"Is that what you want, Amy? You want me to leave? Want all of us to leave? Didn't almost dying out there show you how crazy that was?"

Dan waited for a response, but it was a long time coming.

"You can't have it both ways, Dan," Amy said, her voice so quiet he could barely hear it.

Dan couldn't meet his sister's eyes. "I called Jake and Atticus," he said. "They're meeting us here in Oslo tomorrow. Once we make a plan, we're all heading to Guatemala. Together."

Amy wanted to protest, but she didn't have the strength. She nodded weakly. Dan reached into his pocket and tossed a new phone across the room and onto Amy's bed.

"From Pony," he said. "To replace the one you lost in the vault. He also wanted me to tell you he's sorry."

"For what?"

"He said there must have been something wrong with the network. He was waiting at his computer the whole time you were in Svalbard, but he never heard from you."

Amy frowned. "I don't understand. Pony's the one who got me out."

Dan shook his head. "He said he never heard from you."

"But that's not possible. If I wasn't talking to him, then who . . ."

Dan shook his head and started for the door.

"Dan, wait. Please."

He stopped with his back to her, one hand on the doork.n.o.b. Amy remembered the brochures in his bag, each one filled with boys his age, laughing and smiling. Carefree.

"Evan had so many plans," she said softly, a tremble in her voice. "Did you know that he and his dad were going to take a year off together after he graduated high school? They were going to go to South America and help build houses for people who needed them. After that they were going to go to meet his mom in China, because they always dreamed of seeing the Great Wall. They had no idea that -"

The words caught in Amy's throat, too big and too terrible to pa.s.s.

"I want all of you to be happy. You and Jake and Atticus and all the others. I don't want this for you. I don't want this for anybody. But you should go right now, Dan, before it's too late."

Dan seemed about to say something, but he didn't. He opened the door and stepped into the hall.

"Dan, wait, I -"

The door closed behind him with a slap. The silence in the hotel room settled heavily on Amy's shoulders. She looked away from the door and noticed that Dan had dragged the trash can out from under the desk. She remembered the sound of tearing paper and got herself out of the bed and went over to it.

Inside, there was a crumpled ball of paper streaked with blue and yellow and candy-apple red. Sc.r.a.ps of paper blew out of her hand and onto the floor as she unfolded it, like the feathers of some small, brilliantly colored bird. Dan's brochures. Each one, with its bold colors and smiling, lighthearted boys, had been torn in half and then torn again.

Amy's heart broke, looking down at them. She knew part of her should have been glad, but suddenly the thought of Dan staying made her ache worse than the thought of him leaving ever had.

There was a soft ding behind her. Amy flipped over her new phone and saw an e-mail waiting to be read. It was from Jake. She stared at it for a long time, her stomach turning, before she finally worked up the nerve to click on it.

Amy, I don't think there's much to say, or anything that Dan probably hasn't said already, but there's one thing I had to get off my chest. First off, Atticus and I are glad you're okay. We were all pretty mad when you took off without us, but that was because we were terrified. None of us know what we'd do if anything happened to you.

I want you to know that I'm not going to stop trying to help you fight Pierce. But I accept what you said before you left and want you to know that I agree. There was never anything between us and there never will be. Don't waste any more time worrying about feelings that neither of us ever had.

- Jake Amy closed the e-mail and then sat without moving for some time. She looked around at the stark walls of the room, and for a moment she felt like she was back in the vault, trapped and alone. Amy hit REPLY and started to type: Jake, I only said what I did because if you knew how I really felt, you would have pulled that plane out of the sky before you let me go off alone. And I'd rather you hate me and live than die because you care. I couldn't forgive myself if you or Atticus were hurt. But I'm tired of lying. And the truth is, there's no one I'd rather fight with, no one I'd rather be infuriated by, than you.

Dan said that the best things any of us have ever accomplished, we accomplished together. That's true for me and you as well.

- Amy Amy stared at the message, thinking of how Jake teased her on the beach in Tunis, and then his face as she boarded the plane.

She highlighted the e-mail and hit DELETE.

Once the e-mail was gone, she moved to her browser and typed in Guatemala and Riven Crystal. A long list of hits came up and she moved through them one by one, examining each, making lists of notes, losing herself in the research.

Nellie crouched in the weeds at the edge of the Trilon parking lot, looking up at the dark building. There were four labs with lights still on. She waited, legs cramping, until the lights went off one by one. Soon the straggling scientists left the building and got into their cars.

