Her eyes darted to the back door of the shop. If she could make it inside, get to a phone fast enough, she’d at least have a chance to call for help. The police, her father’s security people . . .

It was her only option.

“Viv!” she shouted. “Come on!”

Julia hurled herself at the door, tore it open, and ran into the shop, Viv sprinting after her, following her inside a half second before she slammed and locked it behind her. She passed through the storage and orientation rooms to the rear of the counter, lunged for the phone by the cash register, snatched it up . . . then suddenly felt every ounce of blood in her veins drain toward the floor.

There was no dial tone. No sound in the receiver. Nothing but the flat, crushing silence of a dead line.

All at once Julia remembered seeing the workers, the men who’d been posing as workers, high up on the utility poles as she’d driven in from the road a little while ago.

The telephone wires, she thought.

Whoever they were, they had cut the wires.

She stood for the briefest of moments, her breath coming in broken gasps, Viv pressing against her leg in the cramped area behind the storefront counter. Then she heard a loud thump outside the storage room, another, and knew her pursuers were trying to break their way in through the door. One chance left, and not much time. She tossed down the receiver and grabbed her purse off the counter, snapping open its clasp, reaching inside.

At the rear of the shop, a crackle of automatic gunfire, then the sound of the back door bursting open. Steel or not, the bullets would have destroyed the simple cylinder lock in its knob.

She groped in the purse for her cellular phone, pulled it out, flipped open its earpiece. There were footsteps behind her now, hurrying through the storeroom. Only seconds left. Julia’s heart racing, she fingered the cellular’s ON button, listened to the inane electronic theme that sounded when it was powering up, waited with maddening helplessness for the little smiley face welcome image to pop up on the LCD screen—

She had enough time to see the figure of a tall, broad man appear outside the storefront entrance, just enough to note his utility worker’s uniform through its glass pane before the door exploded inward with a loud crash, the little clutch of bells above it jangling wildly, its wood frame fracturing, splintering apart as something stormed into the shop ahead of the man, an animal, a huge black-pelted dog, hurtling forward at his shouted instruction, coming straight at her, all fur and teeth.

That was when Viv leaped out from behind the counter.

Kuhl had kept his stubby MP5 subsonic extended as he kicked in the rescue center’s door, ordering Lido forward with the German commands demonstrated by Anagkazo.