Silence fell in the lab as all eyes turned to Jane and Roman.
"We go in, find Shepherd. Alert the team that she's there. And then we take her down." Jane squared her shoulders and faced Pellington directly. Beside her, Roman did the same.
"Absolutely not!" exploded Weller. "Without a team, that's a suicide mission."
Jane raised her chin a notch and met his angry gaze across Patterson's table. "Roman and I are the only two non-agents you have. We have the training and the ability to get in and find Shepherd. We confirm to you once we have her, you bring in the rest of the team, and we shut Sandstorm down. For good. Before she can launch Phase Two."
"It's. Too. Dangerous." Weller's gaze bored into her.
"It's more dangerous to wait. We don't know how much HMX she's managed to get her hands on. If she targets New York City or Washington D.C.? We could be looking at catastrophic loss of life. You know she won't hesitate to kill as many people as she has to in order to carry out her agenda."
Weller glared at her, nostrils flaring. He glanced at Roman, but Jane knew there'd be nothing there to change his mind. Roman stood motionless beside her, ready to go. To do what was right, to try to atone for the damage they'd already done, whether they could remember it or not.
To earn a chance for a future.
"Thank you, Ms. Doe. Roman." Pellington nodded at them. "Good luck."
Jane ignored him, still focused on Weller. He shot her a fulminating look. "Patterson, find a suitable drop point," he barked out. And then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.
"Good luck to all of you," said Pellington smoothly, as though his Assistant Director hadn't just stomped off. He followed Weller more sedately out the door.
Roman and Jane exchanged glances. Are you sure? his asked.
"I'll talk to him," she said quietly. We don't have a choice. She didn't need to say it out loud.
The rest of the team stirred into action around them.
"Reade and I will get the surveillance van ready," said Tasha quietly. Her dark eyes were shadowed as she looked at Jane. They weren't exactly friends these days, but they weren't enemies either.
"We'll be right behind you," Reade added somberly, pausing in front of them. He gave Jane a small nod and then followed Tasha out the door.
"I have the map here," said Patterson, looking down at her work table.
Jane and Roman joined her, looking down as she tapped and marked things on the satellite image.
"There's a road on the other side of the silo. Looks like it's mostly used for access to the power lines by the utility company. Not a lot of traffic. It should be a good place for us to get you as close as we can without anyone noticing. It's less than half a mile to the silo from there."
She looked up, blue eyes dark with worry. "After you give us the word, we'll block the roads around both properties. No one will get in or out, so you'll only have to contend with whoever is at the farm."
Jane glanced over at Roman. "That could be a lot. If all the troops from the mansion relocated there…"
He nodded. "We need to make sure no one at the silo has a chance to call for backup."
Patterson leaned over and grabbed Jane's wrist. "You don't have to do this. Give me a day, and I'll see what kind of surveillance I can put in place—"
"How long does Shepherd stay, when she's here?"
Patterson's grip tightened, but her head dropped. "Overnight," she admitted. "She's usually gone early the next morning."
"So if we wait, she leaves, maybe doesn't come back, maybe carries out her plan. And if she figures out we're watching her? Maybe disappears. Again."
Patterson closed her eyes. "Maybe."
Jane patted her hand as she deftly extracted her arm from the other woman's grip. "Get all the topographical intel you can," she told Roman. "I want to know every anthill around that silo."
She stepped back from the table and drew a deep breath. "I'm going to talk to Kurt."
###
Kurt wasn't seated at his desk. He was standing over it, palms flat on the surface, glaring so hard at the folders littering its surface that Jane expected them to burst into flame.
Jane swallowed and opened the door to his office.
He didn't say anything, just stared at her with glacial blue eyes.
When the silence had stretched out too long, Jane inhaled and asked, "Do you have a better plan?"
"No," he admitted. "But if you'd waited one damn minute, maybe we could have come up with one."
"You said yourself, if they realize we're watching, they'll disappear or set up another ambush. And if they launch a missile-"
He slammed both palms on the surface of his desk. "It's too dangerous. I'm not letting you walk into Shepherd's territory with no backup."
Jane crossed her arms. "What did Pellington want this morning?"
