A new voice joined the group. A female voice.
Nikki whirled around. And pinned Agent Garcia with a lethal look.
“This is all my fault,” the agent hastily said. “I had no idea any of this would happen. Certainly not to this extreme. I take full responsibility.”
“That doesn’t exactly help us now,” Damen quietly contended.
“Of course not.” Garcia appeared duly stricken. That did nothing to calm Nikki. The agent explained, “I had mere minutes to get that data into someone’s hands who could safely get it out of the country. I had no idea the extensive programming inherent to the device. That it could launch tracking features and… I most definitely never would have thought it would self-destruct. Especially not in your computer, Dr. Kane. I was just trying to—”
“That’s enough,” Damen insisted.
Nikki reeled.
The other agent was sufficiently remorseful.
But that didn’t solve Nikki’s problem, now did it?
Beside her, Damen said to the tech, “What’s the course of action here?”
“I’ve already contacted Agents Brown and Hoffman.”
“From the bombs division,” Damen muttered. And let out a heavy breath.
“I know you trust them,” the tech said. “They’ll be here any minute.”
“We have several hours, according to the countdown,” Damen pointed out. “And the fact that I personally know off-loading this data takes q
uite some time.”
Nikki glanced at him. “You believe you’re going to come up with a solution in that timeframe?”
His gaze didn’t waver as he told her, “Is there any doubt in your mind that I’m going to try every viable way to keep that device from destroying your most valued possession?”
“Damen…”
Tears pooled in her eyes. She dragged her gaze from his.
Nikki was exhausted. Not just physically. And Christ, she was starving.
And her mind was just… So jumbled.
She was strong and she was a fighter. But damn it…
Nikki was feeling like a twenty-ton wrecking ball just kept taking swipes at her. Ones she’d dodged…narrowly missed.
Until now.
She was about to be decimated. Along with her laptop.
She stepped away from the group. Tried to pull in a few breaths.
Behind her, the tech said, “I can’t see a way to deactivate the implosion feature. Not right off the bat, at any rate. I’ll have to dig deeper. That’s why I need backup from Brown and Hoffman. But most likely, they’re going to want to remove the computer from these premises, if I can’t come up with a kill switch, and take it to their facilities where it’ll destruct in a contained, controlled environment.”
And there it was.
This is how this journey is going to end?
After the entire battle she’d waged with Damen from the moment he’d sat down next to her on the plane, this was the end of the line they’d reached?