August opened his eyes. His face hurt. Everything hurt. Blood on the back of his head, sticky. He got to his feet.
He heard the whine of the metal door opening, footsteps pounding the concrete floor. He groped for his gun. Gone. His head felt broken and dreamy and misty. Concussion, probably.
A woman. Petite, red hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She stared at him and raised the gun in her hand.
‘Stay there,’ she said. ‘Stay right there.’
He stayed right there.
He saw her gaze dart about the room. She ran to Jack Ming’s knapsack, lifted it almost gently. Before she picked it up he could see in its unzippered opening a small laptop. She grabbed the knapsack, put it over her shoulder. She kept the gun leveled at August.
‘Just stay there,’ she ordered him.
‘Who are you?’ he said.
Of course she didn’t answer. She kept her gaze on him, tightened her grip on the gun.
She vanished back out into the alley.
August staggered to the door. Who the hell was she? Was she in league with Ming or with Sam?
He came out into the alley and she shot at him. Not close enough to hit but, you know, a bullet in your general direction is enough to make you retreat.
‘I told you to stay!’ she screamed at him.
One of the backups, Griffith, was lying in the alley, groaning, pawing at his ribs. No sign of the Navigator. He counted to twenty and risked coming out the door again. The redhead was gone.
He keyed his earphone. ‘Two, this is One, report?’
‘I’m getting the informant away, we’re being pursued, an armed male, he knew your name, he said you were shot-’
And then chaos. The distant thrum of metal against metal crashing, the drum-drum-drum of gunshots hitting bulletproof glass. Grimes cussing, screaming at someone to get down and stay down, Jack Ming’s voice answering I am getting the fuck out of here.
‘The hostile is trying to kill the kid,’ Grimes said and then more shots. Grimes howled and cussed again. August ran now. ‘Where are you?’
The hostile. Sam Capra. His best friend – who should have wanted nothing more than an informant from Novem Soles coming forward – was trying to kill their best hope of unveiling the ring’s every secret.
August ran.