I clamped my good hand over his chest wounds. “What are you saying?”
“He’s bridging it,” Mercer wheezed, his eyes losing focus. “He’s using the physical comms tower on the roof of the North Annex to bypass the firewall. It’s a hardline connection.”
I looked at the tablet Voss had dropped when he took cover. A progress bar was crawling across the screen. 34% Complete.
“If that bar reaches one hundred,” Mercer gasped, “the network is locked forever. They win. You have to sever the physical connection at the tower.”
I looked down at my useless, bleeding left arm. I looked at my father, cowering in terror. I looked at Lucas, unarmed and zip-tied.
And then I looked at Ryan.
My brother had stopped firing. He was staring at the tablet, listening to Mercer’s fading words. He looked from the progress bar to the heavy steel door that led out to the tarmac, toward the North Annex tower.
