Page 101 of Until the End

“Yeah, I get that a lot.” Castle stowed his weapon in the bag and handed it to the kid.

The door closed and they were off.

Castle put his arm around Kit’s shoulders. “This is very cloak and dagger.”

“They’re just trying to protect their location. I’m sure you can relate. At least we’re not blindfolded and zip-tied.”

Although he understood their stringent protocol and caught Kit’s little quip, he said nothing. He was in full-on operator mode. With no visuals, he had to rely on sound to determine where they were headed. South. Two minutes. A turn west. Three minutes. The sound of an outdoor commuter train passing.

They came to a stop. A gate on rollers opened and they proceeded.

When Nim let them out, they were inside a small warehouse on the ground floor. They went to a freight elevator that had a metal accordion gate Nim had to close manually and rode up to the third floor, which opened onto a swanky apartment.

Apparently it paid to be a hacker.

Nim led them through a killer living space with luxe furniture, past a few geeky onlookers, and down a long hallway.

“That’s the Pwnie,” Kit whispered in awe, gesturing to a backlit glass display case.

Four My Little Pony statues were stacked in two rows on two shelves. Granted, they appeared to be made of solid gold and polished to a high gleam, but they were just expensive cutesy toys with pink and purple manes.

Castle clocked the surveillance cameras and wrangled down the intense look of scrutiny from his face.

“Please try to relax,” she said, low, “and lose the Judge Dredd persona you’ve got going.”

Guess he needed to wrangle a little harder.

Nim ushered them into a narrow room beyond a set of double doors but didn’t follow, closing the doors behind them.

The only thing inside the room was a brightly lit large container about half the size of a shipping container, with glass walls and a door at either end.

“What is that?” Castle asked.

“A Faraday cage. It’s designed to block any electromagnetic interference. No signals in or out means no Wi-Fi, no cells, no GPS. A free space that can’t be hacked.”

“They are paranoid.”

She smiled. “This isn’t paranoia. This is practical. We had one in our apartment. You just didn’t see it.”

Castle held the door open for her and they both stepped inside.

Seconds later, they were joined by a scrawny guy with curly hair and glasses. He wore a pullover sweater, jeans, and long, painted fingernails. “Where’s my Pwnie, bitch?”

“Hello to you too, Henry. It’s not as if I carry it around. Don’t worry, you’ll get it.”

Henry crossed his arms and tapped his nails on his lean bicep. “What do you want?”

“I’m trying to figure out who killed the Outliers.” She approached Henry slowly until they were both standing in the middle of the box. “They were hired by a man known as Bravo and asked to perform a test. Once they passed, they were offered—”

“Two million for two days of work,” Henry interrupted, finishing her sentence.

“So they did contact you. When?” Castle asked.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“He’s my bodyguard-slash-private investigator, trying to keep me alive and help me figure this out. Whoever killed the Outliers is still after me.”

“Damn you, Kit.” Henry wagged a finger in her face. “Trouble is following you, and you come to me? You’ve got one minute, then you’re out of here.”