Last to Die

drizzle of plaster onto Claire’s head. With a snort of disgust, the woman turned back to Teddy.
    At once Claire scrambled away and dropped down behind the desk, trembling.
Why is this happening? Why have they turned against us?
    “Since that didn’t work,” the woman said. “Maybe you really don’t know where he is. So we go to plan B.” She grabbed Teddy’s arm and dragged him toward the roof walk.
    Her partner said, “This is fucked up. These are just kids.”
    “It needs to be done.”
    “We came for Icarus.”
    “Our
target
is whoever I say it is.” She yanked off Teddy’s communications headset and dragged him out the door, onto the exposed roof walk. “Now we dangle some bait,” she said, and swung him over the railing.
    Teddy screamed, frantically scrambling for a toehold on the steep slate roof. All that kept him from plummeting to his death was the woman, gripping his arm.
    She spoke into the boy’s headset. “No, this isn’t Teddy talking to you. Guess who I’ve got hanging off the roof? Such a sweet boy, too. All I have to do is let go, and he’ll be nothing but a stain on the ground.”
    “The kid’s not part of this,” her partner protested.
    The woman ignored him and kept talking into Teddy’s com unit. “I know you’re on this frequency. And you know what’s happening. You also know how to stop it. I never liked children anyway, so it’s no big deal to me. And he’s getting heavy.”
    “This is way over the line,” the man said, moving toward her. “Pull the kid back.”
    “Stand down,” she ordered him. And she barked into Teddy’s microphone: “Thirty seconds! That’s all you’ve got! Show yourself or I let go!”
    “Justine,” the man said. “Pull the kid back.
Now
.”
    “Jesus Christ.” The woman yanked Teddy back over the railing and set him down. Then she aimed at her partner and fired.
    The force of the bullet sent him flying backward. He collapsed against the desk and slid off, his head thudding to the floor right next to where Claire was cowering. She stared down at the hole above his left eye. Saw blood streaming out, soaking into Dr. Welliver’s rose-colored rug.
    She killed him. She killed her own man
.
    Justine bent down, scooped up her dead colleague’s weapon, and tucked it into her waistband. Then she tossed aside Teddy’s headset and spoke into her own com unit. “Where the fuck are you? The target’s on his way up to the turret. I need you here
now
.”
    Footsteps were moving up the stairs.
    Instantly the woman hauled Teddy to his feet and held him in front of her, a human shield against the man who now stepped through the doorway. The same man whom Claire had earlier thought was the enemy. But nothing made sense anymore, because Claire had thought this woman was their rescuer. And she’d thought this man who’d tied her up, with his black-smeared face and camouflage clothes, had come to kill them.
Which one is my friend?
    The man advanced slowly, his weapon trained on the woman. But Teddy stood in the line of fire, pale-faced and trembling in the woman’s grip.
    “Let him go, Justine. This is between you and me,” he said.
    “I knew I could make you finally surface.”
    “These kids have nothing to do with it.”
    “They’re my trump card, and here you are. Still looking fit, I see. Although I liked your old face better.” She pressed the barrel of her gun harder against Teddy’s temple. “Now you know what to do, Nick.”
    “You’ll kill him anyway.”
    “But there’s always the chance I won’t. As opposed to a sure thing, which you’d have to watch.” She fired and Teddy screamed, blood trickling from his bullet-torn ear. “Next time,” she said, “it will be his chin. So drop it.”
    Teddy sobbed, “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m so sorry.”
    Dad?
    The man dropped his gun and now stood unarmed before her. “Do you really think I’d walk into this without a fail-safe, Justine? Kill me, and it all blows up in your face.”
    Claire stared at the man, searching for any resemblance to the Nicholas Clock she’d seen in the photo with her father. He had the same broad shoulders, the same blond hair, but this man’s nose and chin were different. Plastic surgery. Hadn’t Justine said it?
I liked your old face better
.
    “You’re supposed to be dead,” Claire murmured.
    “I thought for certain you’d show yourself after Ithaca,” said Justine. “That you’d make
some
move to save Olivia’s boy. But in the end,