“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “The World Summit. But it’s still three days away. And look, this farmhouse of Gabby’s is only a couple of hours from the airport. She is from Atlanta, after all.” He pointed at his screen, where he’d pulled up the coordinates and a map. “If we hurry, we can get her and she can come with us.”

Bryson was leaning over Sarah to get a look. “How much you wanna bet Agent Weber is the one who hassled the poor kid? The VNS’s fingerprints are on everything. One of these days we need to get Weber locked in a room with some nice torture devices. I’m ready to go medieval on her.”

“We can’t go, Michael,” Helga said. “We can’t risk spending time on one person when the whole world is on the verge of collapse. We have to get into that summit and figure out a way to make people listen.”

Michael clicked off his NetScreen, rubbed his eyes. “She deserves to be with us, not alone.”

“Then we can get her after we get back from D.C.,” Helga insisted.

“No!” Michael shouted, surprising even himself. “You don’t get it. I stole Jackson Porter’s body! His parents are probably insane with worry by now. And then I made his girlfriend help us get into the VNS’s headquarters, and she’s probably got a fractured skull because of it. Now she’s alone, hiding in some creepy farmhouse. I have to help her!”

Sarah had been leaning into him, her hand on his leg, but she pulled away and folded her arms. Was she jealous? The thought made him want to punch the roof of the car. Nothing had ever sounded stupider.

No one responded to his tirade.

“Listen,” Michael said, forcing himself to speak more calmly. “We have weapons. We have three cars full of people. A little detour will be fine.”

Helga just sighed and shook her head.

“I’m with Michael on this one,” Bryson said. “Helping Gabby is good. But she might have also learned something valuable. Look, we don’t know jack squat. We need answers. What good does it do if we sneak into that summit and say, ‘Cheerio, mates! Tangents are taking over you blokes!’ They’ll look back at us and say, ‘Duh.’ ”

Michael wanted to hug Bryson right then, even though his British accent was awful. “She’s a human being. We owe her.”

Helga wasn’t giving in. “One human. There are eight billion on the planet. We have to weigh our priorities.”

It took all of Michael’s willpower to keep his temper under control. “Fine, then we’ll split up. One or two of you can go with me. The rest of you go to D.C. I’ll find you when I’m done.”