“I love you too. Wait a second…we’ve got the image.” Cam downloaded the computer-adapted image of a man with Jennifer Pattee’s hair and eye color, similar eye shape, and general facial structure. She didn’t recognize him. “Sending through to your phone now.”

Blair said, “You don’t have much time, do you?”

“No. Get ready. Stark will know when it’s time.”

“Cam,” Blair said, “don’t get hurt.”

“I’ll see you soon.”

*

“You need to put this on, Ms. Powell,” Stark said, holding out chest armor.

“I’m not leaving unless my father leaves,” Blair said, “and we get everyone off this car.”

Stark straightened, her face taking on that calm, intense expression Blair had seen a thousand times before. At first glance, Stark always impressed people as being too young for the job. Too green, too pliable. They didn’t know her well at all. Blair braced for the upcoming argument.

“Ms. Powell,” Stark said without raising her voice, “if and when the word comes to evacuate, you will be evacuated.” She glanced at Brock. “Pick her up and carry her if you have to.”

“Roger that, Chief.”

“Paula,” Blair said threateningly.

“This is not a drill,” Stark said. “And it’s not negotiable.”

Blair bit back a retort. She was beaten and she knew it. She glanced at Vivian. “They’re not going to abandon you. It’s just—”

“It doesn’t matter.” Viv met Blair’s gaze, looking as calm and steady as Stark. “I’m not leaving here without Dusty.”

“We’re not leaving anyone behind,” Stark said to Viv. “As soon as Ms. Powell is evacuated, we’ll have other agents in here to cover you and Nash.”

“Maybe it won’t come to that,” Blair said when her phone signaled and incoming message. She held out her phone to Vivian. “Do you know this man?”

Viv took the phone, her brow furrowed. “Should I?”

“Cam thinks this man is part of the attack, and she needs to find him.”

“She thinks he’s on the train?” Viv asked. “But why would I know him?”

“He might be in the press car.”

“You’re not saying he’s one of us?” Viv stared at the image. She didn’t know him. “He could be one of half a dozen guys. Is there anything else she knows about him?”

Blair shook her head. “They think whoever is behind the attack on the train is a woman, and this man is probably her brother.”

Viv shook her head, unable to make sense of the information. “How can it be? Every one of us is vetted and background checked.”

“Backgrounds can be fabricated. Some members of sleeper cells are undercover for decades.”

Viv worked to absorb the news. She understood the idea of a sleeper cell in theory, but trying to imagine that someone she knew, someone she talked to on a daily basis…her mind shied away from the reality. She thought back over the faces of the people she greeted in the morning, said good night to long after the sun had set, traveled with, ate with. She couldn’t put a face to an enemy. “I don’t know him.”

“Don’t look at it for a minute,” Blair said.

Viv turned the phone away, happy to oblige. She wanted to know him, if it meant possibly saving them all. But she couldn’t point a finger at an innocent man.

“Think about the last few days,” Blair said. “Has anyone seemed off to you—excessively nervous, maybe disappearing unaccountably, off their game in some way?”

“I don’t know,” Viv said, frustration a bitter taste in her throat. “We’re cooped up on a train and the only time we leave is to cover an event. I haven’t noticed anything.”

“Something you heard, then?”

“No! I—”

You know what security is like. We might as well be trying to breach the White House.

That couldn’t mean anything, could it?

“What is it?” Blair said.

“I’m not sure. Just something—probably nothing.”

“Look at the picture, Viv,” Blair said sharply. “Who is he?”

*

Cam’s com clicked and she switched to Stark’s frequency. “Tell me she’s refusing to go.”

“No, Commander,” Stark said. “Egret is perfectly cooperative.”

Cam marveled at Stark’s ability to lie with such absolute confidence. “What—”

“We might have an ID from the photo.”

“Do you have a name?”

“Gary Williams.”

“Stand by for evac.” Cam closed the link and signaled for body armor.

*

Jane dialed the president’s number for the last time.

“In three minutes, I’ll detonate the second drone. It will take out your command center and half a dozen other cars.”

“You never told me your name,” the president said.

“My name doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. Right now, though, I’d like you to fly the drones to the following coordinates.” The president calmly read out a series of numbers. “You’re to leave them there so we can defuse them.”

