Jake watched the computer screen in front of Hannah come to life. He saw the names scrolling in front of him and the pleasure on the other men’s faces.
“We’re in.” Owen pushed Hannah, chair and all, to the side so he could read the screen better. He used the mouse to scroll down, reading through the information illuminated there.
His hand froze. An instant later, his other hand shot out and gripped Hannah by the throat. “This isn’t the database!”
Jake stepped forward only to have Cheng’s gun shoved into his ribs, Cheng’s free hand gripping his shoulder.
He watched helplessly as Hannah’s eyes watered, her body straining away from Owen as she fought for breath. “Let her go!” Jake pleaded.
“Are you going to cooperate?” Owen asked, not loosening his grip in the least.
Weakly, Hannah nodded.
Owen released her, and Hannah gasped for breath. Owen pushed her farther from the computer. “Watch her.”
Cheng shifted his position slightly to comply while Owen reassembled the equipment she had previously unplugged. He then powered it off, took out the flash drive, and restarted the computer.
This time when the screen lit up, the login screen flashed “Failsafe Procedures Initiated.”
He clicked on the login button himself, but instead of receiving a box to input a password, a message box opened that read, “Place right hand on scanner.”
Owen grabbed her hand, pressing it to a portable scanner and holding it in place until the next screen appeared.
Jake had never seen a retinal scanner before in real life, but the ones he had seen on television were pretty accurate. Owen held Hannah’s head in place as he held the device and a little light shone into her right eye.
A third login screen appeared, this one looking very much like the one Hannah had started with the first time.
“Put in the password,” Owen demanded, pressing his gun to the side of her head.
Hannah froze, bracing as though expecting him to pull the trigger at any moment. Jake stepped forward instinctively, driven to protect her even though he knew he could do nothing to help anyone, not even himself. The whole scene was completely surreal, a tragedy in the making, with no escape possible and no hero in sight.
“Now!” Owen demanded.
Hannah didn’t move, a tear trickling down her cheek. “I can’t.”
He pressed the gun more firmly to her temple, Jake straining forward once more, this time managing to pull a few steps away from Cheng before he was once more held fast.
A tremor shuddered through Hannah, but she still didn’t move. Jake’s attempt to reach her must have distracted Owen from her because he turned now, shifting his aim from Hannah to Jake.
“You have a choice: give me the password, and he lives. Otherwise, he dies.”
She turned her head, a look of fury and hatred in her eyes. “If he dies, you might as well kill me too because there’s no way I’ll help you as long as he’s in danger.”
Jake felt his own body tense. The look on Hannah’s face told him she expected these men were going to kill them the minute they got what they wanted anyway. He was still processing that thought when an unfamiliar voice sounded behind him. “Drop the gun!”
* * *
Charlotte couldn’t believe it. The man she had ditched at the train station was standing in the open doorway, the gun in his hand aimed at Owen.
Charlotte expected some kind of resistance from the men who had brought her and Jake here, but caught off guard, both men lowered their weapons.
The man took Cheng’s weapon from him and spoke to Charlotte. “Take his gun.”
Charlotte stood and did as he said, relieving Owen of his gun before putting several feet between them.
She took a moment to remember their hero’s name, recalling it from when he had introduced himself to her in Baltimore. “Phil, what are you doing here?”
“You know this guy?” Jake asked before Phil could respond.
“Kind of.” Charlotte looked at Phil sheepishly. “He found me in a train station right after my dad was killed. I thought he was working with them.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I should have checked with Ace before making contact.”
The mention of Ace’s name gave Charlotte some measure of comfort.
“If you’re one of the good guys, could you please untie me?” Jake asked, holding out his hands.
“I’ll do it,” Charlotte said. She crossed to Jake, and he held out his hands to her.
“My car keys are in my right pocket. There’s a pocket knife on my key ring.”
Charlotte fought back the awkwardness of putting her hand in his pocket and grabbed his keys.
She quickly sliced through the cord binding Jake’s hands, her stomach clenching when she noticed the redness of the skin where the rope had chaffed against it.
“Thanks,” Jake said, rubbing his wrists.
