She said nothing and felt like deadweight in his grasp. More hands grabbed his legs and heaved both of them up, grunting and cursing.
When he pulled her out, she slumped in his arms, unconscious.
“We’ve got to get the hell out of here,” Benton said. “This place is going to blow.”
Wu adjusted Vega, draping her over his shoulder in the fireman’s-carry position.
“I don’t know whether to give you an ass-chewing or a medal,” he said to Benton.
“I’ve had both,” Benton said. “You can figure it out later. Right now we need to beat feet.”
He took off at a jog, and Wu trotted beside him. They made it past the fire truck seconds before the sky erupted in a ball of fire that lit the desert below.
CHAPTER 70
Two days later, Dani stood alone in the elevator at 26 Fed. Her stomach lurched as she sped upward, the brief weightless sensation reminding her of the dizziness she had felt in the shaft. Her only clear memories of the suffocating shaft were of darkness, fatigue, pain, and nearly unbearable heat.
During her darkest moments, she had believed she would pass out, fall, and be cooked alive in an underground inferno. The only thing that kept her going was the sound of a drill sergeant ordering her to soldier on. She learned later that it had been Wu’s voice barking orders at her, driving her to continue when she had no strength left.
In the end, the will to live was the only thing she had to draw from, and Wu had tapped into that final reserve. She had done all she could to help others, all she could to survive, but it had been teamwork that had saved her.
She had only a dim recollection of the ambulance ride to Tucson General Hospital, where they had insisted she stay overnight for observation. Wu had agreed, overriding her objections.
She wasn’t concerned about her body, which would heal quickly. She had spent a restless night replaying scenes from inside the game, always ending in someone’s death. The most painful of which had been Toro’s. She was only beginning to process her feelings, which were conflicted and raw.
The elevator doors opened to reveal Wu, who was apparently waiting for her. He must have asked the security personnel to alert him when she arrived. She stepped out into the hallway slowly, muscles still stiff from her ordeal.
“How are you feeling?” Wu asked her.
“Fine,” she lied.
He met the blatant falsehood with a raised brow before changing the subject. “Assistant Director Hargrave is waiting for us.”
She followed when he pivoted and walked in the direction of the ADIC’s spacious office. Her boss had included himself in the summons, but she was certain it had been directed at her. She had been the one who had not just broken but pulverized every rule in the book during her undercover assignment. As the sole survivor, how could she call the mission a success?
Wu opened the door without knocking, which meant the ADIC had also been made aware of her arrival in advance. She lifted her chin and strode inside, taking one of two chairs facing Hargrave’s desk.
“First and foremost,” Hargrave began after she and Wu settled, “I’m grateful that you’re back safely. I’ve provided updates to Washington, and even the director himself was quite concerned about your . . . situation.”
Dani squirmed in her chair. She had met Director Franklin only once. It was the day she graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico, and she had no expectation of her name crossing his awareness again throughout her career. She had never tried for promotion in the military, and she had no desire to climb the ranks in federal law enforcement either. She preferred to be responsible for herself and those who worked closely with her rather than for a large contingent of personnel.
“You did, however, take actions that were against protocol,” Hargrave went on. “The Undercover Review Committee and the Office of Professional Responsibility will conduct investigations into everything that happened during your assignment.”
Her reckoning had come. They would put her under a microscope, scrutinizing every second of video Patel had salvaged from the unedited raw footage from the database before the whole system went up in smoke. Even the director, who would be too busy to devote hours to watching, would have a summary, including video clips prepared for him to view. She suppressed a shudder at the thought of him evaluating her performance.
Wu found his voice. “Agent Vega had to make tough decisions under intense pressure in there.”
“We are all aware,” Hargrave said. “And it will be taken into consideration.”
Wu had shown her snippets of video from the dark web version of the game, and she had seen herself as Athena, fighting, strategizing, and killing.
“What about the public?” Dani asked, partly to take the attention from her own actions and partly out of sheer curiosity. “Has anyone on the dark web figured out the game was real? If this leaks out to the media—”
“No one knows,” Hargrave said. “And it’s going to stay that way.” He appeared to consider his next words. “You will be offered counseling, Agent Vega. It’s important that you process everything you’ve been through, and I strongly recommend you talk to someone.”
“I’ll do whatever is necessary,” she hedged, unwilling to commit, then made her stance clear. “And I expect to return to full duty.”
“After the administrative and criminal investigation into your actions,” Hargrave said, “we’ll consider your next assignment.”
She would have to wait to find out what the future held for her. This was not the first time her actions had been investigated and her judgment questioned. The irony was that her peers and supervisors would spend months contemplating decisions she had made in less than a second. To say that it wasn’t fair would be pointless. Accountability was necessary, and she believed her choices would be vindicated.
“You are dismissed, Agent Vega,” Hargrave said. “Be sure you’re available at all times.”
She stood to leave, and Wu followed her out into the hallway. Once the door closed behind them, she laid a hand on his forearm, bringing him to a halt. Everyone had directed questions at her, but she had a few of her own.
“Did the ERT finish searching the Brinkley estate?” she asked him.
While Wu and the tactical team had been trying to rescue her from the silo, he had sent a signed search warrant to his counterpart at the San Francisco field office, requesting an Evidence Response Team to collect anything relating to the case from Oscar and Megan Brinkley’s palatial home in Santa Clara.
“Come to the JOC with me,” he said. “The report just came in.”
Hargrave had already dismissed her, but Wu was inviting her to the briefing rather than sending her home to sit by her phone. She hoped this boded well for the upcoming OPR investigation.
When they walked into the center, Johnson rushed forward to greet her, eyes brimming. “I am so glad to see you,” she said, giving her a quick hug.
Patel grasped her hand in both of his. “I’ve been reviewing the video,” he said. “And I still can’t believe what you did.”
“Surprised you showed up so soon,” Flint said, ambling over. “Figured you’d try to milk it for a week off.”
“And let you have all the fun?” she asked him.
Wu sat in the swivel chair at the head of the conference table. “What’s the latest from California?”
“They had to call in a specialist to get into both safes,” Flint said.
She felt like she had missed a lot. “There was more than one safe?” she asked.
Flint tipped his head toward Johnson, who was already working, tapping her keyboard.
“Oscar had one in his office,” Johnson said. “But the real prize was in Megan’s bedroom. We almost missed the safe hidden behind the mirror, but then Flint recalled what Megan said before she died.”
The cryptic comment came back to Dani. “If you want the truth, you’ve got to see what’s in the mirror,” she quoted, then glanced at Flint. “The silo was on fire, and Megan knew she might not make it out alive. She clearly didn’t want to take her secrets to the grave.”
Photographs taken by the ERT appeared on the wall screen. A full-length mirror stood open at a right angle from the wall, revealing a safe.
“The only thing inside was a flash drive,” Johnson said. “This was on it.”
The screen switched to reveal virtual files.
Johnson began to click them, opening numerous documents.
Dani leaned forward, riveted to the screen. “Those are bank transactions.”
“It’s a money trail,” Johnson said. “Funds were transferred from Oscar Brinkley to Colonel Xavier Treadway.” She paused. “And look at the dates.”
Dani narrowed her eyes. “That’s ten years ago.”
“Take a closer look,” Flint said before Johnson could respond. “The date of the first transaction is one month to the day before Megan Brinkley and her mother were kidnapped.”
Dani felt her jaw slacken. “Megan was only fifteen at the time. She didn’t pay anyone to have herself and her mother abducted.”