"I'll go to the right, you take the left," Jason said.
He nodded, moving toward his left. "Haley!" he shouted. "Haley, where are you?" There was no answer. He probably had only minutes before the fire consumed the rest of the warehouse. "Haley," he shouted again in desperation, hearing Jason also yelling her name.
Finally, he heard a weak voice. "Here! I'm here!"
"Keep talking," he yelled, following her voice through a maze of burning debris. He found her crawling along the floor, hands tied behind her back, her clothes singed, her face streaked with blood and soot. "I've got you," he said, pulling her to her knees and putting his arms around her so he could finally believe she was all right. He hugged her tightly, then gave her a hard look. "Are you hurt? Can you walk?"
"I'm okay," she gasped. "We have to get out of here."
He helped her to her feet and shouted for Jason. The smoke was getting thicker, making it difficult to see, but as the air grew cooler, he knew they were close to the door. Then Jason appeared like a beacon in the night, and they made their way into the fresh air.
The fire engines were pulling up at the scene, the captain asking if anyone else was still inside. Haley shook her head, and Matt ushered her across the parking lot to where their group was waiting. Andi cut Haley free from her ties, and she gratefully pulled her arms to her sides, then rubbed her fingers together.
"I need to get you to the hospital," he said, seeing small cuts on her forehead and not knowing how much smoke she had inhaled or what else they'd done to her.
"I'm fine," she said, sending him a reassuring look. "We need to stop Drew. It's happening tonight. They're launching the algorithm."
"We don't know where he is," he said heavily.
"I heard Viktor say Branson. I don't know if it's a street or a building, but it's where they were meeting," she added.
He turned to Jason, who was already on the phone, then he looked back at Haley. "I'm going to have someone take you to the hospital while we look for Drew."
"No way. I'm staying with you," she said forcefully.
He couldn’t argue with her because he wasn't sure he could let her out of his sight, either.
"How did you find me?" she asked. "They were going to make me call and tell you where I was. Then, once you came, they would blow up the building with all of us inside. I wasn't going to do it. I would never lure you into a trap. But then something changed. They said you were already here, and they left. Then the building blew up." She paused. "I was so worried you were already inside."
"I wasn't. And I'm here because of Julia." He stepped back as Julia came forward.
"You knew where I was, Julia?" Haley asked in bemusement. "How?"
"I've been following Drew and some of the others since the attack on Professor Harrington. I always had a bad feeling about Drew, and it looks like I was right. I never thought he was as dumb as everyone thought he was. I would have come in after you, but I thought the FBI would have more manpower. I didn't want to get you hurt, Haley, by acting impulsively. That's the last thing I would want. But when the building exploded…" Her voice drifted away as her face tensed. "I was afraid I'd waited too long."
"I'm okay. And thank you for reaching out to Matt, to the FBI." Haley paused. "But why didn't you tell me you were following Drew?"
"I wasn't sure I'd find anything. I didn't want to raise your hopes and then let you down again. You've been disappointed too many times."
"Got it," Jason said, interrupting their conversation. "Viktor Danilovich owns a shell company, whose building is located at two-ten Branson Street. It's only two miles from here. Derek said it looks like a data center."
"That has to be where they're launching the algorithm," he said. "Let's go."
As Haley got into the backseat, he jumped in beside Jason, while Andi and Nick, as well as Julia, followed behind.
"Derek told me someone started running automated trades through multiple offshore accounts ten minutes ago," Jason said as he raced down the street. "It looks like pre-launch action for the algorithm. Derek will meet us at the site. We may need him to shut everything down."
"Good idea." Matt glanced back at Haley, hoping she was as okay as she'd said she was. "This is almost over," he told her.
"It has to be," she said. "Drew was responsible for Landon's death. He told me everything. He wanted me to know how smart and brilliant he really was and also how evil."
"Drew killed your brother?"
"He drugged him. He and Henry were going to set Landon up with some underage girl and blackmail him, but when they left him alone, he came to, and he stumbled out of the house and fell into the pond." Her voice broke. "Drew might not have pushed Landon into that pond, but he's responsible."
"He might have pushed him in and just didn't want to tell you."
"Either way, we have to get him."