The words “You’re welcome” didn’t seem quite appropriate since her presence in his life had gotten Jake into this bind in the first place. Instead, she said nothing and turned her attention back to Phil.
He stood with his gun pointed at Cheng and Owen. The two men were now standing along the far wall, their hands pulled back behind them.
“Did you call for backup?” Charlotte asked.
“Ace should be on his way, but knowing him, he’ll stop and get sandwiches first.”
Charlotte let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Often when guardians helped people, they provided sandwiches or some other takeout food to give a reason for someone to be gone from their home or work while they were really meeting with the guardian. Ace had done just that only a week ago when she had met with him.
“Sandwiches?” Jake asked.
“It’s a long story,” Charlotte said before speaking to Phil once more. “We’ll need to disassemble this equipment so we can secure it before turning these guys over to the authorities.”
“Actually, Ace said to leave it up.”
“Why?”
“We have a situation brewing.”
“I know we have a funding issue, but at this time of day, our support personnel won’t be in place anyway. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow for that.”
“It’s more than funding. We have operatives from two agencies on a possible collision course in Afghanistan.”
Charlotte’s face paled. “What?”
“Without the database active, no one has been able to monitor all of our different intelligence sources. A squad of Navy SEALs is en route right now to intercept a suspected al-Qaeda cell. They don’t know a CIA operative is inside the compound right now trying to infiltrate the same cell. We’ll get more information through the CIA’s sources, but we have no way to convince the navy to break radio silence and call off the strike.”
“Oh no.” Charlotte breathed the words out in a whisper.
“I don’t understand,” Jake said, taking a step toward the computer. “How can a bunch of linked computers stop a problem like that?”
“These computers link the databases that include every intelligence operative in the country and their current assignments,” Charlotte admitted. “All of the intelligence agencies also allow the guardians to access operational data to help coordinate the use of our resources.”
“I thought all of that secret spy stuff was kept need-to-know,” Jake said.
“It usually is.” She wavered on how much to tell him and realized that he already knew too much to hold back now. As she had told Ace, she trusted Jake. She took that final step to prove those words true by deciding to confide in him completely.
“After a friendly-fire incident twenty years ago, the guardian program was created. A U.S. senator and a project manager at the NSA came up with the idea of a central database for all intelligence sources and operations.”
“I wouldn’t think anyone would ever want all of that information in the same place,” Jake said astutely.
“It was risky, but they’d already seen what not having the information accessible had done,” Charlotte said. “Because of the potential danger to the operatives, only a small handful of people knew about its existence. Most people involved don’t even realize where their information is going. They think it’s either being provided to superiors within their own agency or to a senator on the intelligence oversight committee, who is really our source of funding.”
Phil’s phone chimed. He pulled it out with his free hand and looked down at the screen. “It’s happening.”
“What?”
“The SEALs will reach their insertion point in less than five minutes,” he said urgently. “Can you open the database long enough to send the abort code to the navy? You can shut it down right after you do.”
“Let me see,” Charlotte said, edging closer so she could see the screen of Phil’s phone. Sure enough, a countdown had been activated in the message he’d received from the navy. Charlotte looked at the coding string included in the message, verifying that it had come from the military. “Move those two to the far side of the room. I don’t want them anywhere near me when I access the database.”
“You heard her.” Phil waved his gun at them, and Cheng and Owen obediently backed away from her until they were leaning against the wall opposite the door.
She sat down at the keyboard again, struck by how surreal this moment had become. The two men who had killed her father, who had threatened her life as well as Jake’s, now stood silently across the room. The very situation the guardians had fought to prevent was unfurling, and she alone was in a position to ensure the safety of those in harm’s way.
She pulled the keyboard closer and typed in the first several characters of the complex password. A niggling doubt stopped her, the same doubt she had experienced the first time she’d met Phil.
How was it that Owen and Cheng weren’t fighting back? Phil’s presence seemed to have extinguished their ambition and their absolute conviction to see their goals through.
Charlotte glanced over at Phil and caught a brief glimpse of an expression she hadn’t seen previously: greed.