He made his way to the very end of the platform, but instead of boarding the train, he slipped past the pedestrian barricade and into the mouth of the tunnel, pressing his body against the wall as the bells chimed and the subway doors hissed shut.

A man reached the platform just in time to watch the train slide by.

Victor lingered in the tunnel, watching the man scan the cars, hands on his hips, his black hair edging to gray.

Stell.

Even after five years, Victor recognized him immediately. He watched as the former detective turned around, finally, and stormed back up the stairs.

Victor knew he should try again to get to the Kingsley—but first, he needed to have a word with the director of EON.

The next train pulled in, and Victor slipped into the press of bodies following in Stell’s wake.

X

THE LAST AFTERNOON

XI

EON

DOM stared at Stell’s bank of computer screens.

Figure it out.

His mind spun like tires in mud, searching for purchase, his attention flicking from the desk to the door to the grid of camera footage on the far wall. There, upper right, three soldiers in full gear moved down a white hall. In another window, the familiar shape of Eli Cardale sat waiting.

Fuck.

Dom turned toward the trio of screens on Stell’s desk. He didn’t know the first thing about hacking into computers.

But he knew someone who did.

Mitch answered on the second ring. “Who is this?”

“Mitch, it’s Dominic.”

A shuffle of movement. “This isn’t a good time.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall beyond Stell’s office. Dom pressed the cell to his chest and held his breath. When they were gone, he raised the phone, talking quickly. “Sorry, but I’m working on Victor’s orders.”

“Aren’t we all.”

“I need to hack a computer.”

The metal sound of a zipper sliding. “What kind?”

“The kind at EON.”

The line went quiet, and Dom assumed Mitch was thinking, but then he heard a laptop click open, a booting sound. “What kind of encryption?”

“No idea.” He tapped the computer away. “It’s just a password screen.”

Mitch made a sound like a muffled laugh. “Governments. Okay. Do exactly what I tell you . . .”

He started speaking a foreign language—that’s what it sounded like, anyway—but Dom did as he was told, and three agonizing minutes later, a green ACCESS GRANTED appeared on the screen, and he was in.

Dom hung up, brought up the grid of folders, each one marked by a cell number. Every other computer in EON had a folder like this one.

And every other folder started with Cell 1.

But Stell’s computer had another option— Cell 0.