“Yes, Madame President,” Barbara told her, “but everything fits: what we’ve seen in Talas, and the dimension through which the Highwayman travels. It’s no worse a supposition than killing Tolenka or reducing Talas to radioactive rubble will also solve the problem. And if we fail…” Barbara shrugged. “Then the other option is still on the table. At least let us try.”

“Bruckner is in St. Gilles, serving out his sentence,” Jayewardene said. “We would have to contact the authorities in Brussels and work with them in order to release him.”

“Did you not hear what we’ve been saying?” Ray spat. “We don’t have time to waste.”

“There are protocols, rules, and legalities we still have to follow, Director Ray,” Jayewardene responded.

“Then do that, Mr. Secretary-General,” Barbara told him. “Now.”

Jayewardene’s solemn gaze seemed to traverse the screen in front of him, looking at each of them. “President Putin, President van Rennsaeler, President Karimov, General Ruez? Are we in agreement here?”

“Twenty-four hours,” Putin said immediately. “No more. And we need Committee aces to help defend Baikonur.”

“Done,” Barbara told him.

The others murmured agreement. Putin’s screen went to black; the others quickly followed. “I will contact Brussels now,” Jayewardene said before he broke contact. “I will do my best. You will have to do yours, Ms. Baden.” He said the last sentence with a strange emphasis, and Barbara nodded to him. With that, his screen flickered and went dark. The only sound in the room was the hum of the fans.

“They’ll never get it fucking done in time,” Ray said to Barbara. “Bureaucracies are like old dogs; they don’t like being pushed, and they bite when you do.”

Barbara carefully put her power around the two of them before she answered, suspecting that the room might have live microphones; if so, they would hear only gibberish.

“Jayewardene knows that,” Barbara told Ray. “We’ll give him eight hours. No more. And we’ll make our own plans based on him not getting Bruckner released. If he hasn’t given us Bruckner by tonight, we’ll get him ourselves.”

Sunday

SUNDAY

IT TOOK SEVEN TRIES to get a portal into the cash register. Even when she was looking right at the damn thing from across the aisle, pretending to browse a rack of ugly-ass souvenir T-shirts intended for tourists with worse taste than a colorblind five-year-old with a kawaii fixation. Space refused to twist and fold to her whims like it used to. It used to be so easy. Now creating a pair of openings in space felt like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. That she eventually succeeded offered little consolation. What was the point? Soon enough the money would be worthless, and there’d be nowhere to spend it. But she was bored and scared and didn’t know what else to do. Anything was better than sitting around with nothing but her own thoughts for company.