“Hard to tell. He hasn’t left the way he came, but last time stamp I’ve got on him is from over an hour ago, and the cameras aren’t mapped, so I haven’t been able to locate all the exits yet.”

“What’s the war room got on it?”

She dragged her gaze from the screen to his face and let silence do the talking.

“Goddammit,” he said.

He swung his feet to the floor. “See if you can get a trace on him, figure out if he’s still in the building and, if not, what exit he took and when.”

She said, “Nick.”

He said, “Yeah, I know. Just do what you can.”

“Nick.”

He stopped. “Look, due diligence, okay? If you can’t ping him within the next few minutes, package it. This is their fuckup. They need to fix it.”

She clicked over to the array of camera feeds.

If target was still in the hotel, then they had a very narrow window of opportunity to find him, and she didn’t have the speed, access, or manpower to make meaningful use of that time. But by the time she got it to the war room, he might already be gone.

Nick headed toward the door, stopped, and said, “Hey.”

She glanced up.

“You did good work,” he said. “Make sure your name’s attached.”

Her fingers paused. Few people realized how hard it was to be recognized for the work she did. Where the best of them wouldn’t try to steal credit, Nick went out of his way to ensure bias didn’t mistakenly misappropriate to him what belonged to her. That he was still conscious of it while running under pressure made her love him that much more, but Liv Wilson would be among the first to get anything she sent, and there was always a chance someone higher up the food chain would see it, and to anyone who truly looked—or cared—the details highlighted war-room incompetence, or worse.

Both made Liv look bad, and Liv already despised her.

The team didn’t need that kind of poison.

She said, “Maybe not this time.”

Nick understood. He might not agree, but he understood.

He circled a finger and to Juan said, “Get your gear. Let’s go.”

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5

JACK

THE AISLE STRETCHED INTO FOREVER, ROW AFTER ROW OF HEADS AND seatbacks beneath recessed lights, passenger after passenger boarded and seated but no sign at all of the passenger. She should have been here first. That was the plan. But three minutes to scheduled departure and she was God only knew where, while he was stuck in this metal tube, with no way to make contact and no line of sight.

He shoved earbuds into his ears and cranked up the volume.

A cabin attendant moved down the aisle, shutting luggage compartments.

Inside his head, information blocks shifted and reordered.