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Have to bring in more agents. Agents with guns.
I instruct Louis, “Get the names down and run them in the system immediately. Adam will have the whole team on this.”
I look down at Lysander Wolfson, who will not look the way he does now if he doesn’t cooperate.
“I’ve got it, Bryce,” Louis says sinisterly. “Get your ass to Virginia. I’ll find my way back.”
Before I walk out of the room, I make sure Lysander hears my instructions to central hub in Phoenix. “Take down all the cameras in TSA interrogation rooms at DC, terminal two.”
Adam doesn’t answer right away, because my request is unprecedented.
“Bryce, that,” he clears his throat, “that would mean activating NeoGen. Does Tristan know? Last I heard, the program isn’t cleared for the—”
I’m running to the SUV and screaming into the phone. “Tristan can call me if he’s got a problem with it. Activate NeoGen, Adam. I’m not fucking asking.”
For the last few years, while my lab fine-tuned our AI surveillance technology, we also hired some of the best hackers to develop a program that can start and stop surveillance networks. It’s the next generation because it doesn’t only analyze data, it implements AI technology to do the hacking for you.
“As soon as the interrogation rooms are shut, seize control of every camera within ten miles of the Cornerstone Hotel on Virginia Beach. Every room, every hallway, every elevator. Run Ana’s images and maximize the alert streams.”
Even if the cameras are off, just having one installed and linked to a system will make it accessible to NeoGen surveillance.
I can’t get to Ana physically right away, but I’ll bet my right arm she’ll be projected on my screen within fifteen minutes.
In the SUV, I make my first of many difficult calls.
“Hey,” Sergei says. “Miss me already?”
My hands grip the wheel so firmly, my knuckles are white. “It’s Ana. She’s…” Each word is a barbed wire up my throat. “Ana’s been taken. I need a direct line to your father.”
Sergei doesn’t speak for a full minute, and neither do I. The silence is the soundtrack to my chaotic driving. Squeezing between cars and accelerating erratically helps draw my attention away from panicking.
Must get to Ana. She’s taken. Goddamn it, she’s taken.
“What do you mean taken?” He spits the last word.
“She’s been kidnapped.” The sentence slices into me.
I never should have left her side. This is my goddamn fault, but there’s no point dwelling on my stupidity.
Breathe. Think. Talk.
“The details of her capture aren’t clear,” I report, “because I still can’t reach my agents on the ground. But I heard her when I spoke to her kidnapper. We’ve got a meeting point and time. She’s alive, Sergei.”
She has to be, or I’m scorching that fucking hotel to the ground.
I dwell on Lysander’s statement that the abduction isn’t about Ana personally, but rather a way to get to her father. With nothing else to go on, I’ll have to work on the assumption that she’s a pawn and not the target.
“Where were you?” Sergei barks.
“In DC, chasing down Lysander Wolfson, who was our only lead for weeks. I fucked up, Sergei. I know I did.”
“I’m flying in. What does this have to do with our father?”
“Listen, you have no reason to trust me right now, but I don’t think you should come out. Stay in. Keep Maeve and the boys close. It’s your father they want. That’s the gist of the kidnapper’s demand. There’s no way to be one hundred percent certain, but my instinct is to believe him.”
“Fuck, Bryce. This can’t be happening. Part of me didn’t believe those threats were serious. Didn’t want to believe it.”
There’s no time to comfort him. It doesn’t matter what we believe. Ana is in danger. She needs me and everything I’ve got, every resource I’ve gathered at my disposal for years, is for this. For her. I’ll fight to get Ana back, if it’s the last thing I do.