Nellie slipped out of the ditch and ran across the parking lot in a low crouch, doing her best to avoid the pools of light streaming down from towering steel poles. There was a security station just inside the main entrance that was manned 24/7, so that way was out. Luckily, she had the building's schematics all but memorized. Nellie left the parking lot and came around the north side of the building, belly crawling underneath the first-floor windows just in case.

Nellie found the side door and pulled a set of lock-pick tools out of her back pocket. She eased the thin metal tools into the lock and closed her eyes as she dug around inside, judging her success by the vibrations coming back through the metal. She felt tumblers move out of her way one by one, but got stuck on the last. It slipped and slid out of her grasp and her hands went tense.

Nellie heard footsteps out in the dark. No doubt a guard on patrol. He was getting closer. Twenty feet away. Then fifteen. Nellie poured her whole concentration into the tools, twisting and turning them. Come on. Come on. A flashlight beam appeared. Nellie held her breath. Ten feet. Five. The final tumbler lifted and the lock clicked open. She threw her shoulder into the door as the guard appeared. She rolled inside, sticking out one hand at the last second to stop the door before it slammed against the frame. She held it there, listening until the guard was gone again. Nellie eased the door shut and then turned into the gloom of the building.

She was in a first-floor stairwell. To get back to the vending machine she needed to go up three flights and then wind through the corridors until she was on the far-west side of the building.

Nellie got moving, slinking up to the fourth floor, then peeking out the door until she was sure no one was coming. The hallways were half lit by safety lights, filling the string of labs and corridors with an eerie gloom. Nellie froze at every sound, her body going on high alert until she realized that it was simply the building settling or the air-conditioning cycling on. She had memorized the placement of the video cameras and took a long and winding route to avoid them. It felt like it took her hours before she finally ended up back at the dead-end hallway.

The snack machine glowed in front of her. As she approached it, the gla.s.s front picked up her reflection. Nellie's skin went cold as she imagined the black machine was a huge mouth, poised to devour her.

Come on, Gomez, pull yourself together. It's just your imagination.

Nellie's hands shook as she pulled the stolen key card from her back pocket. She had definitely picked up a thing or two over the years. A subtle shoulder b.u.mp and the pharmaceutical rep she had seen outside of Dr. Callender's office had been distracted enough that Nellie could swipe her card without being noticed. Nellie ran it through the reader. There was a click and one edge of the snack machine popped away from the wall.

Nellie peeked around the side of the machine. There was now a sliver of s.p.a.ce between it and the wall behind. She slipped her fingertips into the crack that had formed and pulled. The snack-machine door swung open easily and without a sound. On the other side was a narrow concrete staircase leading down into darkness.

Nellie swallowed a growing lump of fear in her throat and stepped into the black, shutting the door behind her. She stood there in the dark, her heart hammering, until there was a faint hum all around her and a series of dim fluorescent lights cut on all along the staircase. Huh, Nellie thought. I guess you can be evil and energy conscious at the same time.

Nellie descended the stairs, crossing switchback landings at each floor until she had descended five levels. There, she found a landing and a steel-jacketed door. The bas.e.m.e.nt should be just on the other side. She swiped her A card in the reader by the handle and the door popped open.

Nellie peeked through the doorway. On the other side was a nondescript hallway with large picture windows running down its length. She didn't see any people or hear any voices.

Nellie moved into the hallway in a slight crouch, easing the door closed behind her. When she came to the first lab, she flattened herself against the wall and peered over her shoulder.

The lab was filled with racks of computers, tables, chairs, and a chalkboard that was covered in a confusion of symbols. There was another lab next door just like it. She came to a third lab and found gla.s.s tanks filled with a thick green liquid. Odd, lumpy shapes floated in the green, while bubbles of air streamed past.

The serum, Nellie thought with a chill. Her instinct was to bust inside and smash the tanks, but she needed to see the full scale of the operation. As Nellie started down the hall, a door swung open behind her and someone exploded out of an adjoining room. A hand fell over her mouth and she was yanked out of the hallway and into another room. Nellie moved without thinking. She spied a fire extinguisher on the floor and grabbed it and swung as hard as she could. There was a satisfying yelp of pain and her attacker crashed to the floor. She pulled the steel canister back for another swipe.

"Nellie! Please! Wait!"

