After the brief session with Jeremy, Teddy had gone to the Cantina to “practice” mental influence on unsuspecting customers. And every time she’d tried to force someone to bend to her will, she felt that same horrible feeling, the bile at the back of her throat. She’d had to spend whole minutes with her hands on her knees, breathing just to steady herself, after commanding someone to turn left instead of right. It had worked. But with nerves and pressure added to the mix? Suggesting that a drunk person change direction and an FBI agent look the other way were entirely different ball games.
She went over the sequence of events one more time. One: Molly, Dara, Pyro, and Jillian get day passes from the front office and leave Angel Island to set up at the Embassy Hotel, across the street from the FBI offices. Check.
Two: Ditch the ferry. Jeremy drives his speedboat to Pier 39 with Teddy. Check.
Teddy kept her eyes on the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, juxtaposed with the mountain backdrop. For Teddy, the view just never got old. Jeremy coasted into a slip he had rented in the bustling marina. Teddy was glad to see how busy it was—that meant their coming and going wouldn’t be noticeable among the crowds of spring visitors.
Teddy took a deep breath and looked around, imagining returning to this spot after a successful mission. Her brilliant exit strategy? Convincing Nick that she was coming down with food poisoning. It sounded more like getting out of a bad date than a highly secure government facility. Pyro would pick up a car and park it near the FBI building, ready for them all to jump in the moment Molly located the video file with the damning footage. Pyro would drive them back to the pier. They would board Jeremy’s speedboat and return to Angel Island immediately.
Simple.
At least Teddy told herself it would be simple. Over and over. Funny how that didn’t seem to settle her nerves any.
Teddy checked her phone. It was ten after three. She was meeting Nick at four in the lobby of the FBI offices. Teddy looked up and saw Jeremy staring at his phone, too. Molly had shared the smuggled devices so they could communicate over the course of the day. Though they could link up psychically, none of them had tried to sync with more than one person over great distances before. Going digital rather than psychical was logical.
“Should you be doing that while the engine’s on?”
“Sorry.” He stuffed his phone back in his pocket, cut the engine, and secured the lines. Teddy had started toward the taxi stand when she realized he was tailing her.
“What are you doing?” she asked. He had been standoffish since that lesson, even though he’d assured her that he felt fine.
“Going with you, of course.”
Teddy gritted her teeth. “You know that’s not the plan,” she said.
“What good am I, just sitting here?”
“You’re the getaway driver. It’s a lot of good to have you sitting here.”
“What if you need someone else for mental influence? I could—”
“I’ve got it,” she interrupted.
“I want to go in there instead of waiting on the boat. I can’t wait somewhere and do nothing if something bad happens.”
“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Teddy said. “We all know the plan. We’re all going to look out for each other.”
He looked down, playing with the keys to the boat. “You can’t promise that. And if something happens to Molly again, and I’m not there to . . .”
Teddy put her hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be fine, Jeremy. She’s staying in a hotel room. She’s not going to be in any action.” He stiffened. She removed her hand. He obviously didn’t want her comfort. “If we want this to work,” she continued, “we all need to stick to the plan. Your role is critical. You stay with the boat. Okay?”
* * *
Teddy left Jeremy by the dock and hailed a taxi. It hurried her away from Fisherman’s Wharf and past the noisy cable cars that clanged along Hyde Street through the historic district of San Francisco.
Eight stomach-churning minutes and twenty dollars later, the driver dropped her at the Embassy Hotel. Pyro sat in the lobby, casually reading a paper. He stood and greeted Teddy with a peck on the cheek. They were just another average couple visiting San Fran on vacation.
Teddy forced a smile. “Everything okay?”
“Room’s ready. All checked in.” He took her hand and guided her into the elevator. But instead of pressing the button for the top floor, he hit three.
“Hey,” Teddy said, “I thought we—”
He squeezed her hand. His gaze flicked toward a camera located in the ceiling, near the upper-right corner. She waited until he’d ushered her into a third-floor suite, where Dara, Jillian, and Molly were already inside, to voice her concern: “I thought we needed a room on the top floor to pull this off.”
The three women stood near the window, huddled around a table with Molly’s tech paraphernalia: two laptops, an old-school radio, a cell phone, a hard drive, and a bunch of other wires and devices Teddy didn’t recognize.
Dara crossed her arms. She was clearly pissed. “I booked a top-floor room. But the hotel screwed up the reservation. This was the best they could do.”
“At least we’re still facing south,” said Jillian.
Dara tilted her head toward the window. “Take a look. There’s Nick’s office.”
Teddy glanced at the tinted facade of the FBI building. “How can you tell which one?”
Pyro picked up a pair of Steiner special-ops binoculars—swiped from school, no doubt—and handed them to her. “Sixth floor, third window from the left.”
Teddy lifted the infrared binoculars to her eyes and adjusted the lenses. Through the slits in his office window blinds, she spotted Nick, feet propped up on his desk.
She set down the binoculars and transferred her attention to Molly. “How’s it going?”
Molly didn’t bother to look up. “I’m trying
