in there to rescue me . . .”

“As soon as you feel like something’s going wrong,” Logan said. “Don’t wait until it’s too late. I’ll start making my way over to you on your signal.”

She stared at him for a moment.

“I think it’s best if we make it a question,” Logan said. “A real question.”

“Okay.”

“Ask what they want you to do with the USB after you’re done with the upload. If you should destroy it not.”

“What if they already tell me?”

“Then ask it again,” Logan said. “Double-check.”

“I’m not sure if I want you to run in there, to take a risk like that.”

“You’re the one taking the risk.”

“What about Jackson and the guys?”

“Forget it,” Logan said.

“What about probation?”

“Holly, forget it. Forget me.”

She sat there for a while, thinking it over. She took a sip of coffee and said, “So when I say that, it means you’ll come rushing in to save the day?”

“Or at least I’ll try.”

“What if things get so crazy that I won’t have time for an actual question?”

“You want to change the code phrase?”

“I want to simplify it,” Holly said. “Let’s boil it down to one word.”

“Okay. You pick.”

“Okay,” she said. “Remember your nickname?”

He’d had many nicknames through the years, from different people and different contexts. He thought back, somewhat painfully, to their years together and each term of endearment they’d shared. From the elaborate, ‘Bushbaby,’ then to the easier, ‘Baby,’ then just ‘Babe,’ and then, finally, to nothing. First names. He wondered what term of endearment she was referring to.

The more he looked at her, the more uncomfortable she seemed to become, as if her line of thinking had gone similarly back through a painful history.

“Maybe,” she said, looking down into her steaming cup of coffee, “maybe we’ll just stick to the question.”

He hated seeing how fragile she looked. How scared. “You know, I’m gonna talk to Jackson about that other thing. The weapon thing.”

“The what? What do you mean?”

“Have you ever been back to the gun range, since we . . . you know . . .” He trailed off, feeling his tongue tie up with the memories. “Have you been shooting lately?”

“No.”

“So I’m guessing you wouldn’t feel comfortable with a gun.”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“Well, there are other options. DARC has all kinds of stuff. We could go upstairs right now and look through their closet.”

“Like what? I mean, a Taser or something?”

“Anything,” Logan said. “Just . . . unless it’s more convenient that I show up? I mean, ideally, you wouldn’t need anything, because you’d have me close by, watching.”

“Ideally, I wouldn’t need any kind of help. Ideally, it would go as smoothly as possible, they’ll give me the file, and then I’ll go on my way.”

“Yeah,” Logan said, “ideally.”

He felt his phone vibrate through his pocket. He knew without looking that it was Jackson. It was time to roll out. He asked Holly if she was ready.

“No,” she said, “but that doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. And you’re ready. We’ve been over all the angles, all the code words, the layout of your location. We’ve got my observation nest across the street. We’ve got your tracking device and microphone. Oh”—he reached down under the table and fished the tracking device out of his pocket. It was the size of a grain of rice—“here, I’ll put it on you. Make sure it sticks.”

Logan got up from his seat and walked around the table, behind her. She giggled and said, “Where?”

“Hm . . .”

“Where are you going with that?”

“Hair is usually the best, along your scalp. They won’t ever see it there.”

“How about their wand?” Holly said.

“Their what?”

“You know, one of those sensors? Those little wands they use like at the airport, waving it over your body to find metal or electronics or whatever.”

“It won’t find this,” Logan said. “Nothing will, as long as you keep your hands out of your hair.”

“Hm . . . Okay.”

“Can I put my hands in your hair?”

She laughed. “Okay.”

Logan unwrapped the device from its plastic, his fingers already aching to touch her. He said, “Hmm,” as if he had to actually think about it, as if he wasn’t just about to caress through her hair.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “A little too complicated for you?” She turned around, breathing a quiet sigh. “Come on, let’s go. Stick it in there.”

“Gladly,” he said, returning his hands to her hair, this time with no laughing between them. His smile faded. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling, remembering.