Between the van and George’s bike, we could easily take the five surviving members of the team. But there was no way we’d be able to take the dogs.

“I need a thumb drive,” I said.

Mahir stared at me. “Do you mean to tell me,” he said, in a measured tone, “that you just yelled like there was some sort of emergency on—when there is an actual emergency on, no less, which means we’re all a trifle jumpy—because you needed a thumb drive?”

“Sort of, yeah.” I held out my hand. “Got one?”

“I always thought the stories my staff told about you being impossible to work with were exaggerated, you know.” Mahir dug a hand into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive, which he slapped down on my palm. “This isn’t the time to be acting the bastard, Shaun.”

“I know.” I plucked a sheet of paper from the printer and held it out to him. “Here’s the latest from the lab of Dr. Abbey, crazy-ass scientist who knows more about the structure of Kellis-Amberlee than anybody else I’ve ever met. Just in case you needed a few more things to keep you awake at night.”

Mahir took the paper wordlessly and started to read. I took advantage of the lull and uncapped the thumb drive, plugging it into an open USB port. It checked out clean, so I started downloading Dr. Abbey’s embedded file for transfer. We’d need a way to get the information to the GPS when the time came.

That takes care of one GPS, said George. Are you leaving the bike?

“I’ll follow the van,” I replied, disengaging the thumb drive. It was another cold equation, and one that I liked just as little as I’d liked the first one. The more times we copied the information, the higher the odds were that someone could get hold of it. The van would be better armed and better-equipped to get away if something went wrong. The only person on the bike would be me, and I…

I wasn’t quite at the end of my usefulness, but with the way I’d been slipping, I wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to be true. If only one vehicle could reach Dr. Abbey’s safely, it wasn’t going to be mine. I was oddly okay with that.

That made one of us. Shaun, you’d better not be thinking what I think you’re thinking.

“Or what? You’ll haunt me?” I chuckled. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.”