The trunk they were stuffed into wasn’t as spacious as the grandeur of the car would have suggested. She was wedged in hard and beneath her Jon must have been worse off. Ueno’s men had left little to chance, winding the better part of a roll of duct tape around each of them and then securing them back-to-back. That made getting to the trunk latch or the electrical wires threaded behind the carpet pretty much out of the question.

The sound of the engine was smooth and even, suggesting that the driver was a pro who knew enough not to get nervous and attract attention. After a number of turns and stops getting out of Ueno’s property, they’d been going mostly straight and steady for the last fifteen minutes.

Other than that, there was nothing but darkness. And for some reason that bothered her. It took a moment to figure out why.

Jon.

He had always been an immovable object. Unflappable no matter how bad the shit hit the fan, unkillable even in the most dire situations. Now he wasn’t moving at all.

A jolt of adrenaline coursed through Randi when she realized that despite being crushed up against him, she couldn’t feel him breathing. She jerked backward and felt a rush of relief when he grunted weakly. He was alive. But for how much longer?

If he died, it would be her fault. She’d come there with no backup at all. Klein didn’t know anything about Ueno and no one at the agency had any idea where she was or that Covert-One even existed.

That left it up to her to bail their asses out. But how?

She tried to slide forward, planning to search the dark space for something sharp—a protruding bolt, a disconnected wire—but didn’t have the leverage to move more than half an inch. She pulled harder but it didn’t get her any farther and Jon wasn’t even groaning anymore when she yanked on him. Had he lost consciousness? Or was he…

Pull it together! She scolded herself again. There was precisely nothing she could do about his condition until she got them out of there. If he was dead, he was dead.

The vehicle began to slow and finally rolled to a stop. For a moment she feared they’d reached their destination but then the car moved, gliding along for a few seconds before once again coming to a standstill. Traffic.

Maybe someone with their window open would hear her if she started shouting. She ground her face on the inside of the trunk, trying to scrape the tape off her mouth. The carpet covering the surface was too soft to have any effect on the powerful adhesive.