Since I could see the control room upstairs, the man in black could probably see me, if he looked up from his device. I craned my neck and saw two cameras in the corners, tracing an arc across the room.

A twittering and squeaking came from the far end of the room. When I shone my flash, red eyes reflected back at me. Cages full of rats. This time I couldn’t fight the wave of nausea; I threw up the yogurt I’d eaten earlier.

It was then, bent over and panting, that I saw Cady Perec curled on the floor near the canisters. I shuffled to her, quickly, like a snail. Knelt down. She was alive, her breath coming in shallow puffs.

I shone my flash over her and saw the trailing wires to the darts in her body, one in the back, one in the shoulder, two in the hips. I pulled them out, and she whimpered, her eyes fluttering open. She looked at me in terror and tried to move away.

“Cady, it’s V.I. Warshawski. We’re inside the missile silo. We need to find a way out.”

“V.I.? Vic?” She seized my arms in a fierce, convulsive grasp and burst into tears. “You found me. Thank God!”

“I was tased. Just like you. Where’s Bernie?”

“I don’t know.” Her teeth were chattering. “We tried to sneak into the field, but I was wrong. The place I used to use—everything was like you said, covered in alarms. Soldiers showed up, it was like they were waiting for us. Bernie, when I screamed, she lay flat in a furrow. I don’t know where she is now.”

I had to hope Bernie had run to safety. She was small enough that she could have slipped away while men in black were torturing Cady. I hoped. I begged.

Even if Bernie summoned help, we couldn’t count on its arriving—Baggetto would block any military response. Sheriff Gisborne would keep the local cops at bay. Cady and I had to save ourselves.

Bram Roswell and his band of patriots thought we would die in here, in the lab where they were growing pneumonic plague. They thought we would contract the disease. They imagined us choking to death. Then they could bury us in the experimental field.

“We have to find a way out of here.” I pulled Cady upright and propped her against a cabinet door. “We cannot sit around feeling sorry for ourselves while we wait to die.”

“I should have listened to you,” Cady whispered. “When they brought me down here, they kept asking me insane questions about a movie the colonel wants to watch. It didn’t make any sense. All the chemicals down here have made them crazy.