Belle muttered something incoherent as we went through the scanners and out the entrance. We were free, for the time being. Only problem was, we had no idea where to go.
“Hello.” I tapped my comm as we turned a corner into an empty hallway. “Eveline? Howard? Anyone?”
“If we can find the parking lot, maybe we can swipe a car. I know how to hot-wire,” Lake said. And when we all stared at her, she shrugged her shoulders, indignant. “What? I can’t know how to hot-wire cars?”
“That won’t be necessary. We have a car waiting for you.”
In the middle of the hallway, I froze at the sound of her voice in my ear. I couldn’t believe it. “S-Sibyl?”
“Duck!” Lake hissed, and pulled me into the nearest corridor while some agents came around the corner.
“Sibyl,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
“Later.” She was all business as usual. I didn’t have time to question her. The agents disappeared into another room without seeing us, but it would only be a matter of time before we were caught. “Nathan, tell me their coordinates.”
Too many things had happened in the past few minutes, and I wasn’t sure if my mind was just playing tricks on me. That couldn’t have been my uncle who’d answered Sibyl with a calm and assured voice.
“They’re in the east wing of Building A-4.”
“Uncle . . .” My breath hitched in my throat. “Uncle Nathan . . .”
“Later,” Sibyl repeated, and I knew how much she hated having to do that.
“Maia, take the emergency stairwell three doors down until you get to the basement floor.” It sounded like he was reading off of a computer screen, monitoring our movements. “Then go out exit two into the parking lot. We have people waiting for you.”
I wasn’t having it. Even as we made our way through the exit and down the stairwell, I didn’t stop until I prodded an answer out of them.
“You know as well as I do, Maia,” Sibyl said. “There’s something going on inside the Sect. I set up this communication line for only those people I knew I could trust.”
“Wait, you’re the one who set this line up?” Lake stumbled under Belle’s weight. Belle muttered something, but no one heard her.
“You didn’t think I was back home twiddling my fingers this entire time, did you?” For the first time maybe ever, I was happy to hear the twang of bossy annoyance in Sibyl’s voice. “The Sect is a very large organization, girls, and if it’s compromised, then the world has a reason to be afraid. If we’re going to fix what’s happening, we’ll have to work together on this.”
“That’s why she sent someone to pick me up in New York and take me to her safe house,” said Uncle Nathan. “Someone from the MDCC was onto me. Sibyl intercepted a message they sent the Sect.”
“So there really was a leak at the MDCC.” I grasped the baluster tightly.
“More like leaks. Saul couldn’t have gotten all those APDs down with only one person helping.”
“Saul’s in Oslo right now,” Chae Rin said. “We’ve got to stop him. How do you plan on getting us there, Langley? Or do you have a jet waiting for us too?”
“You’re not going to Oslo,” she said. “You’re going to Communications. You have to stop Director Prince Senior.”
Rhys’s dad?
Lake stumbled again, earning an angry grumble from Chae Rin, who had Belle’s other arm around her neck. It was Belle herself who gently pushed them both away, waving her hand to stop them when they approached her again.
“I’m okay,” she said, though she was still wincing in pain. “I’m starting . . . to heal.”
Her eyes didn’t show it. They were off focus, their blue pupils dulled. Shutting them, she shook her head and took in a deep breath. “It’s okay.”
Our feet finally touched the pavement of the basement floor. Running out the second exit, we searched for our accomplices. Section B-2, Uncle Nathan told us. And there they were, two agents standing by our getaway car, waving us forward.
Shots rang out. The elevator several feet away had just spat out two security guards, who started firing the moment they saw us. The agents flung open the car door and hid behind it for cover.
“Get in!” they yelled.
We made a run for it. Chae Rin had just enough power to cause a sinkhole underneath the security guards, but even when we hopped into the van and the agents drove out into the night, more security streamed out of another exit in the parking lot.
“Sirens,” I said as they began to ring out over the entire facility. They knew we’d escaped. “Sibyl, we need to get out of here. Why the hell are you guys taking us to Communications?”
“Because according to my sources there, Brendan Prince can’t stop his father with words, and he’s too cowardly to do it through action,” Sibyl answered. “But Arthur Prince is between a rock and a hard place. Oslo is a war zone. Saul promised death and he’s delivering. With the phantoms around the perimeter of the city, nobody can go in or out. It’ll become another Seattle Siege.”
Chae Rin pounded her fist against the back of a seat. “Then we should be there,” she said. “If we can get to Oslo before—”
“Soon there won’t be an Oslo.”
The van fell silent as it cut across the grounds.
“What . . . ?” My breath struggled in my throat. “What . . . do you mean?”
“It’s something I found on the flash drive not too long ago,” Uncle Nathan said. I could hear the fear creeping up in his voice. “Not about those soldiers. But about the weapon the Sect has been building for years without anyone knowing. Not even Sibyl. It’s about Minerva.”
Minerva. The third phase of Project X19.
Chae Rin narrowed her eyes. “Minerva? What about it?”
“It’s the name of a secret Sect satellite that can fire a particle beam at any target in the world,” Sibyl said. “And if we don’t stop him, Arthur will use it to kill Saul. Even if it destroys the city—and everyone inside it.”
31
“SO THE SECT JUST HAS a death weapon lying around?” I yelled so loudly the agent driving squirmed a little in his seat. I didn’t care. My fingernails were practically ripping the leather of his headrest, but I didn’t even notice.
“Apparently,” Uncle Nathan said. “According to the file I read, the Sect built it a decade ago, a last resort in case of a cataclysmic phantom attack. But it was never used. Only certain members of the Council know about its existence. If Director Prince is using it, then either he knew about it all along or one of those Council members told him the big company secret and gave him the controls. Either way, looks like we’re about to see Phase III.”
“Phase III is to nuke a city?” I pounded the headrest with a fist. It was too much to believe. “Why?”