Torch of Freedom

Good God. Is that scramblingequipment? Where did they get this stuff?

Jack thought about sending a final message to Zachariah, or his parents, or his sisters, but not very hard. Much as he wished he could have explained his reasoning to them, he'd already decided he couldn't risk that. Security was going to be looking at all of them very closely, and their best protection was going to be the fact that he'd never said a single word to any of them about what he pla

Especially not in light of what he was actually going to do now.

When Anton came back out of the kitchen, Victor still had everyone in the diner completely subdued. That included a new person whom Anton didn't recognize. She must have had the bad luck to walk in a short while ago.

It also included the man Anton had dragged out from under the table. He was kneeling not far from Victor, with his hands clasped behind his back.

Again, Anton grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. "You're coming with us, fella."

As he headed toward the rear exit, he heard Victor saying to the people held captive: "Here's how it is. We have associates standing guard outside both doors, front and back. Anyone who tries to leave within five minutes will be shot. No warning, no discussion, you will simply be dead. Once five minutes are up"—he pointed to the far wall—"according to that time display, you can leave the diner. Go anywhere you want. My own advice, take it or leave is, is that you'd be wise to pretend you were never here. This place has no recording or security equipment, except whatever these corpses brought with them, and we took care of that. So you can probably get away with it."

He started walking across the room toward the back exit. "Or you can report the incident to the authorities, who will certainly treat you with the respect traditionally given to seccies. It's your choice."

Half a minute later, he and Anton and the two women and their captive were in the escape passageway.

There, they stopped. Anton shoved the captive against the wall and stepped back. Victor stepped forward, the gun in his hand.

Lajos Irvine was petrified. He was about to die, and he knew it. There was no mercy at all in those black eyes and the gun hand was as steady as a bar of steel.

A few seconds passed. Maybe five, although it seemed like fifty.

"I'm just not positive," said the black-eyed man.

"It's your call," said the waiter.

The black-eyed man stepped back. "He needs to be out for at least four hours."

"Not a problem." The waiter came to stand right in front of Lajos. He looked as wide as the sea.

"I'd say this was going to hurt me more than it hurts you, but that'd be ridiculous."

The sledgehammer fist didn't hurt at all, oddly enough. Or, if did, Lajos could never remember.

From the begi

Only now he wasn't going to have that opportunity. There wasn't going to be enough time. Which meant there was only one way he could hope to take out a meaningful chunk of truly significant data, and since it was painfully clear to him that he wasn't going to be getting off Mesa after all . . .

He tapped a combination into his personal com. It was a one-time, untraceable combination—one he'd set up through his own security co

"Yes?" Simões said.

"Eggshell," McBryde replied, and heard an audible inhalation as the emergency codeword registered.

"I—" Simões began, then stopped. There was the harsh sound of someone clearing his throat. "Understood. Thanks. I . . . won't forget."

"Good." McBryde wanted to say something more himself, but there wasn't time, and there wasn't much he could have said, anyway. Except—"Be well. Clear."

Feeling stu

"What does that mean?" asked Yana.

"It means he's been . . . he's going to . . ." He burst into tears. "He's the only friend I have."

They were practically ru

They simply had no choice. The incident in the diner had not only delayed them, it had also made clear that something had gone wrong. What that something might be, they still had no idea. But whatever time they might have, it was ru

Jack killed the circuit co

I never realized how long this took, a corner of his mind thought distantly as he entered yet another in the queue of required commands and codes. If I had, I would have suggested streamlining things. How does anyone expect to have the time to go through all this rigmarole in a genuine emergency situation? It's stupid, that's what—

The mental sentence broke off in mid-thought as a boldly tattooed woman and three of her personal aides appeared in the field of view of the pickup he had focused on the Center's main entrance. He watched the uniformed sergeant springing to his feet as he recognized Isabel Bardasano and swore softly.

There's still time, he told himself.It takes a good six minutes to get to my office from there, even using the high-speed lift. And I think I can probably slow things down at least a bit . . .