The lead SUV brakes violently.
Tires screaming across the pavement.
The three vehicles skid to a stop.
For a moment—
Everything goes quiet.
Helicopter blades spinning behind us.
Golden Team surrounding the highway.
Weapons raised.
The doors of the lead SUV slowly open.
A tall man steps out.
Calm.
Unhurried.
Like he expected this.
Wren stiffens beside me.
“That’s him.”
The Architect.
He studies all of us for a moment.
Then smiles faintly.
“Well,” he says.
“This is inconvenient.”
The countdown timer flashes on Wren’s screen.
0:58:02
Less than an hour.
And the man who could control the West Coast—
Is standing twenty feet away.
41
The Architect
The rotor blades slow behind Boone Grant’s helicopter.
The desert wind moves across the empty freeway.
Weapons are pointed at him from three directions.