Kurt's gaze slid away from hers, and she knew then that Roman had been right.
When he didn't answer, she guessed, "Pellington wants to send us to the CIA. See if we'd be more 'helpful' there."
"Just Roman," Kurt admitted. "He knows better than to try to touch you."
She gave a jerky nod. It's what she'd thought, but hearing it confirmed made her feel sick. She waited until Kurt met her eyes again. "We don't have any other choice."
Not if they wanted to stop Shepherd. Not if she wanted to keep Roman out of a black site.
Kurt closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"I guess we'd better not screw this up then," she said, with more levity than she felt.
He didn't smile.
"Be careful, dammit. Both of you." Blue eyes bored into hers.
She nodded. "You, too." Her voice was huskier than usual. She swallowed the lump in her throat and added, "Dammit."
His lips twitched, but neither of them could find it in them to smile.
A long minute passed, and then Jane broke the heavy silence. "I'll be in Patterson's lab."
He didn't follow her.
###
The preparations kept Jane too busy to think very much, but the two-hour drive gave her far too much time to contemplate everything that could go wrong.
She tried to stay focused, running various scenarios with Roman, reviewing the topographical information Patterson had compiled, as well as the schematics for the missile silo she'd dug up from God only knows what archive. "But there's no telling what kind of modifications they've made inside," Patterson cautioned them. "I'm sure the cold-war-era control room is gone. But the crew areas could be completely different as well. The only things I'm sure are the same are the blast doors, here and here. They weigh two thousand pounds each."
"You okay?" asked Roman quietly, when Jane found herself staring vacantly at the schematic yet again.
She nodded. "I'm fine." But her brain wouldn't stop asking pointless "what if" questions. What if Patterson was wrong? What if Shepherd wasn't there, and this was all for nothing? What if Pellington refused to give Roman any more time and shipped him off to the CIA? What if Shepherd was there? What if it was another trap? What if she and Roman didn't have time to warn the team? What if she didn't make it out? What if she never got the chance to tell Kurt how she felt?
She shook off all the questions she had no answers to, and refocused instead on the things within her control. "We'll approach the silo here," she tapped the tablet, "circle around the perimeter and take out any sentries they have posted." They noted the places on the map most likely to have surveillance cameras so they could avoid them.
They were traveling light. Handguns instead of assault rifles. Anonymous black jackets and cargo pants with extra magazines. Nothing to mark them as FBI, even though most of Shepherd's troops would probably recognize them immediately. Small and lightweight radio headsets. Jane also carried a tiny camera that could give the team video. "But keep everything off as long as you can," Patterson had warned them. "They're probably scanning for signals. You don't want to announce that you're there."
She and Roman went over and over the information that they had, committing it all to memory. And then the van stopped.
"Showtime," muttered Roman. He handed the tablet back to Patterson, who watched them with huge, worried blue eyes.
"Be careful," she whispered, her eyes flickering between the two of them.
Roman nodded.
Jane tried to force a smile to her lips, but she knew it wasn't convincing. "See you later."
Patterson bobbed her head. "Yes. I'll see you both later."
Reade, Tasha, and Nas were in place at the other end of the van. They turned almost as one to watch Jane and Roman depart.
"Good luck," whispered Tasha.
Kurt was waiting by the door to the van.
He and Roman regarded each other steadily for a moment. Kurt jerked his chin, and Roman returned the nod. And then he slipped out into the darkness.
Jane stepped up, and Kurt turned to face her.
He reached out to grasp her by the upper arms. "Be careful," he told her again, his hands tightening almost painfully on her arms as he gave her a tiny shake.
She couldn't speak, so she just nodded.
His hand slipped from her arm to the back of her neck and tugged her forward.
She was afraid for a second that he was going to try and kiss her. She didn't want to kiss him; it would have felt like goodbye, and she wasn't going to say that, in words or action.
But he just tilted his head so he could rest his forehead against hers.
She leaned toward him and allowed herself to close her eyes for one brief second. To just be, touching him, breathing the same air.
And then she straightened and drew away. His hand tightened on the back of her neck and then let go.
She slipped out the door into the night without looking back.