But she had to know if they’d breached Missile Command. If they hadn’t, she needed to make sure they didn’t. Either way, standing still wasn’t an option.
She hurried back out into the corridor. Her legs felt distant and numb. Command was dead center in Seven’s core. A short walk from where she was now.
Her breath sawed in and out of her chest.
The heavy fire door that led to Command was straight ahead.
She hurried toward it, then paused, sucking in a deep breath before she pushed through.
Voices.
She froze, hand on the door, and peeked through the small window of reinforced glass. The corridor leading to the missile command deck was empty. She crouched, opened the fire door a sliver, and squeezed through.
The lights flickered—emergency power cycling on and off, lighting the metal in ghostly jumps. A voice barked from somewhere ahead, sharp and irritated. Russian.
The alarm klaxon cut.
The silence was worse.
Suddenly every breath she took sounded like a shout. She crept to where the corridor opened onto the hexagonal security foyer and pressed herself to the wall.
Beyond the foyer was the two-stage airlock to the Missile Command deck. Biometric scanners. Blast-rated doors. Designed to be impenetrable.
The terrorists hadn’t gotten through. Not yet.
She forced her breath shallow, straining to catch what she could with her patchy Russian.
A voice crackled from a radio. “...missile deck is sealed. No access...”
Another voice responded through the static. “Can’t remove the missiles without disarming them…too long…manually.”
A third voice, deeper and frustrated: “We don’t have time for this shit. The buyers…”
Jen’s stomach knotted.
Buyers?
She dropped to her haunches and risked a look.
Four terrorists in similar gear to the ones who’d threatened her earlier. They surrounded two security techs kneeling between them in gray coveralls, hands trembling.
One terrorist stepped forward. Older. Grizzled chin and eyes like wet gravel.
He grabbed one tech by the collar and hauled him closer.
“Open door,” he said in clipped, accented English. “We access missile deck.”
Access. Not launch codes.
They weren’t here to launch anything. They were here to steal the interceptor missiles. A fortune in hardened steel and guidance tech.
The tech shook his head, voice cracking. “I—I can’t. System’s locked down.”
The grizzled man turned slowly and aimed at the second tech still kneeling on the floor. “Just so we understand each other.”
He fired.
The shot exploded through the corridor. The tech dropped.
