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Chloe pulled her hand back for another shot, this time closing it into a fist.

“Wait! Wait!” the woman pleaded. “He talked to someone on the phone. A Director…um…Johnson, I think. Yeah, that was it. Director Johnson.”

That jibed with the phone call Harden had fielded.

“How many more men are coming?” he asked.

“Commander Vintner never said anything about more men.”

“Vintner? He was the one in charge?”

“Yes.” She hesitated. “He’s dead, isn’t he? The crash?”

Ash ignored her question and said, “Are you sure he didn’t mention anyone else?”

“He didn’t. I swear.”

Though he thought she was telling the truth, he questioned her some more, pushing hard, but her story didn’t change.

When he was done, they left Harden alone in control and took an elevator down. Sealy and the woman got off on four, where the main detention room had been set up.

Before the doors closed again, Ash said to Sealy, “If you’re feeling generous, you can have one of their nurses look at her, but I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

Ash and Chloe rode the car all the way down to level ten. Most of the others were still there, clearing away debris in case the tunnel would be needed.

Raising his voice, Ash asked, “Did anyone find a satellite phone?”

“I think I saw one over there,” Estella said, pointing across the area where dozens of items had been set side by side.

A sat phone lay between a Glock pistol and a closed pocketknife. It was a compact model that was nicked but otherwise undamaged.

Ash pushed the power button but nothing happened. He checked the battery, found that it had come loose, and clicked it back into place. The phone turned on.

He opened the outgoing call list. Right at the top was an entry labeled NB016.

He and Chloe exchanged looks.

“I’ll bet they’re wondering how things are going here,” she said.

“I’ll bet they are.”

__________

T
HEY GATHERED BACK
in
the control center. Present were Ash, Chloe, Sealy, Powell, Harden, Curtis, Tamara Costello, and a sore and annoyed Bobby Lion. Ash had also asked Robert and Estella to join them. They were the de facto leaders of the Isabella Island survivors who made up much of the force that now occupied Dream Sky.

Now that Harden understood how the Dream Sky communications system worked, he was able to use it to call Ward Mountain and pipe it through the control-room speakers.

“May I help you?” The voice that answered was understandably wary, since the call’s ID would be unknown to her.

“Crystal? It’s Ash.”

“Captain? Where are you?”

“Dream Sky.” Before she could ask anything else, he explained what he wanted.

“It’ll take a few minutes. Let me put you on hold.”

No one said anything as they waited, the room tense, expectant.

When the line connected again, it was Rachel’s voice they heard. “Captain Ash?”

From the echo, he could tell she was also using a speakerphone.

“Who’s with you?” he asked.

“Dr. Gardiner and Caleb Matthews are in the room, and we’ve got Pax patched in on a line from Los Angeles.”

“Morning, Captain,” Pax said, his connection a bit weaker than Ward Mountain’s.

“Pax, great to hear your voice,” Ash said. “How did it go out there?”

“Better than we’d hoped. I can tell you all about it later. The important question is, how did it go there?”

“We’ve neutralized the counterattack. Dream Sky’s still ours.”

“Any casualties?” Rachel asked.

“A few injured. One dead.”

“Who?”

“Gordon Blake.”

“Damn, he was a good man,” Pax said.

Rachel said, “Make sure you bring him home.”

“We will.”

“So, is Dream Sky really as important as you thought?” Pax asked.

“More so.” Ash told them what they’d found, and had Wicks add details of the base’s purpose when necessary.

“You have a
thousand
sedated people?” Dr. Gardiner asked, astonished.

“I think the number is actually twelve hundred,” Ash said. “That’s why I wanted you on the call, Doctor. We need someone to oversee their revival. I can’t think of anyone better for the job than you.”

“That’s…going to be a massive job.”

“Bring as many people as you think you’ll need. There
is
medical staff here and some of them can probably be convinced to help, but they’ll need to be watched.”

“Of course,” Gardiner said.

“I’ll make sure he’s on his way within the hour,” Rachel added.

