And then there had been Janis. Tyler had emerged from the facility in time to see her being lowered to the ground, blood running from her nose. High above her, in the deep purple heavens, lights flashed like soundless fireworks. Eight exploding warheads, their radiation spewing harmlessly into space.

  “… and Tyler Bast,” Agent Steel finished.

  Tyler jerked in his chair. What? Margaret looked from Agent Steel to her sister to Director Kilmer, her eyes turning deep green, as though preparing her protest. But Tyler spoke first.

  “That’s horseshit,” he said. “I’m not gonna be part of any team without them.”

  “I admire the spirit,” Director Kilmer said. “But I’ll remind you that you’re under contract. Now, we have selected only four of you because, if you remember, two trainees had their contracts amended. They wanted to use the summer training as an opportunity to determine whether or not they would be selecting us. So, Janis, Scott, we await your decision.”

  Scott nodded for Janis to go first.

  “Well, I learned a couple of things this summer,” she said hoarsely. “The first is that you’re a bunch of manipulators. You presented the Champions Program as our choice but then did everything possible to see that we only had one option—the one you already had in mind for us.” When Janis paused to cough, Tyler saw the faint finger marks around her neck. It only added to the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. She was rejecting the Program. She was leaving. “The second thing I learned is that sometimes the ends do justify the means. You had your reasons for steering us toward the Program, and I see now that they were the right ones.”

  Director Kilmer, who had been sitting back, his expression a bed of consternated lines, began to relax and nod.

  Tyler’s head buzzed with relief.

  “But I want you to know that I’m committing in spite of the manipulations, not because of them. I hope we’re past all of that now. If this is going to work, we need to trust one another.”

  “Your point is well taken,” Director Kilmer said. “We’ll set up a meeting to discuss how we can be more transparent. In the meantime…” He spread his hands. “Welcome to the team.”

  “One more thing,” Janis said.

  Director Kilmer raised his eyebrows.

  Janis coughed into her fist again and turned toward Agent Steel, seated beside the director. “You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but, well, what you did yesterday. Taking out Trips? I just wanted to say thank you.”

  “I was merely doing my job, Janis,” Agent Steel replied, “so that you could do yours.”

  Though her lips didn’t stray from their scarred frown, Tyler thought he caught a glimmer of appreciation in Agent Steel’s frosty eyes before they stiffened to ice again.

  “All righty,” Director Kilmer said. “Scott?”

  Scott touched his glasses. “Yeah, everything Janis said. I’m in.”

  Director Kilmer clapped his hands together. “Well, it took a while, but here we are. The six of you: the new, improved Champions! Ah, and before I forget…” He pulled a small stack of envelopes from his inside jacket pocket. “Your first checks. Don’t blow them all in one place.” He handed them around. “Now, I’ve organized a celebration for tonight for your induction. It will be upstairs in my mother’s house. Seven o’clock. I’ll see you all there?”

  As the meeting broke up, Tyler caught himself watching Janis, the girl who had delivered him from madness with a kiss.

  “Tyler, mind if I have a word with you?”

  “Huh?” The way Director Kilmer’s tall frame separated Tyler from the others was reminiscent of their first meeting back in April. You’re your own man now. Just as long as you make the right decisions. Understand what I’m telling you?

  “Yeah, sure,” Tyler said as the other Champions filtered from the room.

  “It’s about your father,” Director Kilmer said in a low voice. “We know you went looking for him last month. Listen, the night after he was buried, in ’82, we had his remains removed and cremated. We didn’t want to risk the police poking around and finding something they didn’t need to. We didn’t want that for you.” He placed a gentle hand on Tyler’s shoulder and stooped down. “Lots of things happened to you that you never asked for, and I’m here to tell you that nothing—and I mean nothing—will ever connect you to your father’s disappearance. Understand? You never have to worry about that again.”

  Tyler’s throat constricted. He knew that if he tried to talk, he would probably start blubbering, so he just nodded. The important thing was that the nightmare was over.

  Director Kilmer clapped his shoulder. “Welcome to the team, son.”

  7:47 p.m.

  “It’s been quite a summer, huh?”

  A red plastic cup appeared over Janis’s shoulder. She accepted it as Scott appeared beside her, a blue cup in his other hand. The living room in Mrs. Montgomery’s house had been cleared of furniture to make room for tables of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Janis mused how, only four months earlier, they had been trashing this same room in their battle with Agent Steel. Now they were mingling with members of her security team.

  “Quite a summer,” she agreed. “I honestly didn’t think I’d be standing here at its end, a newly minted inductee.”

  “Well, I’m glad you are. So is the rest of the country.” Scott tilted his head and, crinkling the skin around his eyes, launched into a half-decent Ronald Reagan impression. “Whether they know it or not.”

  She elbowed him softly. “We made a pretty good team yesterday.”

  Scott slid an arm around her waist. “When haven’t we?”

  “Oh, we had some less than shining moments this summer.” She glanced up at his bandaged face. “But look, I put a lot of that on myself. I got sort of obsessed with the last Champions team.”

  “And now?”

  Someone turned on a stereo in the den. Dead Or Alive’s “You Spin Me Round” pumped into the living room, Chad following closely, fingers snapping, hips shaking. Gus and Gabriella began to dance. Margaret joined them, trying to drag Creed, of all people, into their circle.

