Monica glances down at her much shorter companion. She’s about to make a comment, then thinks better of it.

Quiet as the grave, she almost said.

Evangeline decides she’s waited long enough. She’d been delaying until Vash got back-he’d been fussing like an anxious schoolboy, very unlike him-but she simply can’t wait any longer. He’ll miss the big moment, but that’s just too bad. Weems has been assembling his Sixes, those who were already in residence at the Bunker, just as she has gathered her own people, ostensibly so they can cut a deal and get on with the sad business of mourning the Profit. What would the One True Voice think of all this Sturm and Drang, she wonders. What would Arthur do?

Easy answer, as far as Evangeline is concerned. Whatever the situation, when given a choice, Arthur always selected for the survival of the organization. Even if it meant that not every individual member would survive. As a scientist he understood the importance of culling, of cutting away the deadwood, and had structured the Rulers accordingly. Many drones at the lowest level, feeding the hive, and only a select few at the top, to reap the benefit.

What’s going to happen is, Weems and his followers have decided to join Arthur in the afterlife. At least, that’s what his latest blog entry says, courtesy of Evangeline. Best thing: when the Feds bring in their forensics experts, and they will, they’ll discover that the fatal command originated on Wendy’s personal computer, as if he, not Evangeline, pushed the fatal button.

A shame, really, how grief made poor, ugly little Wendy delusional. But totally believable. Pure genius.

Eva decides to make one last attempt to raise Vash on the intercom. No response. Odd, she assumed he wanted to share in the moment, but then it occurs to her that lover boy would rather not be in the room when she presses the button. He prefers to operate from the shadows, maintaining plausible deniability. Which, come to think, isn’t a bad thing in this case because if worst ever came to worst, he can’t be called as an eyewitness to the event.

An event, not a crime. Crime is for those at the lower levels.

The screens show that all is ready. Weems and his Sixes-a small group of the wealthiest, longest-serving Rulers-have gathered in his conference room in the Bunker. The sound quality is terrible-all booming echoes and static-but it’s not necessary to know what they’re saying. They’ll be discussing her offer, coming up with counteroffers. The visuals tell her all she needs to know: they all look so somber that it really isn’t that much of a leap to conclude that a final solution might be on the agenda.

Eva has her finger over the screen, about to make the one little touch that will turn the Bunker into a death zone, when the most extraordinary thing happens. Wendy actually leaps out his chair, exclaiming something.

Does he know?

And then, a miracle. The completion of perfection. Because three more people enter the conference room. Three people and a child. The big man Vash identified as the former FBI agent, Shane, accompanied by-who is that?-is it Irene Delancey? Yes! Why it looks like someone has blacked her eyes, or is that her makeup running? And then, the icing on the cake, that little pest Haley Corbin comes into view, hugging Arthur’s grandson to her side.

Eva is stunned. Vash delivered! He found a way to get all of her enemies into the Bunker, where the sad event will take place. This is way better than having to make the woman and the boy disappear somehow later. They’ll be among the victims blamed on Wendy. Too bad about the boy-she had such high hopes, but he hadn’t worked out, and sometimes you just have to acknowledge a mistake and move on.

She has to pause for a moment and wipe away the tears. Tears not of grief, but of joy. This has to be a sign from Arthur himself, his way of letting her know that she’s made the right choice.

“Bless you, Arthur,” she says.

She presses the button, releasing the gas. Fentanyl, a favorite from Vash’s old killing grounds. The lethal effects of high doses of Fentanyl had first been established by Russian security forces, who had used it against Chechen terrorists holding hostages in a Moscow theater. Indeed, it was so lethal that almost everyone died, hostages included. It had been particularly effective against the children.

To fall asleep and never wake up. Is that so bad?

Maggie keeps shuffling between the heated, idling Suburban-your tax dollars at work-and the frigid cold of the Colorado morning. If she wasn’t so worried she’d be able to appreciate the stunning beauty of the setting. The clear air, the awesome majesty of the high country, the illusion that you can see forever. But at the moment the mountains and the altitude are the enemy, making it difficult to execute the mission. Helicopters have been coming and going from the roof of the Pinnacle, which turns out not to be booby-trapped, as Shane had warned in his brief call. Thank God for small favors. There haven’t been many. The blueprints that came through from the sat phone have been helpful, but even so, no one anticipated the difficulty of breaching what turns out to be a modern fortress.

Under typical circumstances, the Hostage Rescue Team would have been inside minutes after arriving on-site. As it is, a couple of hours have passed. An eternity, given the volatile circumstances.

Maggie’s hoping for the best-Randall Shane has been surviving on guts and luck for years, why should these run out now?-but she’s got a bad feeling. This is about as far from a typical hostage scenario as you can get, complicated by a cult leader in close alliance with an individual, Kavashi, who has been getting away with cold-blooded murder for years, and who has ways of making his victims vanish, never to be seen again.

Pacing the area as A.D. Bevins confers with the rescue team by two-way, Maggie concentrates on walking without a limp. No cane today, the latest flare-up of her RA having subsided, and she had wanted to demonstrate her physical well-being to Shane, if only because he’d looked so stricken when she came off the plane in Denver leaning on her cane.

She’s hoping against hope that Randall Shane’s luck will hold, but what gnaws at her is the unspeakable fear that when the rescue team finally does get inside, Shane and the mother and child he’s trying to save will be gone without a trace. Torn from the world.

She hates that it might all end here, in this way. And then she admonishes herself not to give up. This is Randall Shane. He can’t die, not like this, not with a child’s life at stake. Buck up. Think positive.

At precisely that moment Monica Bevins comes striding up, clutching her two-way. Her face is ashen, her eyes desolate.

“Oh, Maggie,” she says, choking up.

“Tell me.”

“They finally broke through into the Pinnacle. The entire structure has been flooded with some sort of lethal gas. They’re all dead, Mags. Everyone inside is dead.”

So that’s it, Maggie thinks, that’s how it ends. Strange, but when she’d envisioned such tragedies in the past, she had always imagined that when the moment came she would collapse or faint, and yet here she is, standing on her own not-so-sturdy legs.

Maybe this is what shock is, standing in one place, unable to speak, when you should be running around and screaming your head off.

Slowly, she becomes aware of a humming sound. Is that in her head? No? Has the wind come up? Instinctively she looks around, expecting to see some evidence of a storm approaching-that seems fitting: a violent electrical storm-and then she sees it.

“Monica, look.”

High overhead, the tram cable is turning. A tram car comes into view, slowly descending from the Bunker. Without a word, Assistant Director Monica Bevins takes off in a sprint, heading for the lower terminal.