Danny looked at Eddie.
Eddie looked at me.
Then something passed between them.
“The jamming’s stopped,” Eddie said quietly. “That means the operation’s winding down. If Condor made it to extraction, Bisch will have him. If he didn’t . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
He didn’t have to.
“We go back to the farmhouse,” Eddie said. “We regroup and find out what happened. Going in blind won’t help anyone.”
I wanted to scream at him.
I wanted to grab the wheel and force Danny to turn around.
I wanted to tear through the streets of Bern until I found Thomas, until I knew he was alive, until I could see him and touch him and know that another gunshot hadn’t—
But Eddie was right. Damn it. I knew he was right.
“Farmhouse, go,” I said.
The words shredded the last of my strength.
The farmhouse was dark when we arrived. There were no lights in the windows and no cars in the drive. For one terrible moment, I thought everyone was gone.
Had the Baroness been captured again?
Had she been killed?
Had our whole operation burned to the ground?
Then the front door opened, and the Baroness stepped out.
“Inside,” she said. “Quickly.”
We hurried through the door.
The kitchen was lit by candles. The power was out here, too. The Order’s sabotage reached even to our remote farmhouse.
The CIA woman and Marcus were already there, spreading photographs across the kitchen table. Bisch stood nearby, his shotgun cradled in his arms.
Thomas was nowhere.
“Where is he?” I demanded. “Where’s Condor?”
The Baroness turned to face me.
In the candlelight, her face was carved with shadows, her eyes unreadable.
“We do not know,” she said.
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Someone has to—”
Her voice was steady, but I saw her hands trembling. Those ruined, bandaged hands had already given so much. “We are trying to raise him on the emergency frequency. So far, nothing.”
Nothing.
