Nic continued to stare into the agent’s eyes, only a few inches from his face. He seethed with anger, but he knew better than to engage. Taking a step back, he said, “Fine. Let’s not be enemies. Help us save those people.”

“Those people are already dead.”

“If you’re not the one developing the weapons, then you don’t know that. There could be an anti-virus or a treatment.”

“I’ve seen enough designer bugs to know. There’s nothing you or anyone can do for those people,” Yoshida said before checking his watch, again.

Nic balled up his fists and locked his jaw, but he turned away from the smaller man before he did something even worse than striking him, something like biting the little prick’s nose off.

He turned back to Carter, who seemed to be calculating their options. The armed agents with Yoshida hadn’t tried to escort them out. What were they waiting for? Nic imagined Carter was wondering the same thing.

Burke had melted into a corner, as if trying to completely separate himself from the conflict. Nic watched Burke inching closer to the door, nose buried in the iPad, ignoring the armed men. But before he reached the door, he bumped into one of the CIA commandos and nearly fell.

“Sorry. My bad,” Burke said. “I’m clumsy sometimes.” The man in the tactical gear didn’t respond, as if he were a robot awaiting orders.

Then someone’s phone started to vibrate. Nic listened for the source. It was coming from Carter’s pocket. Nic closed his eyes, and his heart dropped into his stomach, as he realized that this was exactly what Yoshida was waiting for.

The CIA agent smiled and said, “You’re going to want to take that call, Carter. It’s your deputy director.”

Chapter 68

Gabi felt as if she was trapped in a nightmare that refused to end. Over the course of the day, she had survived against men with machine guns, bombs, and some kind of poison or virus that made people bleed out of every orifice. She wasn’t about to allow a small blonde woman be the end of her. But she was also so shocked by what she had just witnessed that she wondered if it was all a hallucination. Or perhaps she really had died back there in the manager’s office and everything that had come after had simply been the last few pulses of activity before her brain died.

The blonde reached behind her and locked the door.

Gabi saw the gun on the dead officer’s belt and lunged forward, knocking over her chair. She was able to get a hand on the gun, but the blonde spun on a heel and drove a foot into Gabi’s chest, pushing the air from her lungs and her body away from the gun.

Gabi stumbled back against a fallen chair, almost losing her feet from beneath her. But then, changing tactics, she snatched up the chair and hurled it at the small blonde woman. The blonde side-stepped the flying object, but that was fine. It had only been meant as a distraction to give Gabi another chance at the gun.