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The team stormed the hall and took up positions at a corner, then moved around it in neat synchronicity. Cooper heard yelling, a Warden ordering someone to get on the ground, and before that was even possible, the fast hard crack of automatic weapons fire, forward commandos dropping a target. He swung around behind them, saw two bad guys bleeding, one on his knees, the other staggering, both clean shots. Behind him someone yelled, “Flash!” as another stun grenade arced over Cooper’s head.

A man stepped from an alcove with the precision of a ballet dancer. His features were bland, his expression mild. His eyes were closed. Without breaking stride, he reached up to pluck the flashbang from the air and toss it back with a flick of his wrist. Cooper barely had time to turn away before everything vanished in a swell of roaring white.

The flashbang hazed out his vision, but he’d recognized the man. Haruto Yamato, one of the lieutenants who had been with Smith in New York. He made himself focus as Yamato started forward, eyes still shut as he took out the first Warden with a neck chop that segued into a leg sweep on the second.

Yamato’s gift is audiokinetic. He fights with his eyes closed and holds high-rank black belts in a dozen martial arts.

You can’t win toe-to-toe, but this doesn’t need to be a fair fight. All you need to do is tie him up long enough for the others to—

Wait a second.

You’re carrying an assault rifle.

Cooper raised his weapon and fired.

Yamato danced and sidestepped his way around the first three bullets. But the fourth, fifth, and sixth tore open his chest, and he staggered into a wall, then slid down it with a red smear. His empty eyes opened.

I’m coming for you, John.

Gunshots, lots of them, and yelling, and more explosions. Hawk was starting for the door before he realized he’d moved at all.

“Stop.” John’s voice was a whip, no warmth in it.

Hawk froze. More gunfire, this time from the other direction. A scream. Everyone had always said that enemy soldiers could storm the building, but he’d never really believed it, not in his bones.

Smith opened the door a crack and peered into the hall before stepping out. Aaron followed, trying to remember the drills, what to do if they were ever raided. Stay in their rooms? No, that didn’t make sense. The armory. Everyone was supposed to fall back to the armory.

“Come on.” John set off at a jog.

“Wait, the armory is the other way!” More shots, closer. His heart was going crazy, and he needed to pee desperately.

“We’re not going to the armory. Move!”

Cooper hadn’t been in that many secret laboratories. Two, to be precise. But so far they seemed like very dangerous places.

Abe Couzen’s facility in the Bronx had been a shiny wonderland of science toys, but by the time he and Ethan had found it, it had been redecorated via hand-to-hand combat—benches overturned, blood splashed on the wall.

This one was bigger, harshly lit, and filled with objects whose function he could only guess at. Blood spatter covered the sparkling surfaces and broken glass crunched underfoot. Commandos hustled between the tables, shouting and zip-tying captives.

The Wardens had shock-and-awed their way through the warehouse without significant incident. Plenty of Smith’s people resisted, but taken by surprise in ones and twos, none of them had posed even half the threat Haruto Yamato had. A dozen fighters had fallen back to a cinderblock armory, which Cooper found very considerate. So much easier to gas them all at the same time.

He paced the lab, taking in the place. The gunfire had died down to occasional bursts. Cooper stepped over a wet spray of brain matter and crouched beside a body. Two holes had been punched through the man’s face, but even so, it was obviously not Smith.

He keyed his earpiece, said, “Status.”

“This is Bravo Leader. We’ve cleared the building through our checkpoint.”

“Any sign of Smith?”

“That’s a negative.”

“Roger,” Cooper said. “Exterior?”

“All quiet on the street. One in custody, two KIA. Neither is Smith.”

“Sir.” The commander of Alpha Team was a squat, hard-eyed woman who looked like she could bicep-curl Cooper’s weight. Her face was grim. “He wasn’t with the people in the armory, either.”

“You’re sure?”

“We’re doing a thorough sweep of the building now. But unless John Smith is hiding under the floorboards, we’ve missed him.”

Slowly, Cooper nodded.

Then smiled.

The tunnel was choked with dust. In the dark, Hawk couldn’t see the spiderwebs that brushed against his face, but each one made his skin crawl. The space was too tight to crawl. He had to wriggle like a worm, his elbows jammed in his sides.