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attention. For a few critical moments she was distracted from the entrance by a beautiful little girl who was coming out of a store. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She had long, shimmering blond hair and gorgeous eyes, and she was carrying a new doll in a large box. She was being followed by a man who was slipping a credit card back into his wallet and who must have been her father, given how proudly he was watching her.
    As the three men at the entrance lifted guns from beneath their coats, Jennie spotted a security guard running toward them. Her eyes raced back to the little girl, who was clutching her new doll and smiling at it, unaware of what was about to happen.
    Jennie wanted to run; every instinct inside her was screaming for her to get away and save herself. But she couldn’t. She had to help that little girl. She’d hate herself for the rest of her life if she didn’t. She’d never been a coward, and she wasn’t going to start being one now.
    T HE BLACK VAN pulled to a quick stop in the deserted Philadelphia alley. This location was twelve miles from the address on the driver’s license, and that was exactly how Travers wanted it. He wanted the young man to have a long way home—if that address on the license really was his home.
    Travers glanced at Boyd from the back of the van. “Ready, Agent Smirnoff?” he called.
    Boyd nodded. “Yeah, good to go. Nobody around, Agent Walker. You’re clear.”
    Travers leaned over so he was close to the young man, whose hands were secured tightly behind his back. “We’ll be watching you, Kaashif,” he whispered through the heavy dark blue T-shirt, which was wrapped around Kaashif’s head so it covered most of his face. “You understand me?”
    “Yes, sir,” Kaashif murmured fearfully.
    The young man still wasn’t sure he was going to be set free. Travers could tell by the frightened tone of his response. “I’ll be watching you, but you’ll never know when.” Kaashif probably thought that was an idle threat, but it wasn’t. “You understand?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Guess you’ll have to make up that calculus test.”
    “I shall.”
    “Liar.”
    “I am not a—”
    Travers reached for the handle, yanked the van’s side door open, and pushed Kaashif roughly out onto the broken glass strewn across the pavement. “Clear!” he yelled to Boyd as Kaashif tumbled out.
    Three minutes later Boyd pulled to a stop in another alley not far from where they’d ditched Kaashif. They needed to put plates back on the van so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion from local law enforcement. They’d removed the plates in case Kaashif had somehow gotten his blindfold off quickly once he was out of the vehicle.
    Travers leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes as Boyd climbed out of the van. He still had that terrible feeling they were running out of time and that an attack was imminent. He grimaced as he listened to Boyd reattach the plates. Would the plan work before the attack went down? That was the key question now. Because his instincts told him the moment was at hand, and hell would rain down on the country if they didn’t do something soon.

CHAPTER 4

    W ITH A quick burst of automatic gunfire, the three men wearing long black coats murdered the security guard racing toward them. The older man tumbled to the mall floor on his stomach with his arms outstretched as the hail of bullets shredded his body.
    Two of the men turned their weapons on the crowd while the third destroyed the security cameras overlooking the area. Then he turned his gun on the crowd, too.
    Calm turned to chaos in a heartbeat. People in front of Jennie shrieked and raced past her or darted into stores for cover as the sound of the guns peppered the air. But for a few seconds, all she could do was gaze straight ahead. Her shoes seemed cemented to the floor as the terrible scene erupted in front of her.
    At that point everything seemed to slow down, so she could see every