of his computer desk. I sat on the cot where he slept and waited for him to speak.
He cleared his throat, fidgeted with his monitor, and pulled a few screens up. “It’s about the explosive device,” he said bluntly.
He scrutinized all the open search windows, every one of them filled with information related to bombs.
“Okay, go on.”
He slowly turned around, his lips forming a tight, thin line. “I was able to come up with an algorithm, based on all the research I’ve done, and was able to use it to analyze fragments of your device’s mechanism.”
“That’s good, though, right?” I said hopefully. “Maybe now we’ll be able to figure out how to defuse it.”
“I don’t know, Mila,” Lucas said, his tone grim. “Bombs like these are very hard to defuse.”
“How do you know that?”
Lucas spun around and pulled up a rough sketch of the device on one of the monitors, which my sensors were able to translate in seconds.
Object of interest: Destination-locked explosive.
Description: Utilizes sophisticated GPS software and sensors to detonate once in close proximity with a preprogrammed target.
Level of destruction: Anywhere from large-scale to small radiuses, depending on the explosive size.
My hands covered my stomach as it began to knot. “So I’m basically a heat-seeking missile, is that it?”
“No, the bomb is much smarter than that,” Lucas said. “It’s designed to activate once it reaches a specific area or coordinates. Heat-seeking missiles have guidance systems, sure, but they can go off course, hit things they’re not supposed to. The kind you have is mistake-proof.”
I got up and stared over Lucas’s shoulder, cursing Holland under my breath. “So what’s the intended target, then?”
Lucas kicked the leg of the coffee table. “That’s just it. The coding on this thing is mystifying. I haven’t been able to crack anything that has to do with the destination lock. It could be anything. Or anyone.”
Anything. Anyone.
He stood up, his hands placed firmly on his hips. “We know you’re safe right here, since you haven’t detonated yet. But we have no way of knowing what might happen if you leave the mountain.”
“God, Lucas. How about some happy news?” I joked, trying to lighten the mood a little.
He smiled a little. “There is some, actually. The algorithm was able to decipher the device’s intensity level, and it looks somewhat localized.”
“Meaning I won’t take out a whole city if it detonates?”
“More like a few city blocks.”
A few city blocks. Enough to kill scores of people. And yet there was this mysterious window of time—a two-hour countdown once the bomb was set to explode. Why the hell had Holland put that fail-safe in place if he’d wanted to do as much damage as possible? And what kind of target was he out to obliterate?
Lucas had done what he could, but the answers were out in the real world, and it was time for me to find them. What was Holland after? If I figured it out, I’d see where this bomb fit in to his plans.
If I stumbled upon the bomb’s target, I’d find a way to disappear before it could hurt anyone but me.
“I know you’ve helped so much already, but I need to ask you one more favor,” I said.
“Sure. What is it?”
“Can you help me steal a car?”
Lucas opened his mouth—to say “hell no,” I’m sure—but I shut him down before he could go on.
“Look, I can’t stay here anymore,” I said.
I told him about the things Nicole said in her email to Daniel, how suspicious it sounded to me. Holland was concealing something, but she hadn’t realized it. Holland had tricked her.
Lucas listened without interruption, even when I admitted to losing the memory stick in the mountains, which I wasn’t entirely sure he believed.
“It’s clear that Holland had other people involved with the MILA program, or at least he wanted Nicole to think that,” I continued. “Either way, there’s something bigger in play here. We both know it, and I have to find out what it is, before Holland makes another move. Or . . .” I couldn’t say the alternative out loud, but we both knew: before I blew up.
He looked at the floor. “I get it, I do. But if you give me some more time—”
“No, Lucas,” I said firmly. “You don’t understand. I need to do this. I have to do something to make up for . . . everything. It’s not about saving me. It’s about saving other people. And it can’t wait.”
Silence. Five seconds, then ten, as he assessed