He was on a cot, under a blanket. His clothes were missing. He could feel a bandage around his abdomen. He was groggy and half numb.

Seated next to him, in an old-fashioned rocking chair, was an older man in boots and jeans and a checked shirt. His hair was damp, like he’d been out in the rain. An ancient-looking shotgun rested across the man’s knees.

“Where?” Rangan tried to speak. It came out weakly. His head ached. His mouth felt filled with cotton balls.

“You’re at my farm,” the man said. “My wife’s gettin’ ya some soup. I’m Earl Miller, friend of Father Levi’s.”

Rangan cleared his throat, tried to clear his head.

“Thank you, Mr Miller. The risk you’re taking…”

Earl waved that away.

“You took a risk, son,” he said. “Me? Those bastards took my grandson. This ain’t no risk at all.”

“So what now?” Rangan asked.

Earl Miller chuckled. “Now, you rest up. You got a bullet in your side, at least one broken rib, some burns you’re gonna feel when the pills wear off. We’ll hide ya here long as we need to, heal ya up. Then we’ll get ya out. And after that we’re gonna give these baby-stealin’ sons-a-bitches hell.”

Feng let the acceleration push him back into the co-pilot’s seat as the executive jet’s front wheels lifted off Shiva’s private airstrip. His left arm dangled uselessly in an improvised sling, sending up a deep aching pain. He was more qualified to fly this plane than Sam, but she had the advantage of two functional arms. He consigned himself to navigation, and to understanding and activating the defensive systems Shiva had installed in this jet.

Behind them, in the passenger compartment, Feng could feel the children. Twenty-five of them, their minds linked by Nexus, frightened, confused, crammed into a Falcon 9X meant to transport a dozen adults. They were buckled in two to a seat where possible. More crouched on the floor in the aisles, clutching flotation jackets and blankets for some rudimentary shock protection.

If anything went wrong…

Feng could feel Kade back there as well, in pain, bleeding internally from the punishment he’d suffered, his skin freshly burnt from Nakamura’s attempt to kill him, Shiva Prasad’s blood still crusting his face. Kade was back there coughing up blood, in pain, angry at Sam’s assassination of Prasad, in shock and horror from the bombing in Houston, from what it promised for the future. Yet he was suppressing that pain, suppressing his own raw emotions, exuding calm and peace, trying to keep the children’s terror under control.

He was acting like a soldier.