Page 277 of Silent Target

Evie entered with a medical bag in one hand. Blood stained the sleeve of her sweater.

I turned toward her. “Are you hurt?”

“Not mine. Cobra caught shrapnel along the dock.”

“How bad?”

“He’s still complaining, so he’ll live.”

She stopped beside the console and looked at the camera feeds. “Is that Agent Collins?”

“Yes.”

Evie studied the attackers. “They’re using the same containment pattern Graves’s teams used in the field.”

“What pattern?”

“They leave one apparent escape route, then push the target toward it.”

I looked at the maintenance tunnel on the plans.

Was I leading Kate exactly where they wanted her to go?

“What was the purpose?” Sniper asked.

“Psychological control. If the target believes she discovered the escape route herself, she won’t question what’s waiting on the other side.”

I went cold.

“Kate, stop.”

She froze near the bottom of the stairwell.

“What?”

“Don’t go to the maintenance tunnel.”

“I’m almost there.”

“That’s why they haven’t tried harder to stop you.”

On the camera, two armed men entered the level behind her.

They fired, but the shots went wide.

Deliberately wide.

Herding her.

“Then where do I go?” she asked.

I scanned the plans again.

No open exit.

No safe stairwell.

Nothing but reinforced concrete and fire.