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tongue.
    “But you’re treating me like a terrorist,” she managed to mumble, the voice not like hers at all.
    The last words she heard one of the men speak sounded something like a dream.
    “Maybe you are.”

8
    Tye knocked on the door to Raina’s second floor apartment again and waited.
    Still no answer–where could she be? The rental van was still in the parking lot. He seriously doubted she’d gone anywhere on foot. It had barely been an hour since she’d dropped him off at the Wal-Mart.
    He shifted the bag of groceries from one hand to another and took out the spare key she’d given him. They’d agreed to exchange keys on the off chance, as part of the job, one might need to get into the other’s temporary apartment. They’d also agreed he would come by her apartment to go over things after picking up the food at store. He knocked one last time just to be sure.
    Turning the key in the lock, he had the funny feeling he was opening more than just a door. Just a little while before they’d been celebrating their success at penetrating Nathan Kurn’s office, at opening a potential new chapter in their lives, fraught with risk and reward. Over the past few days, he was beginning to notice a new side to Raina, a truer confidence, a freer spirit. Was it because of the MAVs? Because she was flying again? Raina was also incredibly efficient and thorough at her job. Reliable as the day was long–she could multi-task with the best of them. Why hadn’t she called him if she was planning to go out somewhere? It wasn’t like her. He smelled trouble.
    He pushed on the heavy door and let it swing open.
    “Raina?”
    Nothing.
    “Raina, you here?”
    The soldier in him peered warily through the doorway. From inside the small apartment, the refrigerator motor purred. He caught a faint whiff of something antiseptic and vaguely familiar. For some reason, it made him think of Raina’s artificial foot. In the time they’d been working together Tye had been careful to be as casual as possible about it. He instinctively knew she was self-conscious about her disability, and he didn’t want to force her into a conversation to address it; he wanted to give her whatever time and space she felt like she needed.
    But maybe that was a mistake. Had she fallen or been hurt?
    “Raina?” He stepped into the living room. To one side was a desk with a computer on it; the computer and screen were turned off. Opposite the window stood a small couch with its cushions in disarray. That didn’t seem like Raina.
    He checked the kitchen and bedroom for any sign of her, but found nothing. Back in the living room, his eyes came to rest on the desk again. A pile of aviation books and software manuals lay beside the computer monitor. Between the books and the monitor he found the keys to the rental car, but that wasn’t all. With the keys was the cell phone she’d been using. Raina knew they needed to be in constant contact. Next to her jacket Raina’s handgun also still hung securely in its holster from a peg on the wall. What could have caused her to leave the apartment without at least the phone? Maybe she just needed a break after the stress of flying the MAV into the building and had gone outside to sit on the lawn or something.
    He stepped back across the threshold and looked down at the sidewalk, but he saw no sign of Raina. Their van was the only car in the narrow parking lot at the moment, and a tall hedge blocked any view beyond. He walked down to the end of the balcony where he could get a better look at a patch of grass and a small pond that abutted the apartment complex. The grass was empty and the pond was still. On the other side of the pond, through a stand of pine trees, traffic flowed along a lightly traveled Boulevard.
    “Huh,” he muttered to himself.
    Back in the apartment, he stood in the living room looking around.
    Maybe he was worried over nothing. Maybe his new partner was a closet smoker and had snuck off,