Nellie stopped mid-swing. Below her she saw a tangle of black hair and dark eyes wide with fear.

"Sammy!"

The fire extinguisher clanked to the ground and Nellie dropped down beside him. He had fallen against a nearby table and was bleeding from his forehead.

"Oh, no. Oh, G.o.d. I can't believe I just - are you okay?"

"I'm fine! But what - what are you doing here?"

Nellie grinned. "I'm your own personal cavalry. I'm going to get you out of here, but first, I need to see what Pierce is up to. Can you walk?"

Sammy nodded and Nellie helped him up. She put her back to the wall and peered out into the corridor. The coast was clear.

Nellie and Sammy moved down the hall. Nellie's mouth went dry and the muscles in her legs quivered as she drew closer. Another window sat in the wall ahead, the biggest one yet. Nellie moved up alongside it, her back to the wall. She was surprised to find her heart racing. She turned slowly and looked inside.

There were no people anywhere that she could see, only a factory floor the length of a football field, filled with ranks of black machines. A conveyer belt ran along the room, connecting machine to machine. But what was on it? Nellie moved in front of the window and peered into a back corner. What she saw there made her blood go cold.

"He's really doing it," Nellie said, struck dumb at the idea.

Along the back wall were three ma.s.sive gla.s.s tanks, each one nearly three stories high. They were empty, but she knew soon they would be filled with the same thick green liquid she had seen earlier. Hoses ran from the bottom of the tanks to the machines that ran the conveyer belts.

"He's ma.s.s-producing the serum," Nellie said.

"But why?" Sammy asked.

There were hoses at the ready to squirt the serum into vials, and belts waiting to whisk the vials away. Nellie could see hundreds, maybe thousands of empty vials, just waiting for Pierce to press the b.u.t.ton.

"Because," Nellie said, her face grim, "he's going to build an army."

Sneak Peek After leaving Dan behind, Amy barely made it out of Svalbard alive. Will her efforts to keep her family safe lead to her downfall? Or will the Cahills' fights against Pierce demand an even larger sacrifice?

Find out in COUNTDOWN by Natalie Standiford. Turn the page for a sneak peek!

Guatemala City, Guatemala Amy Cahill put on her sungla.s.ses in preparation for a paparazzi mob scene as the plane landed at La Aurora International Airport, but all looked quiet. Funny. This should have helped Amy relax, but she'd forgotten how to do that. Instead, the nerves in her neck tensed even more.

She and the others - her brother, Dan; his friend Atticus; and Atticus's older brother, Jake - deplaned and walked through the airport toward the gate where they would board a chartered helicopter. They'd hired a local pilot who knew how to fly through the volcanic jungle mountains, since landing at Tikal was tricky.

"Nice and quiet," Jake said. "For a change." People - normal-looking people in the tourist uniform of shorts, sandals, and T-shirts - sat playing with their mobile phones, walked calmly to their gates, gazed in boredom at the same old duty-free chocolates that seemed to be for sale at every airport.

Amy didn't answer. There was nothing to add to Jake's observation other than: For now. Or: We'll see.

Besides, she doubted he'd meant the comment for her. He was barely speaking to her, communicating on an as-needed basis. The same went for Dan. Atticus slipped up occasionally and offered her gum or flashed her his sweet smile, but then Dan would glare at Att to chastise him for the small betrayal.

Amy told herself it didn't matter if they hated her. She wasn't racing around the world to make friends. As the leader of the Cahill family, she had to make hard choices - like leaving Dan, Atticus, and Jake behind when she headed to the Arctic Circle alone. Abandoning the few people she loved had felt like cutting off her own hand, but that didn't matter. She had a job to do. As long as the others didn't get in her way, whether they included her in their jokes and gum-sharing was their business.

There was a shout from a newsstand and Amy turned toward it.

"There they are!"

"The paps at two o'clock," Dan muttered. A small mob of photographers zeroed in on them, their gear clanking as they ran.

Amy couldn't contain an exasperated sigh. Here we go again.

It was bad enough that J. Rutherford Pierce sent murderous thugs after Amy and Dan wherever they went. On top of that, he'd ensured that the paparazzi was obsessed with them - Amy and Dan Cahill, the teenage leaders of the richest and most powerful family the world has ever known. The source of their power was a serum that Pierce had managed to steal, enhancing his own power and making him exceedingly dangerous. Amy and Dan were on a desperate mission to find the antidote to that serum, and had come to Guatemala because they suspected the next ingredient they needed - "riven crystal," whatever that was - was hidden in the ancient Mayan ruins of Tikal. But it was next to impossible to conduct a covert operation - or even to hide - when reporters publicized your every move.

