“Go east, Superman,” Austin snaps. “We’ll take the west. Meet behind the building.”
What I wouldn’t give for a weapon. Austin has a ceramic knife strapped to his forearm under his jacket, but he’d have to slit every throat in our path. The IPS would have us in custody in a heartbeat.
“Domina! Tell me where you are! I’m coming, baby! Just give mesomething!” Only silence answers me, and I follow Austin as he slams into a group of people all wearing “Cortez for President” t-shirts.
“Move your asses. Now!” he snarls. They’re so shocked, they part like the Sea of Galilee.
We burst out into a back alley, and it’s empty. The faint scent of exhaust lingers, but I don’t see Domina anywhere. I run to the north, check both sides of the street, and turn south.
Austin crouches down, his fingers brushing the pavement. “Fuck!” I skid to a stop. In his outstretched hand? Domina’s comms unit. She’d never remove it. She promised. And the damn things fit so well, there’s no way it would have fallen out.
Trevor races around the corner, his rifle in a long, black bag slung over his shoulder. “Where is she?”
“Gone.” My voice sounds strange with how loud my heartbeat pounds in my ears. “Someone took her.”
“Zephyr, get us a location on Domina’s tracker,” Austin says, his phone pressed to his ear. “Now!”
My comms unit beeps once as she breaks into our frequency. “It stopped transmitting less than a minute ago. A mile south of your current location. Before that, it was moving at approximately forty miles per hour. Sending coordinates to your phones now. What happened?”
“Get on the traffic cameras. Someone grabbed her. They came out the back door. Her earbud was in the alley. Whoever took her wasinsidethe hotel and we didn’t mark them as hostiles. I need names and faces. Now!”
I run to the south end of the alley. “Leo!” Trevor calls. “She’s too far away. If they got to Domina, they could have gotten to Cortez too. We need to find out if any of them are still inside.”
“I don’t give a fuck! Whoever’s behind thistookher, and God only knows what they’ll do to her!” My right ankle sends shooting pains up my calf, and I can only manage an uneven jog back. But I use my momentum and shove Trevor—hard. He hits a dumpster and goes down. The rifle bag clatters against the thick metal. I advance on him, but Austin grabs my arms and spins me around.
“Think, Leo. Whoever has Domina planned this. They had a vehicle. They found her comms unit. And her tracker. Which means they know about me. Maybe Trevor too. How many people does that leave? Ten? Fifteen? Cortez, Garcia, the assholes at the Ministry. Wewillfind her, but if Cortez dies, the entire country is fucked, and youknowshe wouldn’t want that.”
I struggle, a feral growl rumbling in my chest. Until I hear Domina’s words in my head.
“Manuel is an honorable man.”
“He will be good for Panama. Muñoz would take us back to the tyranny of Noriega.”
“This job…it changed my entire life, Leo. My words matter. Not only to Cortez, but to the people. I make a difference.”
The pain in my heart makes it hard to breathe. But I shake off Austin’s hold and slump against the building’s wall. “I love her.”
“No shit, Captain Obvious,” Trev says, rubbing his shoulder. “Next time, punch me instead.” He gets to his feet and brushes dirt from his black pants. “I don’t know what the fuck that puddle is, but I only missed it by two inches and it smells—”
Screams from the front of the hotel drown out his words, and we all tense. Racing back to the corner of the building, we stick close, Austin in the lead and Trev bringing up the rear.
Men and women pour from the building, their faces stricken, terrified, and panicked. A young boy falls, but no one helps him.
“Leo!” Austin shouts, but I’m already moving. The kid tries to get to his feet, but the crowd doesn’t see him—or doesn’t care—and he curls into a ball with his hands over his head.
I can get there. Another few seconds, and I can get there. “Fuckingmove!” A man stops less than a foot away from the boy. He’s big—football player big—and the brief moment it takes him to decide how to get as far away from me as he can gives me the opening I need.
Grabbing the boy’s arm, I haul him up. He can’t be more than twelve, and I let him hold onto my neck while I shoulder through the panicked crowd. “Where are your parents?”
“I don’t know!” he cries. Shit. I have to find Domina, but what the hell am I supposed to do with this terrified kid in my arms?
“Paulo! My God. Paulo!” a woman calls. The kid straightens, and I turn toward the sound. White hair, a cane…his grandmother? Thank fuck we’re at the edge of the throngs of people.
The woman reaches for him, but before I let him go, I ask, “This you, kid?”
He’s crying now. Sobbing, really, but manages to nod, so I set him on his feet. “Here you go, ma’am. What happened in there?”
“I do not know.” The older woman dabs at her cheeks with a handkerchief. “Vice President Cortez came out onto the balcony and waved to all of us. But then there was a bright flash and smoke and people started screaming. The doors…we could not all fit through…”
