Page 79 of Conrad

No,definitelydangerous. Clearly not at all rattled by her close protection team showing up at a remote cabin in a blizzard.

“Yes, it did. We got into an accident.” No need to make them even more crazy with the suggestion that someone had tried to run them off the road. “But we’re fine. Conrad found us this cabin . . . Wait. How did you know?”

Franco gave her a look. “We are always monitoring your GPS. An alarm activated, indicating your vehicle had been damaged. Although, we were already on our way,” he said, sighing.

“Why?”

His mouth made a tight line. “Because someone broke into your house and set it on fire.”

And if she’d ever wondered if it was real, if Conrad was really on her team, if he might be playing a game . . . He walked over, pushed past Geoffrey, and pulled her into his arms. Held on tight, his big embrace enfolding her. And lowered his mouth to her ear. “Don’t be afraid, Pen. I’m right here. And I’m not going anywhere.”

* * *

As usual, the explosion hit Steinbeck’s chest, cut off his breath, pinned him to the bed even as it played out in his nightmares.

A lucid dream. One where he could scroll back, rewrite events. A technique that his counselor at Tripler had taught him.

So, yeah, he calmed his breathing, told himself that he could rewind, replay. Recast.

And maybe take another good look at what had gone wrong.

He scrolled back—way back, twenty-four hours—to the moment they’d sieged the embassy, taking it back from the Russian special-ops team that had locked down the ambassador and, most importantly, their cybertech asset, Luis Sousa, who’d been taken hostage.

Get in, liberate the hostage, get out—a simple mission with a not-so-simple operational plan. Step one, rig the consulate’s security alarm to trigger a false perimeter breach, drawing the guards into the yard. Step two, use the chaos to rappel from the roof, breach the rooms upstairs, and work their way to the consulate director’s office via the secure escape route built into the seven-story building.

Step three, escape with Luis and his cyberencryption program to the safe house.

His brain landed in the middle of the chaos, his team separated, John and him trapped in one of the back offices, pinned down at the?—

She appeared. Seemingly out of nowhere, but through a bookcase passage he hadn’t seen on the blueprints.

She rolled, came up with a handgun pointed at him. “Stand down. I’m here for him.” Short dark hair, dressed in canvas pants, a vest, dark hat, dark shirt—as if she might be part of her own commando team. The Minnie Mouse variety, because she stood maybe five-six, a hundred twenty pounds soaking wet, but clearly a team that included women who could handle themselves.

He nearly dropped her. Except she flashed an American patch from a velcroed pocket, and it stymied him enough to pause.

Then there were pops in the hallway and his chief, Trini, shouting at him to evac, and he met her eyes.

Green. Piercing, bold, focused. “Who are you?”

She wore a scrape on her chin, as if she’d encountered trouble.

“Call me Phoenix. Let’s go.” She gestured to the open door of the bookcase, then took off for it, holding the door open as he grabbed John by the collar and scurried the smaller man over to the opening.

“Where’d you come from?”

“I’ve been here for two days. Thanks for screwing up my mission?—”

He had nothing to say to that and followed her inside the tunnel.

The corridor trekked behind the walls of the building, cement-lined and dark. She flashed a light down the corridor, and he lit his own torch, and they flanked Luis as they descended two flights, then into the basement room with monitors and a steel door.

“Safe room,” she said, and he spotted his guys engaging with the Russian Cobras on three of the four monitors.

The other showed an empty yard outside a different embassy. “That’s the Brazilian Embassy. We’ll be safe there?—”

An explosion fuzzed out the picture, and even the Portuguese building shuddered.

Silence as dust shivered from the ceiling.

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