Zara had been so furious that Breece had improvised, had added a bomb to the plan, on top of the gun.

They’d been meant to miss.

They’d been played.

And then Breece started laughing.

Because Zara – Barnes – might have meant to play them, but he hadn’t meant for Breece to set off that bomb in DC, or the one in Chicago.

Barnes sure hadn’t meant for Breece and his team to set off a bomb at Westwood Baptist in Houston this morning, assassinating Daniel Chandler – author of the Chandler Act – and the Reverend Josiah Shepherd.

The laughter kept coming. He’d eliminated two of the greatest enemies of the future this morning, human purist fascists, along with hundreds of their dittoheads. He’d set an example in front of the whole nation.

I pushed the button, he thought. Me! And this Maximilian Barnes has been funding me for years.

It was rich.

Faces flashed through Breece’s mind. Faces of men and women he’d known. PLF operatives that had been caught, killed, imprisoned.

He stopped laughing.

Barnes. Barnes had set those men and women up.

More faces. The assassins who’d tried to kill him outside Austin. Who’d found him in the cemetery. Who Breece had killed. They’d begged for their lives.

Barnes had sent them too.

Breece’s face turned grim.

He reached for his slate to scan the documents again, looking for details he could use. The Cause would be in chaos. And Barnes… Barnes had a lot to answer for.

A message was flashing on his slate.

] I can get you to Maximilian Barnes.

Breece froze. Fear went up his spine. He dropped the slate, his head turning, his eyes scanning the room. The gun was hidden in his bag, there in the closet.

He turned back, to wipe the slate, and another message flashed on its screen. From an app he didn’t have installed.

] I’m not your enemy. If I were, you’d be dead.

Breece stared at the thing. He should run. Wipe the data, grab the gun, grab the go-bag, sanitize the room, burn this identity, tell his team to do the same.

But Barnes…

More messages flashed on the screen.

] You’re in room 418 of the Roadside Express in Quincy, MA.

] That’s just south of Boston. You checked in yesterday at 3.07pm.

Breece’s heart lurched.

] Your real name is Andrew Marcum.

His stomach rose up.

] If I was law enforcement, there would be police at your door.

It could all be a trick, Breece thought. A delaying tactic, while forces moved in to take him.

] I can get you to Barnes. But there isn’t much time. It must be now.

He reached forward, touched a panel on the slate, and a keyboard snicked out and into place, the face of the slate coming up at an angle, forming a terminal.

>> Who are you?