"Knowing they're alive and knowing where they are two different things," Kawan said.
"Then you'd better hope they value your lives enough to make contact," Mina replied. "Because if they don't..." She let the threat hang in the air.
Specs had been unusually quiet throughout the entire exchange. "The laptop," Specs said. "In my bag. It has a tracking protocol. We can use it to locate them."
Lark stared at her friend. What the hell was she doing? "Specs—" she started.
"It's okay," Specs said, meeting her eyes with a look that saidtrust me. “I’m not going to die sitting in this hellhole.”
Wes looked interested. "What kind of tracking protocol?"
"GPS beacon embedded in all our communication devices," Specs said. "If they're still using the equipment I gave them, I can find them."
"Show me," Mina ordered.
"I can't do it tied up like this," Specs pointed out.
Mina considered for a moment. "Cut her loose. But watch her."
Pulling out a tactical knife, Wes moved behind Specs' chair. "One wrong move, and your friend gets a bullet," he warned, sawing through the zip ties.
Specs rubbed her wrists after the plastic fell away, then reached for her laptop bag on the floor beside her chair. Lark stayed quiet, trying to figure out what her friend was planning.
"Thor," Kawan thundered. "We're going to need some room to work. Can you pull everyone back a bit?”
"Copy that," came the reply from outside.
Specs had her laptop open now, fingers flying across the keyboard with the kind of focused intensity Lark had seen a hundred times before. Whatever she was really doing, it wasn't what she was telling Wes and Mina.
"The system's coming online," she said. "But I need to access the base communication array to boost the signal."
"Can you do that from here?" Mina asked.
"If I can piggyback off the local cell towers, maybe." Specs continued typing. "There—I'm in."
The screen filled with what looked like a map overlay, several blinking dots scattered across it. But Lark could see the reflection in Specs' glasses—she was actually accessing something else entirely—some kind of communication protocol.
"Those are all our active devices," Specs explained. "The red ones are offline—those would be..." She paused, her voice catching slightly. "Those are Bretton and Torin. We assume they're dead. Radio silence since South America.”
"What about the others?" Wes demanded.
"Green dots are active. That big cluster there is us, here in this room. But see this one?" She pointed to a dot about twenty miles away. "That's moving. Bradford and Alvarez."
But as she pointed, Lark saw her hit a key sequence that looked nothing like tracking software. It looked like an emergency beacon.
Mina leaned in closer to look at the screen. It was exactly what Lark had been hoping for.
The moment Mina's attention shifted to the laptop, Lark threw her weight backward as hard as she could. The cheap chair couldn't handle the sudden stress—one of the rear legs snapped, sending her tumbling backward and throwing off Mina's aim.
"Now!" Lark yelled.
Jupiter rolled left, firing as he moved. His shots forced Wes to dive for cover behind the dresser.
Kawan vaulted over the bed, charging straight at Mina as she tried to reacquire her target.
Before he could reach her, the front window of the motel room exploded inward in a shower of glass and wood.
Three figures came through opening like avenging angels—Brick leading, followed by Pipe and Tonka, all moving with the fluid precision of men who'd done this a thousand times before.
