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Now Travers looked to the woman in the room with him. “Who the hell are you?”
Hinton answered for her. “She’s just my assistant.”
Pace looked her over. “You speak English?”
Kimmie climbed back to her feet, tears in her eyes. “Of course I speak English,” she said, her British accent strong. “I’m from bloody England, aren’t I?”
Pace turned to Zoya. “Get her out of here.”
Zoya stepped up to the woman, pulled the Asian woman’s earpiece out of her ear, and dropped it on the ground. She quickly frisked her, found nothing on her but a phone, and this she tossed, as well.
She then took her roughly by the arm and pulled her out of the cage, then passed her off to Jamie, Victor Six.
Six said, “Keep your hands up.”
To Hinton, Jim Pace said, “Turn off all the bots in the building.”
Hinton shook his head. “I can’t.”
He hefted his AK and pointed it at the man’s chest. “Then there’s going to be one more gunshot in this room.”
Just then, an explosion on the southern side of the room turned everyone’s heads and shifted rifles in that direction.
But only for a moment, because then Mike One came over the teams’ headsets. “Mike, Zulu, and Quebec have breached. We’ll disperse at the doors and barricade the room against a counterattack.”
Pace turned back to Hinton. “Last chance.”
Hinton appeared scared, but then a look of resolve flashed across his face. “I have at least one hundred military-grade robotic weapons operational in this building right now. There are also over one hundred Cuban soldiers upstairs. You are outnumbered. You don’t have a hand to play, mate.”
Pace said, “You don’t have one hundred bots, and you don’t have a hundred Cuban soldiers, because they’re all busy killing each other around the building.”
A look of terror crossed Hinton’s face. “No. The Cubans aren’t in the building. They can’t be in here.”
Pace just said, “They’re on this floor, or they were till the bots started killing them. You need to stop the upload before I shoot you dead, because we have enough explosives with us to blow this entire room.”
Hinton’s face drained of all color. Softly, he said, “Give me my earpiece back. I’ll stop Cyrus.”
Pace gave him his earpiece back. Hinton put it in and said, “Cyrus, code Angels, code Angels. Cease function on all platforms in the building.”
There was a pause, and then Hinton’s eyes flashed to Kimmie.
“What is it?” Pace demanded.
“Cyrus…Cyrus just responded that my commands are no longer authorized.”
Pace stormed up to Hinton now. “So…so you don’t control Cyrus?”
He shook his head, looking like a man who had suddenly lost faith in his god. “It’s not…not responding to my orders. I’d have to get into its code to alter it, and I would need all my engineers to help.”
Hinton was still recovering from what he’d just learned. “Let me contact my chief of operations. He is in communication with the Cubans, he can have them—”
Pace grabbed Hinton by his hair and yanked him towards the door, and then he spoke into his headset. “Mike One, we’re blowing this bitch.”
The Ground Branch men had secured both the main entrances to the room, and Mike One responded quickly. “Sending you two Bravo Zulu men with C-4 and M18 detonators. Be advised, we can hear multiple LAWs forming on the other side of both doors. Looks like they’re about to try a coordinated breach on this room. We’re covered behind ceiling support columns and ready for them, but I expect a hell of a fight.”
“Understood,” Pace said, and then Hinton reached up and grabbed him by the arm.
“Please! Do not destroy Cyrus. I’ll do what you want. I’ll give it to you. To America.”
