He looked back to Burke and Carter, who were still gathering up the hard-drive pieces. Burke had now grabbed a second trash can.

Putting his ear back to the door, he heard the rustle of clothing. The CIA team was coming. They’d run out of time.

“Get him out of here, Carter,” Nic said. “And catch the bastard who killed my friend.”

Carter’s eyes went wide. “Nic, don’t—”

But his mind was made up. He holstered his Sig Sauer and pushed through the steel door, closing it behind him.

He walked casually forward, examining the hallway and the few rooms along the way. One of doors had a window, but all he could see inside were some metal cases that were about the size of a small dorm-room refrigerator.

Holding up his hands as soon as the flashlight beams hit him and the angry voices told him not to move, Nic kept walking forward, vying for time to keep as much distance between the CIA and the lab in order to buy his friends the time they needed.

He couldn’t see faces, but he recognized one of the voices. “Officer Juliano,” Yoshida said. “Strange meeting you here.”

“Yeah, I was looking for the bathroom, but I think I took a wrong turn somewhere,” Nic said. “Maybe you could—”

With the powerful flashlight beams still in his eyes, he didn’t see the blow coming or know what hit him. He just felt the sharp pain in his temple, and then the lights went out.

Chapter 74

With the pieces of the hard drives gathered up, Carter and Burke hurried back out the way they had come in. Carter hated leaving Nic behind. The kid was brave, but impetuous, and he honestly had no idea what Yoshida would do with the young officer. In his experience, the CIA could be unpredictable, especially when it came to keeping their secrets and covering their asses. And there was a cold indifference in Yoshida’s eyes that made Carter feel uneasy.

They reached the scissor lift, and Carter operated the controls. The lift started to rise with a whir of the hydraulics.

To Burke, he said, “All those pieces you picked up had better be worth it.”

“I hope so. I did pick up several investigative vertices and new data points, and I know a guy who may be able to do something with the hard drive components. He’s a wizard.”

“He better be. I don’t think the techs at the bureau could pull a single megabyte out of that mess.”

“Do you think Nic will be okay?”

“I honestly don’t know, kid. We’re in uncharted waters here. I have a few contacts at the agency, but if they give us some national security runaround … I just don’t know.”

Burke’s head drooped, and Carter could see the doubt creeping in, the second-guessing of his choices.

“We’ll figure it out, kid. And Nic made his choice.”

“He stuck his neck out for me. Put himself in danger to help me.”