“Good,” Ash said. “So, tell us how the disruption effort went.”

“It’s still going,” Rachel told him. “So far our people have taken over about thirty-five survival stations and Project bases. More have been severely crippled, and even at those that received only modest damage we’ve seen Eden personnel abandoning their posts.”

“We experienced some of that here in L.A.,” Pax said. “A few tried to fight back but most either surrendered right away or ran for the hills.”

“You’ve taken the stadium?” Ash asked, surprised.

“Field needs a little work, but should be ready if the Dodgers ever get back together.”

“I haven’t told you the best news,” Rachel said. “Our friends in India have kidnapped Director Mahajan.” She described what Sanjay, Kusum, and Darshana had done. “There’s a plane picking them up in…less than ninety minutes. Once the rescue team’s sure Sanjay’s stabilized, it’ll fly him, his friends, and their hostage to our base in Dubai.”

Ash glanced at Chloe and raised an eyebrow, wanting to make sure she thought they should go ahead with the idea they’d discussed after finding the sat phone. He interpreted the look she gave him as,
Why is it even a question?

“Captain, are you there?” Rachel said.

“I’m here.” He paused, then said, “Rachel…everyone, we’ve already cut the Project’s legs off by taking Dream Sky and, from the sounds of it, we’ve severely crippled it elsewhere, too. If we stop here, we will be giving the leaders a chance to regroup. I think we need to finish this now. Today.”

“How do we do that?” Pax asked.

“By cutting off its head.”

The silence that followed was finally broken by Rachel. “I assume you have a plan?”

“I do.”

23

JAIPUR, INDIA

6:01 PM IST

K
USUM JERKED AWAKE.

“Sorry,” Darshana said. “I did not want to disturb you, but…”

She was standing beside Kusum, holding the satellite phone.

Kusum looked around, momentarily confused, and then realized she had fallen asleep in the chair next to Sanjay’s bed.

“What time is it?” she asked.

“Almost time for dinner.” Darshana held out the phone. “It’s the Americans.”

Kusum took it from her. “Hello?”

“Kusum, it’s Rachel Hamilton. How’s Sanjay doing?”

Kusum touched her husband’s brow. “He still has a fever but he’s resting.”

“Help should be there soon,” Rachel said. “He’ll be okay.”

“I hope you are right.”

A pause. “Kusum, I hope you can do something for me while you’re waiting.”

__________

D
IRECTOR MAHAJAN WAS
starting to believe it would have been better if he’d been left in the car. The room that was serving as his cell was just as hot, and though the toilets had probably not been used in weeks, they reeked of human waste. It didn’t help his disposition that his hands were tied to a pipe above his head, forcing him to sit uncomfortably against the wall.

The woman who had tied him up had checked on him three times but never once offered him any water or food. He had begged her the last time—actually begged—but she had left without a word.

For a while, he had assumed that NB551’s strike team would find his kidnappers and free him, but as the hours passed his confidence had wavered.

In his life as part of the directorate and one of the Project’s elite, he had thrived. He’d be the first to tell anyone he was a born leader and decision maker. But in situations he had no control over, he was not a strong man.

So when he heard the door open again, he couldn’t help pushing back against the wall, almost hoping the concrete would swallow him up. He thought his visitor was the same girl who’d tied him up, but as his eyes adjusted to the change in light, he realized it was the other one. The one who, with the man who’d been shot, had kidnapped him from the base.

She stopped a few feet away and squatted down in front of him. “I have a few things I would like you to tell me.”

“Water, please,” he said, his throat feeling as if it were coated in dust.

“You will answer my questions.”

“I am so thirsty. Please, I need water.”

 She stared at him for a moment before rising and walking out of the room. When she returned, she had a bottle of water in her hand. She crouched back down in the same spot and set the bottle beside her.

“Shall we begin?”

His gaze flicked to the bottle and then to her. “A drink?”

