“I’ll go slip in and find Erin,” I said, checking my gun, “while the rest of you secure the nuke.”

“I’ll get Erin,” said JD firmly.

I turned to him. “We need you to lead the team. You’ve got to trust me, mate. I’ll get her back, I promise.”

He stared at me for a long time. I could still see anger burning in his eyes: things weren’t resolved, between us. But at last, he nodded.

“I’ll go with you,” Kian told me.

And we moved out.

72. Erin

72

ERIN

I dropped my homemade dialer to the floor and clutched my hand to my stomach, nursing my cramped fingers. Enough. I couldn’t reliably dial the numbers anymore. If it hadn’t worked by now, it never would.

The roar of an engine made me limp over to the turret’s window. Far below, a black snake of cars was crawling up the mountain road towards the castle. A tiny, toy-like figure in a suit was walking out to meet them. Even from this distance, there was no mistaking the way he walked, his back ramrod straight, or the silver of his beard. Becker. That meant that the approaching cars must be his buyers.

He was about to sell the bomb. And then, as soon as he left, he’d kill me.

73. Danny

73

DANNY

There were plenty of guards patrolling but the castle was vast, far too big for them to watch everywhere at once. Kian gave me a boost up onto the top of a narrow, ice-crusted wall and I heaved him up after me. On the other side, we found a darkened annex that looked like it hadn’t been used in a while, but it connected to the main castle. Kian duct-taped a pane of glass and then smashed it out almost silently. I blinked at him. I’d always thought of him as the guy behind the desk.

“Not my first time breaking into somewhere,” he told me.

Inside, we stayed low, creeping along passageways and flattening ourselves into doorways whenever we heard people approaching. There seemed to be multiple groups strolling around the castle, talking in a whole mixture of languages. Mostly men but some women, too, all in expensive clothes. We could hear lively discussions going on in some of the rooms and waiters were carrying trays of drinks and canapés back and forth. What the hell is going on? Was this business? A party? Both?

We crept on, deeper and deeper into the castle. The size of the place was working against us, now. It would take hours to search the whole thing and we didn’t have that long: sooner or later, someone was going to see us and raise the alarm.