He pointed a finger at my chest like a gun. “If we get out of this,” he told me. “I want you off the team.”

I felt myself crumble. No! Not JD. Don’t take JD from me, please!

“JD,” said Erin, her eyes full of tears. “You can’t just—I’m not a kid anymore, I can make my own decisions.”

JD shook his head at her, fuming. In his eyes, she’d betrayed him, as well.

Gina stepped forward. “I hate to interrupt, but don’t we have more important things to think about? Like the fact we’re utterly screwed? Becker has the nuke and he’s going to sell it. We’ve got no way to clear our names.”

Erin hung her head. She obviously blamed herself for losing the nuke, even though she’d done it to save me. She must have been pushing it out of her mind but now it was hitting her: everyone but me could have been free and clear and on their way home, if she’d made a different decision. I walked over to her and put my hands on her shoulders, feeling JD’s eyes burning into me. “It’ll be okay,” I told her.

“I could have got the nuke on the train,” she whispered.

“If you had, I wouldn’t be standing here now,” I told her firmly. “We’ll figure something out.”

She shook her head. “It’s not just us, though,” she said. “Once Becker sells it, someone’s going to use it. They’re going to set it off, in some city.” Her voice cracked. ”That’s on me.”

I wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t have an answer to that. I knew it wasn’t her fault but I also knew that, when that nuke went off, she’d never, ever get over it. We all stood there, silent and helpless.

Then Erin suddenly straightened and she pushed out of my arms. “It has a key!” she said breathlessly. “The nuke has a key! A weird, circular one, I saw the keyhole when we opened the case!”

“Couldn’t Becker work around that?” asked Gabriel.

Erin shook her head. “No, the whole point of having a key is to stop someone setting it off who isn’t authorized. The mechanism will be built right into the heart of the thing. It’s useless without the key.”

“Well then Becker’ll be going after the key,” said Bradan. “Where would it be?”

“The General would have had it,” said Gabriel. “So—”

“Oh God!” Erin went sheet-white and grabbed my arm. “The General’s son and daughter. Becker’ll go right to their house. He’ll tear the place apart looking for that key. They have their grandkids there! You have to stop him!”

JD drew in a deep breath. “Everyone grab their stuff.” He scowled at me. “You, get some clothes on. We’ve got to protect those people.”