Cait sat on the edge of her cot, lacing up a pair of work boots she’d found in the extensive clothing supply room left behind when Lynch’s old Resistance friends had given up the fight. In the shower, she had scrubbed her skin raw. Now she wore a clean tank top and her jeans from the night before, as none of the pants in the supply room had fit her well enough. She’d put her hair into a ponytail to keep it out of her eyes.

She stood, feeling good. Ready. Caffeine had her wired up tight, but she didn’t mind. Today she had to treat her home soil like Baghdad, and she would need all the fuel she could get.

Despite the rattle of the air-conditioning units, the summer heat had already begun to make the air inside the warehouse feel close and sticky. All the more reason to get out of there, to put the plan in motion. Getting to the Resistance HQ had not gotten them any help in terms of reinforcements, but it had provided them beds and showers, clean clothes and sanctuary. More important, next to the supply room where the clothes and bedding were kept, the warehouse had an armory. Given its size she imagined that once upon a time it had held many more weapons than it now did. But how many guns did one woman need?

Cait clipped a pair of SIG Sauer nine millimeters to her belt at the small of her back—one for each hand. Then she slipped on a loose light-cotton shirt of a summery pale green that hung down far enough to cover the guns. But she could have been carrying an arsenal and no one would see the real weapon. Men looked at her and were distracted by her face, her smile, her body. They saw the cute, petite young woman without ever imagining how easily she could hurt or kill them.

The Collective—or whoever they were—had murdered her brother because they were afraid of him. They hadn’t realized what it meant to be Sean McCandless’s little sister, but they would learn.

Cait headed down the corridor into the main room, where the A/C unit sounded like distant applause and the television array continued its constant chatter of news. Most of the cubicles were still covered in dust, but a vacuum stood against one wall and someone had run it across the carpet. Jordan sat on a blanket that had been spread on the floor, playing with Leyla. He had the baby on her back and was letting her play with old remote controls and an empty plastic water bottle. These were what passed for toys in her child’s life now.

Just for today, she thought. I swear, baby, just for today.

“Hey, Leyla,” Jordan said, picking up his car keys and jangling them above her. “Look who it is. It’s Mommy.”

Leyla reached for the keys, staring in fascination. She raised one fist and thrust the knuckles into her mouth, seeming to forget about the keys until Jordan shook them again.

“You’re really something with her, y’know?” Cait said.

Jordan glanced up at her, eyes shining. “She’s really something. Like her mom.”

The moment he’d spoken the words he dropped his gaze, focusing on Leyla, embarrassed by putting voice to the compliment. Cait watched him a moment, amazed that, in the midst of all this, she had finally seen the feelings he had for her. It helped, knowing there was someone who cared for her and for Leyla that the bastards hadn’t managed to kill.

“You’re wrong about this,” Jordan said softly.

Cait knelt on the other side of the blanket and bent to kiss Leyla’s forehead. She let the baby clutch at her fingers and swung her hand back and forth.

“What else can I do?” she asked, the question nearly breaking her.

“I don’t mean the plan. You’re right about that. They haven’t left you any other options. Even if it works, you’ll still have the jihadists to deal with. But all right, deal with that if you get the luxury. I’m talking about me.” He gazed at her, and this time he didn’t look away. “You shouldn’t be leaving me behind.”

She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then hugged him close, the two of them like a bridge over Leyla.

“I know you’d like to keep me safe. It means a lot to me. But I can’t do what needs doing if I have Leyla along, if I have to worry about her, and you’re the only person I can trust with her right now. The only person.”

She withdrew, sliding her hands along his arms before letting go. Jordan had the pain of unspoken words in his eyes, but he nodded.

“You know I’ll take care of her.”

“I know,” Cait said. She reached out and touched his face, then stood up. “I’ll say good-bye to you both before I leave.”

Jordan started playing with Leyla again. As Cait walked away, she felt a hook in her, trying to drag her back. How perfect a day could the three of them have had together, if only they’d had the freedom to leave this place without the fear of bloodthirsty men?

She passed by Lynch’s cubicle. The computer was on, but abandoned. The chairs in front of the TV array, where they had spent a little time this morning, were empty. Then she came around the last cubicle and saw him standing in front of one of the whiteboards, studying the new photographs he had taped up—his new targets.

