Standing here in the cockpit, under the rain and storm, slicing through the sky at five hundred miles per hour, Virginia knew she was doing the right thing.

She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t know that she knew that she knew it was critical, crucial, necessary. She wasn’t driven by emotion. She was driven by objective. She’d put much thought into this mission. Sure, it was barreling fast out of control. She didn’t regret it, though. Men like Calvert couldn’t be allowed to live. If USI were behind her, they would be able to put together a plan, a mission; they’d be able to take him out. They wouldn’t, though, because they were cowards. Virginia wasn’t sure where the orders came from, but she knew that someone(s) were protecting Calvert. The good guys were protecting him because of politics and plans and bullshit.

The good guys weren’t going to do anything about Calvert.

So she was.

In the cockpit, Jake put his earphone back in, to keep updated on Virginia’s case. If he was going to betray his agency, he might as well do a good job at it.

“Do I have Virginia in sight? No,” he said, adding a smile. He was enjoying this.

Virginia stood right before him, her clothes against his.

Virginia was listening to Shannon through the ear chip. She could hear a scuffle. There was nothing Virginia could do to help her in this moment. If Shannon could get herself out of the building, Virginia could talk her through her movements. Keep her encouraged. Keep her from panicking. Shannon had what it took to escape, whether she realized it or not.

Chad was too busy fighting the crosswinds, headwinds, wild rainfall, dark clouds, lightning, thunder!—to think about his five million, which he was going to split with Brandon. He hoped against hope the engines would hold up. He’d never flown through this kind of severe weather. A 747 might make it through, but this plane had less of a chance.

“Brandon, this might have been a bad idea.”

Brandon found the silver lining. But he was terrified as he said it. “If we go down, I guess we will be killing bad guys along with us. It’s not the worst way to die.”

Virginia overheard the pilots talking.

The bodyguards—several of them now—were yelling outside the cockpit door.

Jake was talking to his CIA counterpart.

Jake: “Why the shoot-to-kill on Virginia? What do you mean they don’t know? They’re saying she’s a defective agent? Treason? Tell them I want more intel before I commit. And who’s to say she’s even on this plane? I’m not playing dumb. Tell Hoskins—why Hoskins, is he the director?—I’m not. Have I ever acted irrationally before? Hoskins knows I’m our best field agent. Or one of them.” He shrugged.

Shannon took Paige to the ground. He landed hard on his back. She didn’t weigh enough to hurt him. She was holding down his right hand: the one with the gun. He tried with his free hand to punch her. She dodged with a subtle move of her head, then she followed Virginia’s instructions and, as fast as she could, she slammed her hand into his throat.

He immediately struggled for air.

With two hands now, she twisted the gun in his hand, breaking his finger. He gasped in pain, trying to fill his lungs. Now she had the gun in her hands and was on her knees, aiming at one of the two remaining field agents. Both had their guns aimed at her, flashlights held tight against the barrels of their pistols.

“You guys know better,” she said. “I’m not priority one.”

“You’re going to be once we call this in.”

“Don’t risk it,” Shannon said. “You don’t understand everything going on here.”

That’s when Paige chimed in his opinion between gasps. “Subdue her. She won’t shoot you.”

The men began closing in on Shannon from either side.

Lighting flashed through the windows and for a moment she saw both of their faces. One had medium-length hair and sharp features. He was the one holding the flashlight in her eyes, which was a good strategy.

Shannon didn’t have any option.

She couldn’t run yet. They’d block her escape. They’d stop her. She needed to face them. She couldn’t try to shoot them in the legs. Sure, she’d hit them. But they’d respond. They’d start firing back. And she didn’t want to die.

She had to fight them.

Raising her hands, she stood to her feet, then she threw the pistol aside. It chattered on and slid across the old floor. The two men holstered their weapons.

This was it then: her versus two bulky, athletic men.

Only option.

Brandon: “Easy come easy go.”

Chad: “Except that it was five million.”

“What five million?” Virginia asked.

Brandon’s face flushed for a moment, but his adverse reaction was covered by a crack of lightning so loud Virginia’s eardrums started ringing. The plane started shaking violently, small and fast movements, up and down, as if they were in some kind of molecular accelerator. The structure of the plane was shaking, creaking, bowing.

“We’re at the mercy of the elements,” Chad yelled.

“What five million?” Virginia asked again.

“Tell her,” Chad said. “Why not?”