Jane laughed. “I’m afraid you aren’t giving the orders, Mr. Powell.”

“If you would look at the command car,” the president said quietly, “I think you’ll change your mind.”

Jane sighted through her rifle scope at the center of the train. Her drone sat atop it, and she could clearly see its payload. “What—?”

A tall, dark-haired woman and a man stepped down from the car into the snow. Robbie’s hands were cuffed in front of him. Ice stole through her blood. She knew the woman. Cameron Roberts. She’d held Roberts captive for twelve hours, and then Roberts had killed her father. She focused on the center of Roberts’s forehead.

“We have your brother,” the president said. “You can’t detonate that drone unless you want him to die with a lot of other innocent people.”

“We are prepared to die for the cause,” Jane said, but the words were acid in her mouth.

“No one has to die. Remove the drones and surrender. You and your family will be safe.”

Jane cut the connection. Lies. She didn’t need to hear his lies. If she killed Roberts right now, they’d still have Robbie. If she detonated the second drone, Robbie would die, but so would Roberts. Then the president would know she was not bluffing and she wouldn’t bargain. He would have to set Jennifer free. Robbie would die but Jennifer would live.

Her father’s words sounded loudly in her head.

We all must be prepared to sacrifice. Even those we love.

Robbie stared up toward the hillside, his eyes searching for her. He couldn’t possibly see her from that distance, but she felt as if he did. Could she trade Jennifer for him?

A brother for a sister? She had only seconds to make the choice.

Chapter Twenty-eight

“Go, go, go!” Stark shouted.

The door at the rear of the car slid open and a blast of icy wind struck Blair in the face. Tears welled in her eyes, blinding her for an instant. A hand gripped her jacket in the center of her back, half guiding, half propelling her forward. She focused on the ground a few feet below and jumped down from the platform into knee-deep snow. Her body was instantly numb. Brock charged ahead, forging a path, and she followed him on autopilot, thinking of nothing except placing one foot in front of the other. The body armor encasing her chest was a lead fist constricting her heart. Was Cam somewhere close by, safe? Or on her way to face another madman?

The helicopter emerged from the thick soup of fog, a prehistoric beast rising out of the underworld. The rotors kicked up sheets of swirling ice, and she stumbled forward with one arm shielding her face. The side doors slid open and figures in armor, bristling with weapons, appeared in the doorway. Then they were reaching down and she up to them. Her feet left the ground, and her body flew the few yards into the helicopter. When she got her balance on the ice-slick floor, she wiped moisture from her eyes and peered around frantically. The ball of terror in her midsection loosened a fraction. Her father was beside her. “Where is everyone else? Dad, where is Luce?”

“There,” he shouted, and she looked where he pointed.

Two agents lifted Luce into the helicopter as the floor tilted and the helicopter rose. Blair gripped Stark’s arm for balance and leaned forward into the open doorway. The train rapidly grew smaller as they picked up speed. The drones perched atop the train cars, the one she’d been in and another one a few cars down, looking like primeval predators from a science fiction movie. Her heart seized. She braced for the explosion, the fireball erupting, the train engulfed in flames. The end of her world.

“It’s going to be all right,” her father shouted, his arm coming around her shoulders. His words were nearly lost in the whir of the rotors and the clatter of the engines.

The door rolled shut and she pulled away, needing to see out the small portholes, unable to breathe, unable to think of anything except Cam. And so many others. The train looked like an abandoned toy in a sea of white.

And then they were over the top of a mountain and the train disappeared. She kept watching, waiting for the flare of red to rise above the purple crests. Sensation returned to her fingers and toes, and her mind started working again.

“What about the others?” she shouted to Stark. “What’s happening on the train?”

“No word yet,” Stark said.

Frustration choked her. She was more a captive here than when she’d been trapped in the train car with a bomb over her head. She knew she was supposed to be safe now, but all she wanted was to escape. She recognized the feeling, she’d had it all her life. But she knew better now. She took a deep breath, searched for what she could do until she had word from Cam.

Lucinda sat on a jump seat, her arms wrapped around her torso, her face pale but composed. Her father was huddled with Evyn Daniels, who had a headset pressed to one ear. Evyn was relaying something to the president that Blair, isolated in a roaring tunnel of silence, couldn’t hear. She crouched next to Lucinda and took her hand.