For a moment she just stood and took it in, this display of his work in progress. If what he had told her was true, Matthew Lynch was the last surviving War Child of the Second World War. He had been involved in this fight his entire life, first surviving the killers who would have murdered him just for being born, then trying and mostly failing to save so many of the children of other wars, before finally giving in and becoming a killer himself.

Cait walked along the first two whiteboards, surveying the photographs of the men and women Lynch had marked for death—people he had confirmed were involved with the murder of War’s Children. Many races were represented, but the overwhelming majority were photos of men who looked like Muslim jihadists.

“Why not more Americans?” she asked.

Lynch glanced at her, took in her appearance, and nodded in what she presumed was approval.

“The members of the Collective are harder to find,” he said.

“That’s a little difficult to believe,” she said. “You’re trying to tell me it’s easier to track down radical jihadists who’ve infiltrated the country to murder children than it is to figure out who the Herods are in our own country?”

Lynch pointed to a photo on the board in front of him. “This guy? Saudi-born, living in Pakistan. Affiliated with loads of terrorist groups, wanted in Egypt for questioning in the beating death of a three-year-old girl. He’s been in the United States a dozen times in the past five years that I know of, and if the information I have about his movements is accurate, you can trace the death of certain children to his presence. I know this because I have access to federal government databases that I should not have access to. Those same databases are not going to tell me who the Collective are using for similar jobs here. Those kinds of secrets are too well hidden. So, yes, I’ve caught up with a number of the American conspirators over the years, but the jihadists are easier for me to hunt. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to track down any of the masters of the conspiracy on either side of this war. During Vietnam, we caught up to half a dozen American industrialists and politicians who were a part of it.”

“You killed them?”

Lynch nodded, fixing her with a hard look. “And the war ended. Ugly, but it ended. Make of that what you will.”

Cait shook her head and blew out a breath. “It hurts my head to even think about it.”

“Unfortunately, it’s your life now,” Lynch told her.

“Not for long,” she said. “I won’t let Leyla grow up in the middle of this insanity.”

Lynch smiled. Handsome as he was, somehow the effect was chilling. “Like me, you mean? You think I’m insane.”

Cait considered lying. “With the life you’ve had, I don’t think anyone would hold you to the usual standard for sanity.”

The old man actually smiled. “Very diplomatic of you, Sergeant.” He went back to looking at the photos. “In any case, things have changed. They got sloppy with you. Maybe they didn’t understand how formidable a target you would be. However it happened, they’ve made a mess of things.”

The photo Lynch had just taped up was of Dwight Hollenbach. Now he put up another, this one a blurry image of a dapper, dark-suited man wearing round glasses, and labeled it Leonard Shelby.

“Not as much as they will,” Cait whispered.

Lynch nodded in agreement, and then turned to meet her gaze fully. “The Middle Eastern men we killed on your property last night were on my list of targets. As you know, I caught up to Gharib al-Din yesterday. Another of them was killed in a police shootout in Sarasota. That accounts for all of the jihadist Herods who were on my list for the eastern half of the country. There is another cell covering the West, but it’s going to take them a while to figure out what the hell’s going on here. And when they do, I believe they’ll stand back and wait to see if the Collective can get the job done for them.”

“So the Arabs are off the board for now,” Cait said.

“Leaving the Collective. They’re the immediate threat, obviously. And we still have no idea as to the extent of the conspiracy,” Lynch said. “These men may be at the top, or just part of the hierarchy. But I do believe they’ll be able to tell me a great deal more than the usual foot soldiers and assassins. I hope to be able to use that information.”

Cait saw him as though for the first time, understood that these whiteboards, this work, was all he lived for. His whole life had been a tragedy caused by men like Hollenbach and Shelby.

“I hope you get the chance, Mr. Lynch,” she said. “For all our sakes. Do you have the floor plan?”

“Already in the truck.”

“And the rest of the guns?”

Lynch tore his gaze away from the whiteboard, fully focusing on her at last. “Also in the truck. We’re ready to go, Caitlin.”

“Good,” she said, her mind running ahead. She didn’t want to say good-bye to Leyla. She felt sick at the idea of leaving her baby behind. But their choices had all been taken from them. “What do you think?”

Lynch stared at her. “Oh, I think we’ll survive getting in. But it’s a terrible plan.”

Cait pulled the photo of Leonard Shelby off the whiteboard, glanced at it once, then folded it and put it into her pocket before looking back at Lynch. “Only if we expected to get out alive.”