“If you cooperate, we can talk about this.” She rested a hand on the bottle. “If not…”

A long, sharp knife slid across the floor from somewhere beyond the door and stopped a few inches from the woman’s feet. She picked it up. “You are a fleshy man, Mr. Mahajan. Plenty of you to work with.”

Lip trembling, he said, “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you whatever I can.”

She smiled, but instead of asking him anything, she raised the phone he hadn’t realized she was holding in her other hand.

Into it she said, “He’s ready.” She listened for several seconds before moving the phone a few inches away and locking eyes with him. “Director Mahajan, tell me everything you know about NB016.”

24

RUTLAND, VERMONT

8:45 AM EST

I
NCLUDING ASH AND
Chloe, there were ten on the team. Six were Powell’s men—Omar Gamin, Sealy, Ramirez, Langenberg, Yates, and Washington. Wicks and Bobby made up the final two.

Tamara had protested Bobby’s inclusion. While he had said he was fine, she had argued that he hadn’t recovered from the blow to his head. Whatever his true condition, Ash needed Bobby’s expertise, so he’d made it clear to Tamara that her partner was going.

While Omar and Sealy headed out first to get things ready, the rest gathered equipment from Dream Sky’s stores, piled into two SUVs, and raced the twenty miles back to the airport outside Rutland where they’d left the helicopter. By the time they arrived, Omar and Sealy had already refueled the aircraft and begun warming up the engine.

Ash was sure Vintner and his men had arrived via helicopter, too. It would have been a nice bonus to take theirs, but he was afraid they’d waste valuable time looking for it.

On board the aircraft, he donned one of the intercom headsets.

“How we looking?” he asked.

“A couple more minutes and we can be wheels up,” Omar said.

“And the flight?”

“I checked the weather. There’s a storm moving in over the city, but no precipitation yet. It’ll probably be snowing before the end of the day. Right now, the ride should be fairly smooth. About sixty-five minutes, give or take.” He paused before adding, “We
could
use the clouds to our advantage and get in a little closer than you’ve planned.”

“We could, but I’d rather walk a little farther than tip them off.”

“Copy that.”

As promised, Omar lifted the helicopter into the air two minutes later and put them on a south-southwest course toward New York City.

NB016

“T
RY HIM AGAIN,”
Celeste said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Dalton replied. A moment later, she shook her head. “Still not going through.”

“Dammit!”

Celeste rubbed the bridge of her nose. Her headache was worse than ever, but thanks to some pills from the dispensary, at least she no longer felt like she was about to fall asleep.

“Keep trying,” she said.

They’d been attempting to reach Vintner for over an hour but kept getting an out-of-range message.

He
had
said it might take him a couple hours to rid the base of the intruders, so he was likely busy. Realizing that didn’t make the wait any easier, though.

A part of Celeste had begun to wish she’d never let Perez appoint her to the directorate. If she had known the full extent of the underlining chaos caused by the deaths of the original directorate and Perez’s subsequent disastrous reign, she would have run the other way. But no, she’d jumped in, and had even begun to maneuver things so that she’d be sole principal director when all was said and done.

She had no choice now but to ride it out and hope that by the end assaults, she could begin putting the pieces back together and steer the Project onto a stronger course.

“Anything?” she asked a few minutes later.

“Not yet, ma’am.”

NEW YORK CITY

9:47 AM EST

T
HEY APPROACHED NEW
York City from the west, staying out of radar range and keeping Manhattan’s high rises between them and Brooklyn, where NB016 was located. As they reached the island, Omar flew the helicopter a hundred feet above Canal Street, following it deep into the city before working his way over to Grand Street and then to FDR Drive.

“We could make it to the other side,” Omar said over the comm, pointing across the East River when they reached the beginning of the Williamsburg Bridge.

“Let’s not chance it,” Ash said.

“Yes, sir.”

As planned, Omar set the helicopter down in front of the bridge.

While the others geared up, Ash and Chloe walked out over the water.

“Here,” Ash said, handing her Vintner’s phone.

She turned it on, pressed the number for NB016, and put the phone to her ear, angling it so that Ash could listen in.