Jasper Nelson anxiously awaits a fresh pair of eyes in the car that Divan gave him as a reward for capturing the Akron AWOL. Let the rest of Connor Lassiter be dispersed to various billionaires around the world; Nelson is happy to possess his vision. He knows it will bring everything full circle. Once he’s seeing the world through those eyes, he will be able to bring his life back from the septic fringe, to a respectable place at last. Today, the troublesome young man that was Connor Lassiter will go the way of turning forest leaves, but the long winter of Jasper Nelson’s discontent will be made glorious summer once he has the sight of the boy who took his life away.

The plane lands with the gargantuan roar of airborne armageddon, and the moment it rolls to a halt, Divan’s ground crew gets to work refueling, The side passenger hatch opens, and stairs fold out for Divan. This is only the second time Nelson has come to Divan’s North American airfield. Either business is so brisk Divan must stay on top of it, or he has reasons not to stay in one place for too long. Divan makes his appearance a moment later, along with his harvest medic, who carries a small medical stasis cooler. They come directly to Nelson.

“Use them in good health, my friend,” Divan tells him as the nose cone of the jet begins to grind open for the transfer of the remaining cargo. Even before it’s fully raised, it becomes clear that something is very wrong.

A flood of kids bursts from the cargo hold, sprinting, running, limping in every direction. Not just a few, but dozens of them. All of them!

Suddenly Divan has more important things to do than bother with Nelson. He points to his bodyguard. “Stop them! Now!” The beefy man fumbles with his tranq gun, running and firing at the same time, missing as often as he takes one down. Tranqing AWOLs is not this man’s job. But it is Nelson’s.

“I’ve got this,” Nelson tells Divan. He pulls out his own tranq pistol and takes aim. “I love a shooting gallery.” Sure enough, every one of Nelson’s shots hits its mark, and in ten seconds he’s taken down ten kids—but there are simply too many for even Nelson to stop.

“Who is responsible for this?” Divan demands, and he runs to get more help from his staff. It’s Nelson who sees the answer to that question. She’s easy to spot, because of all the escaping kids, she’s the only one who’s not in a gray bodysuit. Risa Ward is up to her old tricks. But not for much longer.

Nelson ignores the others, taking aim at the prize.

Then just as he pulls the trigger, he’s grabbed from behind. The shot flies wild as his attacker puts him in a skillful choke hold so tight that it cuts off blood to Nelson’s brain. Darkness squirms in from his periphery, his legs buckle beneath him, and before he loses consciousness, he gets a brief glimpse of the face of his assailant.

And to his own personal horror, he sees it’s barely a face at all.

62 • Argent

The medic still has no idea that Argent took his spare key to the harvester.

Divan has no idea that Argent knows the code to access the UNIS control panel, which he copied from a small notebook on Divan’s nightstand.

Argent has found many times in life that people are never so clueless as when they think you’re stupid.

Thirty minutes before the Lady Lucrezia landed, the medic left the cargo hold with a small stasis cooler labeled LOT 4832-EY-L/R. Argent couldn’t help but snicker to himself. As a grocery checker, he knows better than anyone that labels are only as good as the idiot doing the labeling.

As the plane began its descent, Argent snuck into the harvester, knowing that even though the hapless medic basically lived his life at thirty-seven thousand feet, he was a nervous flier, and always buckled himself into a chair in the crew lounge. That gave Argent a window to do what he had to do—what Connor Lassiter would have done, were he not in a gazillion pieces. Argent shut off the sedation system to all the Unwinds and twisted the security camera to face the wall, just in case someone got the bright idea to monitor it. He waited for the first one to wake up, an umber kid whose eyes got a little buggy when he found out where he was and what was happening to him.

“When the rest wake up, keep ’em quiet,” Argent said. “Don’t let ’em freak out. Then, when that nose cone opens, run like it’s the end of the world, because it will be if you don’t.”

Then he left the harvester, strapping himself in next to the medic like it was any other day.

But his job wasn’t over yet.

As soon as the plane had landed and Divan had gone down to the tarmac, he unlocked Risa’s room and led her to the harvester, telling her the same thing he’d told the umber kid. By then the entire hold was crawling with scared, wakeful kids, but Risa had a certain presence about her that kept them quiet and in control.

“What about Connor?” Risa asked him, but it was no time for questions.

“I’ve taken care of it—just trust me.”

“That’s the problem,” Risa said. “I don’t.”

“Well, too freakin’ bad.”

He couldn’t stay—any second, Divan would demand something from him. A glass of Pellegrino or sunscreen for his delicate complexion. Divan always wanted something.

“If you get free, and you see my sister,” he told Risa, “tell her I saved you. She’ll get a kick out of it.”

“Wait—you’re not coming with us?”

Argent left without answering the question, because the answer was obvious. He’d made a deal with Divan. Six months for a face. He doesn’t have to be Divan’s best friend, he just has to stick to his end of the bargain—and as long as Argent plays dumb lackey, Divan will never suspect he was behind what happened today. For Argent Skinner, stupidity is the best camouflage.