of the stadium. The cell phone was glued to his ear and he could feel his pulse thumping against his cheek. Gracie was on alert too, scanning the entrance behind them, still wary of Ogilvy, uncomfortable with his presence there.
Across the stadium, the crowd was still enthralled by the sight before them. The sign was just hovering there, a gargantuan ball of shimmering energy. Matt’s gaze kept getting drawn to it. It was incredibly hard to resist staring at it, and as soon as his eyes strayed over to it, he’d pull them away, back to the Draganflyer’s last position, trying to stay focused on the tiny black dot.
The skycam had almost reached the southern tip of the east bank of suites when Rydell’s voice shot into his ear.
“We’ve got something. Shit, we’re losing it,” he shouted.
Matt’s neck flinched forward, as if the extra couple of inches would make a difference. He saw the skycam go into a wobble, then it just arced down violently, as if it had suddenly lost all power or been smacked down by a big invisible swatter, and dropped like a rock.
Matt’s heart skipped a beat as he saw it plummet, but his eyes raced back up and lasered in on the suites that faced its last stable position. They were the very last ones, at the southeast corner of the stadium.
“Come on,” he yelled to Gracie, grabbing her hand and bolting back onto the concourse, racing for the escalators.
“SHIT,” Dalton yelled as he lost control of the Draganflyer, his heart pounding, his face clenched in panic, his fingers desperately playing the joysticks in search of a reaction.
The image on the laptop’s screen fizzled out and was replaced by gray static, its accompanying hiss just making things worse.
“It’s gonna fucking kill someone,” he blurted—then the image on the screen suddenly flickered back to life. It was unnerving—a plunging point-of-view from the camera as it dived at a rapidly growing crowd.
“Pull it up,” Rydell yelled.
“I’m trying,” Dalton fired back. The people in the camera’s sights grew bigger, their eyes shot wide as they spotted the alien device hurtling toward them and their faces went taut with alarm—and then it came back to life and swooped away just over their heads, avoiding them and pulling up until it just hovered in place by the stadium’s roof.
Dalton let out a huge breath of relief and darted a look of sheer delight at Rydell. “Whose brilliant idea was that?” he asked, his voice shaky.
Rydell gave him a big pat on the shoulder. “Great job, man. Great job. Now get it out of there and let’s check out that building.”
A crescendo of excitement erupted around them. Rydell and Dalton moved back from the SUV’s trunk and stared up at the top of the stadium as a wave of gasps rolled across the parking lot.
The sign was now rising slowly into the night sky, a curved sliver of light peeking out above the stadium’s roof.
MATT LEAPT OFF the escalator onto level two and raced across the landing area that led to the entrance of the suites. Gracie was trailing close behind. The crowds were gone, there was no one around. Everyone was watching the miracle taking place in the arena. The bouncers were also gone, probably watching alongside the guests in one of the suites.
They were coming in from the north side, and the target suite was all the way down the concourse that ran behind the suites, at the south end of the bank. As Matt charged down the curving concourse, two things happened: He thought something must have changed in the arena as a chorus of oohs and aahs rippled through the suites’ doors. And he saw a man walking his way, heading out of the suites area just as Gracie yelled out, “Matt,” from behind him.
The guy had graying hair, rimless glasses, a light-colored suit, and looked slick. The recognition was mutual as Ogilvy flinched with surprise, but he didn’t have time to do much else before Matt just slammed right into him without slowing down, grabbing him by the arms and spinning him and shoving him up hard against the concourse wall. Ogilvy let out a pained gasp as Matt’s weight crashed into his back and winded him. Matt felt his wound light up with a spike of pain, but ignored it and belted Ogilvy with a punch to the kidneys. The man buckled forward under the pain. Matt was in overdrive. He didn’t let up for