All of this technology would usually make me feel safer, and yet, as Luca talks, I suddenly get a pit in my stomach. I ask Caitlin to step outside, and take her into an empty music room. She sits on a piano stool while I put in a call to Amber.
“Sixteen minutes left,” Amber says as a greeting. Really, what does she think? That maybe I forgot to watch the clock over here?
“Listen,” I say, urgently. “The guys have all this camera and laser stuff set up for surveillance. It’s all running on Wi-Fi.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” replies Amber. “Someone could tamper with the Wi-Fi and that might somehow activate the toxin?”
“Exactly.”
“We didn’t add it to our list for a reason. It would take equipment that’s not commercially available to even begin to mess with those kinds of waves. . . .”
“Is that equipment available somewhere, in some form?” I ask.
Amber hesitates. “Barely. And it’s mostly untried, even by the military.”
“I still think it’s safer to cut all Wi-Fi signals,” I say.
Li comes in now. “Jessie, that would leave you without any visual security beyond the eyes and ears you have between you. You’d be much more exposed to an attack. . . .”
“It also cuts out vulnerabilities,” I argue. “What if they’re using the Wi-Fi to watch us? Or to mess with our phones? What if there’s some way to concentrate a signal to be a trigger?”
“That’s science fiction,” Li says. “Or, at least, unproven . . .”
She trails off. Li’s business, her legitimate business, is to know all about tech that is months, and sometimes years, away from being usable. If she had said “impossible,” I would have left it alone. But “unproven” suggests that there’s some evidence that it is possible, and that idea doesn’t thrill me.
“I agree with Jessie,” Caitlin chips in. “Wi-Fi should be considered a contaminant, even if we can’t figure out how or why. Family First have already shown us they have access to super-sophisticated virus technology. Let’s not take a chance.”
Li hesitates barely a moment. “Fine,” she says. “Cut everything.”
While Luca takes care of killing the Wi-Fi, Jaya continues to watch over the girls, and Caitlin and I continue our patrol around the building. We head upstairs and walk through the bathrooms and dorms. Bedsheets are stripped and every mattress has been shredded. All the drawers that store clothes and personal stuff belonging to the girls are open. Even the shower drains are covered over with metal sheets, hammered in with nails. I give Caitlin a surprised look.
“Overkill?” she asks.
“No, I’m impressed. Better to go overboard than have regrets later.” I shrug.
“Ethan, do you copy me?” Caitlin says.
Ethan’s voice comes in on a radio unit in Caitlin’s ear. Not our Athena comms, but one connecting the three of us agents with Ethan and Luca—and now, Riya too.
“Copy.”
“Coming in,” Caitlin says.
We run up a final flight of stairs that leads to the attic. High up, I notice a mirror in the corner of the staircase that clearly reflects an image of me and Caitlin approaching back into the attic space. It seems that, even in the absence of Wi-Fi or clever surveillance apps, Ethan has some kind of security covered, as homemade as it is.
The attic runs the length of the building and is barely high enough to stand in. Both Caitlin and I have to crouch to walk through it. Ethan must be bent double when he stands up. But right now, he and Hala are sprawled out on the floor, on opposite sides of the room. Between them, they are covering the front and back of the school with a pair of sniper rifles.
Two more unmanned rifles sit on stands, aimed out of the remaining east and west windows, which look over onto the streets on the right and left sides of the school.
“Anything?” I ask Hala. If she had noticed something worth reporting, we’d know about it by now, but asking her the question gives me something to say, at a time when it feels frivolous to greet each other with the standard “Hi” or “How are you?”
“Nothing. I’m just scanning, one side to the other, all the time,” she says.
I lean down to look through one of the free rifle scopes. The school is surrounded by so many buildings. Most of them are at a distance, but still close enough to feel threatening. Is Family First hiding out in one of them, watching us the way we are trying to watch them? I zoom in and pick up one balcony after another on the buildings. Random images crystallize in my lens. A line of laundry strung across; an old man outside, smoking; a woman washing her child’s feet in a bucket. I zoom back out for a wider view—and the harsh sunlight glitters back into my eyes, refracted from a hundred different windows and surfaces.
Caitlin and I run back downstairs, where Riya is coming out of Jaya’s office, looking for me.
“It’s Sunil,” she says, waving her phone. She flips on the speaker. I know Amber and the rest of the team will be getting this conversation too.
“Family First called in a warning ten minutes ago that the school would be attacked at noon,” Sunil says. “The police are marshaling a response unit to come over to the school and evacuate the girls.”
“They said the school would be attacked, or the girls?” I ask.
“The school. Hence, the plan to evacuate,” he replies.
“When will they be here?” says Riya.
“Maneesh saw a commando response unit, fully armed, heading straight out from Juhu station, just a few minutes after the call. Which is strange, because the only police commando unit I know of is called Force One. They are based in the north of the city, much farther from you. They haven’t been used in years, yet today they seemed to be ready and waiting,” Sunil says, clearly stressed.
“Because they were expecting the call from Family First,” Riya says.
Sunil’s voice is strained. “That’s what I am afraid
