Finally, she saw Will stand up, gun still on Hoseyn, but now Will did the tilt to the towline truck that was the signal that Hoseyn was leaving with them, that he was, in the next moves at least, to be trusted.

Mary went to the hangar station that controlled the bird’s doors. Within seconds she had the staircase down.

She just walked up it. Baz followed. She went to the cockpit. She started the engines. She pulled up the stairs.

Will, Hoseyn beside him, drove the towline truck. They led the bird out of the hangar by the nose.

When they were clear, he disengaged the towline.

She released the stairs. They climbed aboard.

She pulled up the stairs. She closed the door. She began her checks.

Hoseyn stood behind her. Will was behind him. Baz had the copilot’s seat, eyes merry. She took the bird along the apron of runway, slowed for the pivot. She came to a full stop. She began the turn. The wings swung. The engines rumbled slightly. She had completed the arc on the ground when Hoseyn seemed to lose his balance.

They tried to catch him. But he was past them, his fingers strong on her pistol, the barrel to Baz, then the bullet through him. His next was Mary, and he pulled her, his forearm a bar on her neck, her gun at her temple. Now he talked to Will, threatening her life, advising his moves, that he should put the gun here and do it like that. She heard him talk of his wife, that he had to do this because the government had her. Mary first had in mind her father, who’d had a knife but never reached her. She next felt the fist of shock in her gut, the rawest for Baz. She heard Will tell Hoseyn that Hoseyn could kill her. She heard Will insist she was nothing to him. He told Hoseyn that they wouldn’t get anything out of her, that she knew less than nothing. Then, his eyes in hers, he took his gun to his own head and fired.