The van was close quarters, but Grigor moved with fluid, unconstrained ease. He was unusually tall and thin, his limbs disproportionately long, giving him an odd, stretched-out appearance—like he was made of soft putty or taffy instead of meat and bones. As a boy at the Russian detdom, the other orphans had joked that if he stood sideways, he disappeared.

He returned to the door, two quick steps, flattening his back against the wall alongside it.

A moment later Friedman reached the van. Grigor waited for him to swipe his finger under the biolock scanner, listened for the click of the dead bolt and brought the Five-seveN up in his clenched fingers.

He was stronger than his rubbery appearance suggested. As the door swung open and the project manager stepped inside, he grabbed the man’s arm above the elbow and flung him toward the Gasmizer station. Friedman stumbled toward the dead woman but managed to catch his balance before crashing into her body.

He spun around toward Grigor.

“Gelfland?” he blurted. His expression was quizzical.

Grigor used up two more bullets, and the project manager crumpled lifelessly to the floor, his forehead a red smear. Then he kicked the door shut behind him and mouthed a simple order in Southwestern Mandarin. The mild Sha County inflection was a brushstroke that would have delighted his Pinnacle instructors. Old Anna in particular.

“Ji. Kin leh.”

“Si.”

He slid over to the sat-control station, shoved the man slumped over the console to the floor and took his seat, holstering the pistol under his windbreaker. He’d familiarized himself with its gas distribution panel over the past few months and was able to reset its critical life-support values in seconds.

Grigor was looking over the gauges when he heard the rat-a-tat of automatic gunfire outside the van. There were multiple bursts, then a pause. Then more short bursts.

He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to go.

He rose from the chair, stepped over and around the bodies on the floor and went out onto the deck, turning quickly toward the helm of the massive ship.

Zak knew he was in serious trouble.

There should have been an alert. It was supposed to be automatic. A series of urgent beeps in his earpiece, simultaneous warning messages on the HUD. But it didn’t happen. The cascade of system failures was so rapid it felt like everything shut down at once. He was suddenly cut off from his life support, the bell and the dive-control crew.