“As for what we want—we want the world to listen. You’re here to make sure that people pay attention. And we don’t need any competing messages. Which means all of you have to give me your phones. Every single one. Take them out of your pockets and purses and slide them across the floor to me. Because if we catch one of you with a phone, you’ll die.” Casually, he points his rifle at the group, aiming it at one person, then another. For a heart-freezing instant, it’s aimed at Parker’s head, but then it moves on.

One by one, people bend down and send their phones sliding along the floor until they clear the four-inch gap at the bottom of the gate. If the phones don’t quite make it, people close to the gate kick them the rest of the way. Mole starts tossing the phones into an empty Macy’s bag.

“November, report in,” Wolf says into his mic. “November. Over.”

As Wolf waits for an answer that doesn’t come, Parker’s fingers touch the edge of his phone, which is in his back pocket. Parker’s blocked from view by a plump middle-aged woman in front of him. Instead of pulling out his phone, he slips his finger to the side and toggles it into the silent position.

After Mole is done, Wolf nods at Lips, who goes to the door of the Shoe Mill. “Anyone hiding has to come out now!” Lips yells. “If we find you later, we’ll kill you.”

He repeats himself at every store. A guy in his twenties wearing khakis, a pressed blue shirt, and a name tag appears in the doorway of the phone store. A sixty-ish woman in a white hairnet comes out of Van Duyn, anxiously twisting her hands. Both are made to surrender their phones. The AT&T guy has three.

But Moxie doesn’t appear. Where is she? Parker never prays, but now he prays that she has somehow run very far away. That she has found an exit and is now being evacuated by the police. Because the alternative is too awful to contemplate.

Wolf comes back to the metal security gate. His posture is relaxed, his voice unhurried. “People, you may not know this, but you are at war. And like all wars, civilians sometimes get caught in the cross fire.” The smile visible through the mouth hole of his ski mask does not match the cold gaze coming through the eye holes. “Sorry about that.”

Everyone is silent, watching Wolf alertly. “If there is a hell, then we’ll be in good company with a lot of fighter pilots who also had to bomb innocents to win the war. But you should know that you are serving a more noble purpose than simply being victims.” His gaze takes them all in. “You are the key to changing everything.”