Dave might as well have been a statue. He was standing frozen, eyes gone wide in a suddenly pale face. My question startled him back into the moment. He blinked at me twice, shook his head, and whipped his PDA out of his pocket, fingers shaking as he tapped the screen.

“We should be moving,” said Becks.

“We should be waiting,” I replied.

“We should be praying,” said Dave, glancing up. “This block has been declared a loss.”

Alaric closed his eyes. Becks started swearing steadily in a mixture of English, French, and what sounded like German. Even George got into the action, uttering some choice oaths at the back of my head. Only Kelly didn’t seem to share the group’s sudden distress. Sweet ignorance.

“Meaning what?” she asked. “Why are we stopping?”

“Meaning they salt the ashes,” said Becks, before starting to swear again.

Dave swallowed, squaring his shoulders as he looked at me. “Boss…”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“There’s got to be another option.”

There isn’t, said George, quietly. You know that. You have to let him.

“I can delay the lockdown. Not forever, but long enough.”

I shook my head. “No. There’s got to be—”

“There’s not,” said Alaric. I turned toward him, not quite fast enough to miss the mixture of terror and relief washing over Dave’s face. Alaric had pulled off his goggles, presumably so we could see his eyes. He was looking at me with something close to pity in his expression. “The computers in the apartment are wired into the building’s security systems. They can’t be controlled remotely, but they work just fine if you’re tapped directly into the cable. He can do it. But only if he does it from up there.”

“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?” I demanded. “You’re asking me to let him kill himself.”

“I’m asking you to let me do my job.” Dave’s voice was quiet, almost serene. “I didn’t become an Irwin because I wanted to live a long and happy life, boss. I sure as shit didn’t stay with this site because I thought it was going to be a cushy job. The math’s pretty simple. It’s me or it’s everybody. Pick one.”

“Can’t someone else—”

“Unless you’re planning to bring Buffy back from the de, no.”

My hand clenched into a fist. I forced myself to lower it, gritting my teeth all the way. “You’re trying to piss me off,” I accused.

“Yeah, I am,” Dave agreed. The air-horn blasts were getting louder and closer together, breaking up our conversation like gunshots. “Keep fighting me, and we all die here.” And then, the killing blow: “You’ll never find out who killed your sister.”