Terminated by Rachel Caine

it was ours,” Harm said, and led the way out. He took his place at the wall, and Bryn joined him, reluctantly. She felt exposed and angry, and as Joe stood next to her, he sent her a concerned glance.
    “Hold together,” he told her.
    Do I look that bad?
She must have. Bryn took a deep breath and concentrated on the wood pattern of the boards in front of her. At least, it looked like wood—but it probably wasn’t, given the reinforced front doors.
    Brick didn’t join them at the wall. She glanced over her shoulder and saw him in hushed, urgent conversation with two people who’d emerged from what looked like a control room, from the angled view she had of the consoles and switches inside. She couldn’t hear the conversation from where she stood, but Riley frowned and half turned toward Harm.
    “Are they speaking Russian?”
    He shrugged. “It’s a multicultural world.”
    “Is this a
Russian agent
safe house?”
    “Why? You got a problem?”
    “Besides the fact that I am an agent of the FBI, you mean?”
    “We’re all friends now, last I heard,” he said, with a smile that was far from innocent. “Cold War’s over. Besides, what the holy hell would Russian spies be doing holed up in a farmhouse in Kansas?”
    She glared at him hard enough that Bryn thought it might leave marks . . . but before she could answer, if she intended to do so, Brick came striding over. “Put your hands down,” he said. “But keep them in plain sight. They’re going to refuel the vehicles, and then we’ll be on our way.”
    “Brick, what the hell is—”
    Joe Fideli shook his head, stopping Riley midsentence. “Look, kiddo, I respect that you’ve got loyalty oaths and all, but me, Brick, and Harm all share a couple of things. First, we aren’t government employees. Second, we all
used
to be, and we haven’t forgotten that. So regardless what the hell all this is, it isn’t being used to hurt the government or people of the United States, and I suggest you let it slide, because without them, we’re dead on the side of the road.”
    Riley didn’t like it, and neither did Bryn, but she had to acknowledge the wisdom of what he was saying. She trusted Joe, and she believed him when he said he wouldn’t have let it go himself if he thought it was a threat. She didn’t know Brick or Harm so well, but she thought that they had the same post-military sensibility that Joe did . . . and she did, for that matter.
    So she nodded. Riley didn’t.
    “I need to know what’s going on,” she said.
    “Then ask Brick—he’s your friend.”
    “I mean it, Joe. I can’t just shut my eyes to this—”
    “You have to,” he said flatly. “Literally, close your eyes and pretend to be somewhere else if you have to, but if you screw this up, Riley, you’ll get us all killed. What happens if you get us in a firefight and they find out how
well trained
you and Bryn are? You think they won’t want to break off a piece of that knowledge?” He leaned significantly on the two words, and raised his eyebrows.
    That gave Riley pause, and evidently shook her out of her role as FBI agent . . . and into her bigger, scarier role as a prized lab rat. She’d been caged before, Bryn thought. She wouldn’t want to be in a Russian lab, undergoing the same horrors.
    Of course, the fact that Bryn’s clothes had bullet holes and blood, but no matching wounds, might be something of interest . . . but luckily, after the explosion and the ditch, her clothes were filthy enough that the blood and tears were nothing special to pick out.
    Riley finally not so much agreed as just stopped disagreeing . . . which was good enough. They stood in tight silence as Brick and his men backed each of the vehicles to the gas pump located outside, and the Russians—if that’s what they really were, a man and woman who looked very much middle-American—waited as well. Their gazes were not fixed, they were active and mobile, observing everything,