The alarm shattered the kitchen's controlled chaos.
Rick's hands froze in dishwater. Around him, staff looked up in confusion. Chef Patricia grabbed the wall phone, listened, her face draining of color.
"Security lockdown. Everyone stays in place. Do not leave your assigned areas."
Two coughs. Rick had heard them through the intercom seconds before the alarm—Donovan's abort signal.
The mission was blown.
Rick caught Catherine's eye across the kitchen. She was at the coffee station, her face carefully neutral, but her hand had moved to her apron pocket where Rick knew she kept a small knife.
Webb was outside with the van. No way to know if he'd heard the signal.
The kitchen door burst open. Three security officers, weapons drawn.
"Everyone against the wall. Hands visible. Now."
The catering staff complied, terrified and confused. Rick moved with them, just another frightened dishwasher, but his mind was racing through options.
Donovan was caught. The recorder was discovered. Security would be searching everyone, checking identities more carefully, looking for accomplices.
Their covers would hold up to casual inspection. But not to thorough investigation. Not if Hartley's people got involved.
They needed to leave. Now.
One of the security officers was checking IDs, comparing faces to a list. Rick watched him work his way down the line. When he reached Catherine, he paused.
"Catherine Moreau?"
Catherine nodded, using the name on her catering company ID.
"Come with me. We have questions."
"About what? I'm just serving coffee—"
"Now, miss."
Rick's hand moved instinctively toward the pistol hidden under his apron, then stopped. Fifteen staff members, three armed security officers, enclosed kitchen. Drawing a weapon would get everyone killed and accomplish nothing.
Catherine walked out with the security officer. She didn't look back at Rick.
The remaining two officers continued checking IDs. When they reached Rick, one of them studied his face too long.
"John Martin. You work at Packard in Detroit."
"Yes sir."
"Long way to come for catering work."
"I'm visiting family in Richmond. Picked up extra work while I'm here."
The officer consulted his list. "Step outside. More questions."
Rick's pulse hammered, but he complied. The moment he was in the hallway, away from witnesses, he'd have options.
They walked through the service corridor toward a side room. Rick calculated distances. Two officers, both armed. He was faster, probably, but not fast enough to disarm both before one of them shot.
Unless—
The corridor window exploded inward.
Webb crashed through in a shower of glass, tackling one officer. Rick spun and drove his elbow into the second officer's throat, then grabbed his weapon as the man went down choking.
"Van's twenty feet out," Webb gasped, bleeding from glass cuts. "Catherine?"
"Separated. Security took her."
"Donovan?"
"Caught. Recording's compromised." Rick checked the pistol he'd taken—Colt 1911, full magazine. "We need to extract them or abort completely."
"Where's Catherine?"
"Don't know. Security took her for questioning."
Webb's face hardened. "Then we find her. I'm not leaving without her."
"We might have to."
"No." Webb pulled his own weapon—the pistol he'd been carrying all along, hidden in his jacket. "Three years we've been doing this. Three years she's held us together. I'm not abandoning her now."
Rick understood. It wasn't tactical. It was loyalty. The kind of loyalty that got people killed but also made them human.
"Alright. But we do this smart. Find Catherine, find Donovan if possible, get the recording, get out. Five minutes, then we abort regardless."
They moved through the corridors, staying low, avoiding the main areas where security would be concentrated. The estate's layout—memorized from the blueprints—was their advantage. Service passages, back stairs, areas the security personnel wouldn't know as well.
Rick heard voices from a room ahead. He signaled Webb to stop, then edged forward to look.
Catherine. Seated in a chair, hands zip-tied behind her. Two security officers questioning her.
"Who sent you? Who are you working with?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm a server—"
"Your ID is fake. We ran it through the system. Catherine Moreau doesn't exist."
"Then your system's wrong—"
One officer backhanded her. "Try again. Real name."
Rick's hand tightened on the pistol. Two guards, both armed, both focused on Catherine. Doable. If he was very fast and very lucky.
He caught Catherine's eye. She saw him, gave the smallest nod. Ready.
Rick burst through the door, firing twice. Both guards went down before they could react. Webb rushed in behind him, securing their weapons.
"You okay?" Rick asked, cutting Catherine's restraints.
"Been better." She rubbed her wrists, took one of the guards' pistols. "Where's Donovan?"
"Don't know. Probably upstairs with Hartley." Rick checked the corridor. "We have maybe two minutes before more security arrives. We need to leave now."
"Not without the recording."
"Catherine—"
"That recording has everything. Two hours of them discussing the sabotage, the Phase 2 planning, all of it. We can't leave without it." Her voice was steel. "That's what we came for. That's what Morrison died for."
Rick looked at Webb. Webb shrugged. "She's right. Without the recording, this was all for nothing."
"Then we move fast." Rick reloaded. "Donovan's probably in the second-floor study. That's where they'd take him for interrogation."
They moved through the service stairs, climbing to the second floor. The estate was in controlled chaos—security sweeping rooms, staff being questioned, the elegant facade of the summit collapsing into panic.
On the second-floor landing, Rick paused. Voices from the library—the meeting room.
"—told you the OSS might be compromised—"
"This isn't OSS. This is something else. Morrison's people, maybe. We thought they were all dead."
Hartley's voice. Rick recognized it from recordings.
"Find them. Find everyone working with Donovan. I want them alive if possible. We need to know how much they've discovered."
Rick signaled Catherine and Webb. The library was down the hall, doors open. Inside, he could see Hartley with several others, including Brennan, who looked like he might vomit.
The study—where Donovan would be—was adjacent to the library. Getting to it meant passing the library's open doors.
Rick made a decision. "Webb, Catherine—get to the study. Get Donovan and the recording. I'll provide distraction."
"What kind of distraction?" Catherine asked.
"The loud kind." Rick checked his pistol. Seven rounds in the Colt he'd been carrying for three years, plus the magazine from the guard's weapon. Enough.
He stepped into the hallway and fired three shots through the library doorway.
The effect was instantaneous. People dove for cover, someone screamed, security came running from all directions.
Rick ran the opposite way, drawing pursuit. Behind him, Catherine and Webb slipped into the study.
The Study
Donovan was tied to a chair, bleeding from a split lip. The security officer who'd discovered him stood by the window, speaking into a radio.
Catherine shot him.
Webb cut Donovan's restraints. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah." Donovan stood unsteadily. "The recording—they have it—"
"Where?"
"Desk. They were examining it when you came in."
Catherine grabbed the hollowed-out book from the desk. The wire recorder was still inside, wire spool intact. "We have it. Can you move?"
"I can move."
They heard gunfire from the hallway. Rick's distraction.
"Service stairs," Webb said. "Now."
They ran, Donovan stumbling but keeping pace. Behind them, shouts and footsteps. Security converging on their location.