"That way." Jake pointed to a door marked vip lounge, manned by a guard.

Amy flashed a VIP Travel Club ID at the guard and they ducked inside, but not before one of the photographers spotted them and took some quick shots. The flash cast eerie shadows on the wall in front of her. She couldn't let the photographers follow them to their waiting chopper. If the paparazzi found out where they were headed, that meant Pierce would know, too.

"Amy!" the photographer called. "Using your privilege to avoid the public? What are we, the unwashed hordes?" Amy ignored him and kept running, but the photog pushed past the guard, who couldn't stop a whole mob determined to get around him.

Amy, Jake, Dan, and Atticus raced through the lounge, dodging placid pa.s.sengers sipping drinks. Amy leaped over a side table just as a woman reached for her coffee cup. The woman glared at her and snapped, "Rude children!" The comment bounced off Amy's Teflon sh.e.l.l. The days when Amy cared about good manners were long gone. Her near-fatal trip to Svalbard had iced over what remained of her heart. Being hounded by the press could do that to a person - and being hunted by a powerful, ruthless killer, even more. Pierce hardly needed his army to find the Cahills - the press did that job for him.

Dan found a door at the back of the lounge and threw it open. "In here!"

The others followed him through a staff changing area. They ran past a flight attendant shrugging into his uniform jacket. "Hey! What are you - ?"

No time to hear the rest of that question. They ran past a long mirror, where another flight attendant spritzed his hair with spray. Amy got a faceful, wiped the spray from her eyes, and kept running without missing a beat.

They found another exit and made their way through the maze of the airport, leaping over suitcases and the legs of people sitting on the floor, until they ended up at baggage claim. A crowd of pa.s.sengers had just arrived to pick up their luggage. "Try to get lost in the crowd," Amy said. Even if the boys weren't speaking to her, they couldn't block out her orders.

They wove their way among the tired pa.s.sengers impatient for their bags. Amy heard a shout from the edge of the crowd.

"There's Amy!"

"Let us through!" The telltale flash of lightbulbs popped from across the large hall. The paparazzi had spotted them.

"What are you doing in Guatemala, Amy?" a reporter shouted over the crowd. "Planning to spoil the rain forest?"

"Dan, you following orders like a good boy?"

Amy risked a glance at Dan, knowing that remark had hit a sore spot. "I don't want them to know where we're going," Amy told the others. "We've got to leave the airport for a while. The chopper will just have to wait."

"While we do what?" Jake demanded.

"I haven't gotten that far yet."

Amy led them through a corridor to the airport exit, her eyes scouring the terminal for some other way to get out. But the airport exit was blocked by a wall of six big, muscular, stone-faced men in black suits. Amy knew them all too well by now.

Pierce's men. The soldiers of the Founders Media army.

They homed in on the Cahills, muscles rippling, like tigers preparing to spring for the kill.

"Back!" Amy shouted to the others. "Back the way we came!"

Trapped between the muscle and the paparazzi, Amy would rather take on the paps. Pierce's soldiers couldn't be seen attacking kids. Amy knew Pierce's men had orders to kill, but it had to look like an accident. As they backtracked into the baggage hall, there was a loud buzz and flashing yellow light, and one of the luggage carousels began to spin. Suitcases started spilling out and riding around the conveyer belt. The pa.s.sengers crowded around, eagerly waiting to grab their bags, temporarily blocking the paps from reaching the Cahills.

"This way!" Dan jumped on the carousel and rode it to the end, disappearing behind a rubber mat. Amy, Jake, and Atticus slipped through the crowd and jumped on the conveyer belt before the paparazzi could reach them.

"Get down!" Amy grabbed Atticus and the two of them hid behind a large red suitcase held together with twine. Someone reached for the suitcase and pulled it off the conveyer, suddenly exposing Amy and Att.

"Hey!" the man shouted in shock when they were revealed. "There are kids riding this thing!"

Amy grabbed Att's hand and jumped off the belt into the center of the conveyer ring. An airport security guard stepped onto the edge of the conveyer to grab them, but one of Pierce's men shoved him aside. Amy could see the crowd parting as Pierce's soldiers surged forward.