Brandon didn’t immediately divulge, considering. Virginia held his eyes in hers. She made her eyes appear soft and understanding, coaxing him to speak. He was on the edge. She was pushing him…

“We struck a deal,” he said, “with some group of people, rival terrorists who’d gotten in contact with us, to tell them when this plane landed. They want to kill the men on the plane.”

“On the way out of the airport?” said Virginia, thinking it through.

“That’s what we figure. They never actually said. They just wanted to know when and where our flight began and when and where we were going to land. They wanted us to signal them, via text, our coordinates every twenty minutes. Via radio as we neared the airport.” Then Brandon went on the defense: “They offered five million, and we figured, why the hell not? We’d be delivering bad guys to bad guys. We’d practically be doing a good deed.”

Virginia was trying to figure out what this meant. She thought this plane was headed to a civil meeting with a rival group of terrorists. So why was the rival group paying out five million to keep tabs?

Boom. Boom! BOOM!

Gunshots started sounding outside the cockpit door. Rapid-fire, one after another, multiple guns firing simultaneously. The sounds rang inside the cockpit, punched holes in the door. Virginia and Jake were standing only feet from the door.

These people are fuckin’ crazy, Virginia thought.

The men had only gotten a few shots off by the time Virginia and Jake whipped out their concealed guns and began firing back. Virginia unloaded a clip through the door at strategic points in a matter of seconds. Dropped the clip, grabbed another from her jacket pocket, emptied that clip. The shooting stopped.

Jake flicked open the lock and kicked down the bullet-riddled door. There was blood alongside the wall opposite the door. Gun smoke filled the air, the haze, the smell—oil, metal combustion, gunpowder.

The plane shook side to side to side.

To side.

The rain battered even harder.

Lightning and thunder and lightning and thunder, all around, all sides, everywhere. The storm had consumed the plane. And what was worse was Chad wasn’t keeping the plane level. The plane was listing, further and further.

Virginia realized what was wrong, but by that point the plane was completely sideways. Her body fell against the wall. Dead bodies from the hall fell against the wall.

Virginia caught herself on her hands and feet, gun in hand. She removed the last clip from her leg holster and loaded it.

Then she began crawling towards the cockpit.

She got around the wall.

The plane was whistling through the air, on its side, slicing downward fast, intensity gaining with every additional moment they flew this way, the engines being manipulated into a faster descent from the wind and trajectory. The fuselage was vibrating in a way it was never meant to, as if it were trying to shake its very atoms, its material makeup, out of place.

Virginia saw what she’d expected. Chad Kevins’ brains had been blown out, splayed across the small windshield. Brandon was slumped in his seat, hanging against his buckled seatbelt. He was either dead or had fainted at the sight of Chad.

TWO YEARS PRIOR.

It was a secret meeting, as so many of them were in Washington. Except this wasn’t in Washington. This was much further away, in another country. There were no cameras around. They were in a small diner in Chiapas, Mexico. They were dressed like tourists. It was broad daylight and they both smiled like they were happy and contented.

This was the CIA director that preceded Hoskins and Virginia’s father, Senator Joseph Hart.

Senator: We want you to go after Calvert, but we know it can’t be done.

CIA Director: Who’s we? You and your daughter?

The Senator didn’t answer.

CIA Director: You’re right. It can’t be done.

Senator: If I asked you to do it anyways?

CIA Director: Black ops? Don’t you have people for that?

Senator: Answer my question.

CIA Director: I couldn’t. The risk would be too great. We’d lose too many people and we’d have to expect retaliation.

Senator: That’s what we thought.

There was silence for several minutes while they ate their food—eggs benedict with orange juice and hash browns.

Senator: The most evil man in the world is untouchable.

CIA Director: He’s like the devil, a slithery serpent that can’t be killed. Not even Jesus killed the devil.

Senator: What about USI?

CIA Director: No one can go after Calvert. There’s too much risk.

Senator: Even undercover ops?

CIA Director: Too much risk. I don’t know how much clearer I can be. You can tell your daughter and your committee to give up on Calvert. He’s invincible, untouchable, and even if we tried to get him, I’m not sure if we could. He’s hidden better than the devil. At least the devil has the courtesy to possess unsuspecting college students and the homeless from time to time. Calvert has the best security money can buy, and there’s that—he has money. He’s also a genius. Okay. No one is ever going to get Calvert. It’s impossible. At every level and by every definition of the word.