“Where are you going?” Ethan asked.

“Where do you think?” He moved toward the door.

“Wait.”

“What?” Alan glanced back. You wouldn’t have known what he’d just seen to look at his face. That Nordic iciness as blank as a winter sky.

“The people in town need you right now,” Ethan said.

“I’m going to go kill him first if that’s okay with you.”

“You’re not thinking.”

“His own daughter!”

“He’s done,” Ethan said. “Finished. But he has information we’re going to need. Go mobilize your men. Send a team to shut the gate and restore power to the fence. I’ll go to Pilcher.”

“You will.”

Ethan stood. “That’s right.”

Alan dug his keycard out of his pocket, dropped it on the floor, and said, “You’ll need this.”

A key fell beside the card.

“That too. It’s for the elevator. And while we’re at it . . .” He pulled a subcompact Glock out of a shoulder holster, held it by the barrel, and offered Ethan the gun. As Ethan took it, Alan said, “If the next time I see you, you confess that, in the heat of the moment, you put a round into that piece of shit’s gut and watched as he bled out slowly, I will totally understand.”

“I’m sorry about Alyssa.”

Alan left the room.

Ethan bent down, lifted the key and the plastic card off the floor.

The corridor was empty.

Halfway down the stairwell, he heard it.

A noise he knew all too well from his time at war.

They were firing the chain gun, and it sounded like death on the drums.

By the time he reached Level 1, the noise was unreal. People would be leaving their workstations, leaving their residences.

At the pair of unmarked doors, he swiped the card through the reader.

The doors opened.

He stepped into the small elevator car, pushed the key into the lock on the control panel, and turned it.

The single button started blinking.

He pressed it, the doors closed, and the racket of the chain gun began to gradually fade away.

He took a deep breath and thought of his family, his fear for them blooming in his stomach like a flower of broken glass.

The doors opened.

He stepped off into Pilcher’s suite.

Passing the kitchen, he heard the sizzle of meat cooking. Garlic, onions, olive oil perfuming the air, Chef Tim obliviously at work while the abbies invaded, intently plating Pilcher’s breakfast, adding intricate dots of a bright red sauce from a pastry bag onto a piece of china.

As Ethan moved down the hall toward Pilcher’s office, he checked the load on Alan’s Glock, happy to see a round already in the tube.

He opened the doors to Pilcher’s office without bothering to knock, and strode inside.