“It means that if the president or those generals or whoever the hell’s in charge over there don’t get us on a jet in the next ten minutes, we’re just going to take one.”

Walker snorts at this. “You can’t fly a jet.”

“Bet you somebody’ll volunteer when I start breaking faces,” Nine says, stepping forward to back my play.

Agent Murray unclips his own walkie-talkie from his belt and offers it to Walker.

“Just make the call, Karen,” he sighs.

Walker gives Murray an icy look and produces her own satellite phone and walks a few steps away from us. Despite our history, I’m pretty convinced that Walker really does want to help us. It’s the rest of the government that isn’t convinced we’re a good bet to win this war. She’s doing everything she can in the face of that. Our window to be of any help to Six, Sarah and the others is getting smaller and smaller, though. I can’t stand around anymore hoping that these people will support us in our fight. We’re going to save them, whether they want us to or not. That’s all there is to it.

“You guys aren’t really going to attack the army now, are you?” Daniela asks, keeping her voice low so the agents don’t overhear.

“Shit, I can barely stand up,” Nine replies quietly.

“We do need to get down there, though,” Sam says, and I know he’s thinking about Six as much as I’m thinking about Sarah. “If she can’t help us, what’re we going to do?”

Nine looks at me. “You’d actually go through with it, wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “If they won’t help, we’ll make them.”

Daniela whistles through her teeth. “That’s intense, man.”

I look over at Walker. She’s keeping her voice quiet, but is making a lot of emphatic hand gestures.

“She knows what’s at stake. Walker will come through.” As I say this, I produce my own satellite phone. I should check in with Sarah and Six, see where they’re at and make sure they aren’t going to try taking on Setrákus Ra by themselves.

Before I can hit the button to dial, there’s a strange and loud whooshing sound from the water. We all turn in that direction just in time to see a large metallic cylinder fly out of the river. It soars high into the air, jets of water shooting off it as it spins towards the nearby docks. The thing is big—big enough that when it lands, with a shriek of crumpling metal, bricks go exploding outwards from the impact. I see the captain of our commandeered coast guard boat go diving overboard into the water to avoid the flying debris.

It’s the submarine we saw in the harbor earlier.