"Really, Dave?" Nina groaned, raising an amused eyebrow at Purdue's chosen point of access. "This is where you stored the servers? If this is your idea of camouflage… well, you have an overdeveloped sense of irony."
Sam followed her gaze to the sign on the monolithic shop front ahead of them. Target. He laughed.
When they arrived at the double doors, Sam waited for Purdue to bring out his tablet and start cracking the access code, but he did not. Instead he simply marched straight up to the door, waited for it to open and walked through.
"What happened there?" Sam asked. "Shouldn't that have been a bit more of a challenge?"
Purdue shrugged. "No one else was ever going to get close to this place, and even if they did they would have to know exactly what they were looking for. Not everything has to be complicated, Sam."
He led the way into the shop. Their footsteps echoed through its cavernous interior. Despite the standard cheerful signs welcoming no-existent customers to retail heaven, the atmosphere was unsettling. Half-emptied boxes littered the aisles between the half-stacked shelves, as if at some point during the initial setup, the store had been evacuated and nobody had ever returned. That's probably not a million miles from the truth, Sam thought. I wouldn't be surprised if FireStorm had the resources to buy this place lock, stock, and barrel.
"We should take some of these," Purdue suggested, reaching into an open box and pulling out a baseball bat. He handed one to Sam and one to Nina, then took one for himself and gave it an exploratory swing. "They might come in handy when the time comes to destroy the servers," he explained.
They crossed the store and made their way into the main walkway of the mall. The strange atmosphere was even more pronounced among the empty corridors. A food court occupied a suspended space above the atrium, its colored fast food outlets shuttered and unstaffed.
One of the escalators leading up to it had collapsed, presumably due to lack of maintenance, and had crashed down onto the children's rides below. A grinning sun hung lopsided, dangling from a single wire, the other snapped and hanging aimlessly from the Plexiglas ceiling. The remains of a giant pink plastic teddy bear lay crushed under the fallen concrete, its glassy, heart-shaped eyes fixed eternally on the distant JC Penney sign at the far end of the strip.
"Get down!" Sam cried, grabbing Purdue and Nina and pulling them to the floor behind a bench.
"What?" Nina whispered. "What is it?"
"I saw someone," he said quietly, "over that way."
"What did you see?" Purdue asked urgently, gripping his bat tightly.
"I didn't have time to make it out," Sam replied. "It was just a flicker of movement. But I think there's more than one."
"Ah." Purdue got up, shaking off Nina's whispered protestations.
They waited. Sam could hardly draw breath. Purdue stepped out from behind the bench.
"I see you!" he called, his voice growing a little fainter as he walked away. "You needn't think you can hide from us! Sam! Come here! I think you might be interested to see this!"
Reluctant and confused, Sam stood up. He could see Purdue standing in the open doorway of a branch of Urban Outfitters, gently slapping his bat against his palm. Expecting to see the acolytes at least, or perhaps a company of soldiers like the ones they had encountered on their first collaboration at the ice station, Sam sidled over to join Purdue.
Two men stood facing them, one tall and skinny with round glasses, the other a little shorter, with a more wiry build and sandy hair in need of a trim. Another figure stepped into view in front of them, this one small, female and limping.
"Us?" Sam said. "It was a mirror?"
"Correct," laughed Purdue, waving a hand at the wall of mirrors that lined the back of the unstocked shop. "Still, no matter — at least we know that you're vigilant. Come this way."
They continued through the mall until they came to an alcove containing a couple of photo booths. Purdue pulled aside the curtain of the first booth and laid his palm against the view screen. He bent his head and looked straight into it, then leaped back as the booth began to move, sliding aside to reveal a white door with a number panel. Purdue tapped in a code and that door swung open too. "That is why the entrance to the mall itself did not require greater security," he threw over his shoulder as he led the others through. "Even if someone was able to get here without being intercepted and find the correct booth, there is no way into the facility itself unless your handprint and iris scan are in the system."
What lay beyond the door was a long row of stacked servers in metal cases, towering over Purdue. The row extended into darkness, further than they could see.
"Is there a light switch somewhere?" Nina asked.
Purdue shook his head. "They come on automatically. We will simply have to work our way along."
"Right then." Nina hoisted her bat. "Let's get smashing."
Sam gasped for breath. He heaved the bat up and took one last swing, sending a glittering cascade of shattered glass and plastic cascading to the floor.
"That should suffice," Purdue panted, lowering his own bat. "The data we have destroyed by annihilating these servers is crucial to the operation of the whole system."
"Won't they just rebuild?" Sam asked. "I mean, even if the servers are split up across different locations, surely they have a contingency plan for what to do if anything… well, if someone strolls in and smashes the place up, say?"
Purdue opened his mouth to reply, but before he could speak a light flashed on behind Sam and another voice rang out — a twangy, nasal voice that set Sam's teeth on edge.
"Sure, we have a contingency plan, Sam," Cody said, training his gun on Purdue. "Did Dave not tell you about this part? Honestly, I don't know what kind of game this guy's playing, but there is so much he hasn't told you. You can't take down the FireStorm network just by destroying some servers! We've got backups. Of course, we have backups! And as long as we've got the activation keys, bringing everything online as planned won't be a problem." He took a few steps toward Purdue, holding out his hand. "Speaking of which — I'm sorry, Dave, but I'm going to have to ask for your key. I don't think you can be trusted with it anymore. Now, are you going to hand it over? Or do I have to take it from you?"
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Nina felt the shiver of past panic take hold of her mind. She recalled the threat she felt on the mountain in Tibet when Walter Eickhart's goon pulled his gun and wasted Jodh, who was about to kill her. That same steely determination to survive pushed at the back of her head like an ice cold finger probing and with flashes of the barrel in her face overpowering the words of her therapist, the trauma reminded her that she was still alive. Behind her eyes something clicked, like the cock of a hammer, and she made her decision. With as much force as she could muster, Nina swung her baseball bat. She fixed her eyes on Cody's back, imagining him collapsing to the floor, winded, and giving them enough time to run.
Then he turned — only slightly, but enough to catch her movement in the corner of his eye. He dodged, but too late. He tried to duck the blow. The solid chunk of maple connected with his head with a sickening crunch.
Cody dropped to the ground and did not move. As Nina stared at him lying prostrate on the carpet of broken metal and plastic, a thin trickle of blood coursed down his face from ear to chin.
It was Purdue who had the presence of mind to kneel and check Cody's neck for a pulse. They waited as his fingers probed the fallen man's neck. Seconds ticked by. He adjusted his fingers, double-checking. Then at last he sat back on his heels and shook his head. "I think you might have fractured his skull, Nina," he said, his tone soft, even while his words were blunt. "Good work. You had to do it."