Baker and his men would dispose of these three and bury their bodies far from here. And not long after today—as soon as tomorrow, perhaps—Kemel was sure that Iswid Nahr would pay Baker in his own currency.

Thomas Clayton would have to go as well, Kemel suspected.

No loose ends.

“It’s all here,” Thomas Clayton said, looking up from an open filing cabinet drawer. “Everything you need to know to broadcast power. And it uses solar energy. You owe me big time. I think I underpriced our deal.”

“You should feel lucky you’re getting a dime,” his sister said.

Thomas looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Oh, really?” he replied, drawing out the words.

“The minute you walked through that door,” she said, “you went from asset to liability. They don’t need you anymore. You’ve become as disposable as the rest of us.”

“No,” he said, turning Kemel’s way. “We’ve got a deal, right, Kemel?”

Kemel held his gaze and tried his best to give nothing away. He found Thomas Clayton a reprehensible human being, but did not want to deal with him now. Let Iswid Nahr handle him.

“Of course. And we will honor our word.”

But some hint of what the future held must have seeped into his eyes, for Thomas’s expression hardened.

“I was afraid of that,” he said, reaching into his pocket.

He withdrew a pistol and pointed it at Kemel.

6.

6.

Tommy-boy, Jack thought as he saw the little .32 appear, you’re a class-A jerk, but I love you.

All eyes—Alicia’s, Kemel’s, Baker’s, and his men’s—were on Thomas now.

Almost all…

Jack glanced at Yoshio and found him looking his way. A quick lift of one of his eyebrows told Jack that he knew it too: This just might be their chance… the only one they’d get.

“That is not necessary, Thomas,” Kemel said.

“Yeah,” Baker told him. “Put that away before you hurt yourself… or someone hurts you.”

Jack had gathered from talk between their captors that Baker’s two men were Kenny—the redhead—and Barlowe—the dark-haired guy with the big nose.

“No,” Thomas said. His voice wavered as much as the muzzle of the .32, but the little weapon remained trained on Kemel, who was only half a dozen feet away. Jack doubted even Thomas could miss at that range. “I think it’s very necessary. I half suspected that I might get the short end of the stick once we found this. But that’s not going to happen.”