If I chose Erin, I’d have to leave the team: there was no way I’d be able to stay with JD hating me. Even if I could handle no JD and no Stormfinch, what about the impact on Erin? JD wouldn’t want to visit us, wouldn’t ever sit down to dinner with her again because I’d be there. Erin would lose her brother. And what about JD? Without me or Erin around, he might slip back into that deep darkness, and this time he might never come out.

So I had to choose JD. I had to just get this mission done and get everyone home safe. Then Erin could go back to Vegas and I—

My knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. I could do what, exactly? Tequila shots and threesomes? That just seemed empty: colorful and fun but there was nothing to it. A cotton candy life. Erin was real.

The coordinates were right on the other side of Berlin and with city center traffic, the sun was coming up before we got there. But at last, the GPS said something in German and I checked the screen. “Okay, we’re close. Looks like it’s in that park, on the left, maybe a hundred feet in.”

I slowed down to a crawl as we passed. The park was thickly covered in snow and it was still coming down, but that hadn’t stopped the workers. The area was cordoned off with barricades and a construction crew of at least twenty were using pneumatic drills and pickaxes on the ground. Watching them were a handful of guys in black combat gear and one man in a suit: I recognized Becker’s silver hair. Luckily, the Mercedes had blacked-out windows so he couldn’t see us.

The ground was littered with abandoned holes. “They must have been digging for days,” said Gabriel. “Ever since Becker bought the file.”

“And they’re still digging,” said Erin. “So they haven’t found it yet.”

There was still hope. As soon as we were out of sight, I pulled over, then turned around to the others. “How could they not find it yet?” I asked, confused. “They’ve got the coordinates.”

Erin was deep in thought. “They were using pneumatic drills,” she said.

“Ground’s frozen,” said Gabriel.

Erin turned to him. “But the whole point of the plan was that the general could dig up the bomb quickly and use it,” said Erin. “It doesn’t make sense to bury it, knowing the ground freezes here. What if he needed it in winter?”

“We’ve been assuming the bomb was buried,” I said slowly. “What if the general hid it, instead?”

“Where?” asked Yuri. “Is nothing here.”

He was right: the park was just open space. There was nowhere to hide anything.