I can’t believehe left.Rowan cupped her elbows in her hands, shivering slightly.
“You okay?”Mike Kenwood hunched over his console, a thin stoop-shouldered man whose talent of minor precognition made him valuable—or so Rowan had been told.“You should get some sleep.”
Rowan ignored that.“How long has it been?”she asked again, picking up her coffee cup.It was cold, and she grimaced.
“Eighteen hours.Radio silence for two and a half.It’ll be six before you should worry, Rowan.Why don’t you go get some sleep?”
Rowan shifted uncomfortably on the hard-backed chair.I couldn’t sleep.Not with Justin gone.Her heart flipped over.She was going to miss her classes the next day, and the hour at the track she’d planned to get in.And her next scheduled sparring class.She was gong to misseverything.
It didn’t matter.“So Morgan and Sheila were part of a team, and the team was caught by Sigma.”
“Fucking bastards,” Kenwood muttered, then cast her a blue-eyed glance.“Sorry.”
“Theyarebastards.”She stared at the screen.Green light touched his face, made their reflections into ghosts.
There were other “home controls” hunched over other screens, people hurrying back and forth with paper printouts.Someone brought coffee every twenty minutes.There were six “active” missions going, and a couple that hadn’t “gone critical” yet.
She was learning a whole new language.
The comm-unit crackled and Kenwood sat straight up, knocking two sheets of paper to the floor.
“Kenwood.”It was Henderson’s voice over the comm.“Channel count.”
“Delta five, two-zero-eight, stat,” Kenwood replied.“Clear.”
“We’re under heavy fire.You’ve got the location?”
“I do.You need another team?”
“Nope, we’ve got Del.Del, come in.”
“Just a minute.”His voice made Rowan jump.He sounded cool, clinical.She “reached” the way Kate had taught her, but didn’t feel him.He was a thousand miles away—the Sig installation was in the Midwest, far outside even her sensing range.Still, it was reflexive.And she seemed to catch a whisper of something if she strained.He was concentrating fiercely.“Got a little problem… There.What?”
“We’re under fire.What can you do?”
“Hang on.Yoshi, give me the five-point on this due west here, I’m nervous about it.”
Yoshi’s voice said, “I’m in.Four guards.Del, be careful.They’ve got a net.”
“Of course they’ve got a net, it’s SOP.Knock ‘em and give me a mark.”Fizz of static.
“Mark.”Yoshi didn’t sound upset.
“Oh,fuck,” Catherine suddenly snarled, “Zeke’s hit.He’s down.It’s bad, fucking?—”
“Calm down,” Delgado said.“I’m on my way.”
“Zeke’s hit.”Catherine sounded breathless, and very young.“He’s bleeding pretty bad.”
“Just be cool.Yoshi, move with me, man.”
“Right with you, Del.Watch your nine.There’s a couple of Sigs hiding out with guns.”
“I hear Andrews is in this complex,” Delgado said.
“No way, dude.He hates the cornfields.”Yoshi exhaled sharply.“Del, you’re walking into crossfire.”
“I know what I’m doing.Cath?”
