‘This is . . .’ I raise my eyes to the ceiling. I can’t even find the words. It makes me embarrassed about what I’ve been doing all this time. My so-called training space was the snow in my backyard, or with Six and Sam at the pool. Suddenly, I’m resentful about Henri moving us around so often, not giving me the kind of training I clearly needed to do my part. If we had made a place like this, then maybe I would be as confident and strong as Nine. Maybe Sandor really was the better Cêpan.

‘You haven’t seen the best part yet,’ Nine says.

We move through the training room and he spins opens a vaultlike door in the back. There are shelves and shelves of weapons: guns, swords, knives, explosives and more. There’s a whole wall just for ammunition.

Nine pulls a large automatic rifle topped with a scope off a shelf and aims it at me. ‘You’d be surprised how easy it was to buy all this stuff. Gotta love the Internet.’

He walks towards me with the gun and pushes a button over my shoulder. The far end of the room separates to uncover a firing range longer than a bowling alley. Nine grabs a box of bullets and loads the rifle. Then I watch as he blows to bits a paper target ninety feet away. ‘Don’t worry. These rooms are pretty well sound-proofed, but we’re so high up that no one could hear us anyway.’

A door down the hall leads to a surveillance room. He walks up to a light switch near the front door and flicks the switch while leaning down and placing his face close to it. A faint blue light scrolls over his eyes and the computers come to life. Retinal scan. Cool, very cool. Clearly, Sandor was able to set up a high-tech security system. There are a dozen computers and even more monitors. We’re tapped into every camera in the John Hancock Center, all one hundred floors of it, plus what seems to be every camera around the city that’s controlled by the Chicago Police Department. Nine touches something on a keyboard and the largest screen in the room comes to life, showing a photo of a muscular man in a black Italian suit, its beautiful cloth and perfect cut apparent even in the grainy picture. He has black hair and a thick beard, and he’s holding two laptops. I look at Nine, wondering why he’s showing me this.

‘That’s Sandor,’ Nine says after a minute. His voice is different. I hear less bravado. He turns to me. I hear vulnerability. ‘Come on. You have a decision to make, an important one.’ He pauses for dramatic effect. ‘Which room will you choose to stay in? There are a few of them to check out. Take your time. The pizzas won’t take long.’

15.

15.