And if she was wrong?

If I’m wrong, well, then I’m dead anyway.

Her thoughts were cut short as Braddock burst through what was left of the doorway. He was moving fast. As if he was running from something.

Or someone.

He headed for the post room, six or seven yards along the corridor and to the left. And he did so without a glance towards her. It was as if Grace offered no threat to him at all.

It would be his final mistake.

‘Drop the gun, Braddock!’

Braddock was barely two yards from the post room. From cover. From where he could protect himself with potshots for as long as his ammunition lasted.

The decision Grace had to make in that moment was life-changing. She hesitated, and as she did she heard the voice again. The voice that had guided her for her entire life.

Do your duty. Do what’s right.

She fired twice.

It would not take a third.

FIFTY

Eden Grace was standing over the fourth man’s corpse as Dempsey stepped through the now devastated doorway. The sight came as no surprise. Dempsey had heard two shots as he approached, and they had not come from a shotgun.

As he came closer he could see that Grace looked shaken.

‘You OK?’ he asked.

Grace looked up, towards Dempsey. Her eyes were blank. Dempsey had seen the same reaction before; she was struggling with what she had just done.

‘He was your first.’ It was not a question.

Grace nodded her head, unwilling or unable to speak. Dempsey put his hand on her shoulder.

‘It gets everyone, Agent Grace. Especially if it’s someone you know. But we don’t have time for this now. We have to get out of here.’

Grace did not react to Dempsey’s words. Instead she looked down, back towards Braddock’s corpse. Then a thought seemed to occur to her. She turned quickly back to Dempsey.

‘The others?’

‘All gone.’ Dempsey did not elaborate. What he had done was necessary. It was not something to be celebrated. ‘Now we have to go.’

Grace did not seem to hear his final words. Instead she gazed left and right. At the destruction all around them.

The shock was hitting. Dempsey recognised it well. Very few come through their first fatal encounter without it.

But right now they did not have the time.

‘Listen . . .’

‘You’re hurt.’ Grace had noticed his bloody shoulder. ‘We need to get you to a hospital.’

‘Dammit, you’ve got to listen to me!’ Dempsey grabbed Grace by her shoulders, ignoring the agony the movement caused to his own. ‘We can’t go anywhere near a hospital. We’ve got to get ourselves out of here now.’

Grace looked at him, shocked.

‘Get out of here? What the hell do you mean, “get out of here”? You’re planning to run?’

‘Damn right I’m planning to run. We just killed four US Secret Service agents. Members of your team. You think this ends well for us once the NYPD and the FBI get here?’