Chapter 82

Thomas killed the engine and sat for a long moment in the gloom of his car, staring at the address scrawled on the crumpled printout from the video. In front of him loomed the skeletal hulk of what could have been an old factory: broken windows gaping like dead eyes, rusted beams curling upward into the overcast sky. Not a soul stirred in the litter-strewn yard. If someone was inside, they’d hidden well. And yet, he told himself, whoever was behind this had to be counting on catching him off-guard. Well, he wasn’t so easily fooled.

He exhaled, the breath trembling almost imperceptibly. His fingers itched at the nanodevice slipping around his ear—a habit he’d developed sometime ago, one he barely noticed until now. He paused, thumb brushing the cool metal, and the memory of his last conversation with Shun Kim drifted back as though summoned by the motion.

“I don’t want you listening in on our conversation,” Thomas had said as Shun fitted the tiny comlink against his skin.