  Janis looked around for her own trainer, Mrs. Fern, but instead found Mrs. Montgomery on a couch, an unopened jar of pickles on her lap, head nodding side to side. The old woman’s bobbing orange curls reminded Janis of her grandmother in Denver. Janis had spoken with her by phone that afternoon, never happier to hear her sweet voice.

  “It wasn’t Director Kilmer’s program back then,” Janis said after a moment. “Whatever happened, it caught them by surprise—I sense that much. And I believe Kilmer when he says he made changes with our class to ensure nothing like that happens again.”

  Janis felt the relief in Scott’s body as he took another sip of Coke. Janis followed his example, pleasantly surprised at the familiar taste. Following public outcry that summer, Coca-Cola had gone back to their original formula, only now it was called Coke Classic.

  “And anyway,” she added. “I have this feeling someone else is looking out for us.”

  “Like a guardian angel?”

  “Maybe it’s my own wishful thinking, but yeah, something like that.”

  “Hey, I have to ask,” Scott said. “How did you summon enough power to reach that missile yesterday? Without, you know…”

  “Going crazy?” Janis smirked. “I think I figured something out.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Up until yesterday, I’d only really seen the potential of my abilities to hurt and destroy. That’s why I cordoned them off. But in that final moment last night, when I needed everything I could summon to block the missile’s reentry, the wall separating the two parts of myself just … disappeared. At some unconscious level, I think I understood that I was trying to prevent pain and destruction—not cause it. This time, people would be hurt if I didn’t act. That’s what it took.”

  “So you’re in control now?”

  “To an extent. Mrs. Fern says the next step is to learn to build capacity. If those blood vessels that burst had been inside my brain instead of my nose, well, you’d be spoon-feeding me this Coke right now.”

  A shadow passed over Scott’s face. “You gave us all a scare.”

  “Well, it ended up being nothing some uncomfortably-packed nasal gauze and eighteen hours of sleep couldn’t fix.”

  The music changed from Dead or Alive to Kool & The Gang’s “Cherish.” Scott set his cup on an end table and, plying the cup from Janis’s hands, did the same with hers. He slid his arms beneath hers and around her back. “I spent most of those eighteen hours awake,” he said, rocking her slowly. She draped her arms around his neck. “Thinking about our conversation in the elevator.”

  It had been a while since they had been close like this. Janis had almost forgotten how good it felt. “Oh yeah?” she said.

  Scott nodded. Beyond his glasses, his soft brown eyes twinkled with chandelier light, and Janis thought he had never looked more handsome. “I didn’t get the chance to say something then, so I want to say it now.” He looked down briefly before meeting her eyes again.

  Janis’s heart began to thump hard and high in her chest.

  “I still love you too, Janis Graystone. I always have.”

  She stared at him a moment. It was the first time a boy had ever told her that, and the occasion was even more warm and dizzying than she had imagined it would be. But then her father’s pragmatic voice rose over her. He says that now, but what happens when you two have to balance a new year of high school with the demands of the Champions Program? She pushed her father’s voice from her thoughts and found Scott’s waiting gaze.

  The corners of her lips turned up. “How about a kiss, then, Champion?”

  Scott leaned toward her. Over the shoulder of his blue sports jacket, Janis glimpsed Tyler. He had been watching them from a dim corner, the hand of his good arm in the pocket of his stonewashed jacket, but now he was turning away. In the instant Scott’s lips met hers—and only for that instant—Janis thought of Tyler before reminding herself that her heart belonged to Scott Spruel.

  She closed her eyes and drew him closer.

  41

  8:04 p.m.

  Director Kilmer was studying a series of faxed images at his desk when Agent Steel walked in, a workout towel slung over her shoulder. She dabbed the sweat along her damp hairline and sat across from him.

  “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  “I’m surprised you’re not at the party,” he said.

  “I’m not much fun at those things.” She drew her towel along her muscled arms, his sarcasm sailing over her head. “They’ll enjoy themselves more without me. Are you going, sir?”

  “Later,” he said. “Some information just arrived.”

  “Concerning yesterday?”

  He nodded. “The security guard who escaped the launch facility never showed up at the military hospital. Neither did the military ambulance that picked him up. They found the guard’s body, though. Someone had stuffed it beneath a bed in the dormitory back in the launch facility.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Homicide. His throat was cut with a wire.”

  “Meaning the guard never escaped.”

  “That’s right,” said Director Kilmer.

  “What about the ambulance and crew?”

  “Missing but presumed dead.”

  “Shape shifter?”

  “That’s the assumption I’m going on. Probably accessed the facility as someone they knew, murdered the chief of security and assumed his form, then admitted Trips and the others.”

  “The others being vagrants from that hotel in Tallahassee.”

  “And all those vagrants can tell us is that, after being rounded up from the hotel, they were taken to a warehouse. The next thing they remember was being in the equipment room at the launch facility, outfitted with armor and lasers. A voice in their helmets directed them.”

  “I didn’t think Trips spoke English.”

  “He didn’t. Trips served a purpose, that was all. Among the electronic crap in his head, our investigators found a communication component. Someone from the outside was directing him.”

  “To destroy half the U.S.?”

  Director Kilmer pushed a hand through his hair. “We received some information on that as well. The coordinates on those missiles had been altered, but not to hit major U.S. cities, as the Scale threatened. If our kids hadn’t stopped them, the missiles would have plunged into the ocean. Lots of dead sea life, a few waves, but the U.S. would have been spared a direct strike.”

  Agent Steel’s face betrayed no emotion. “So what was the point?”

  “Investigators found surveillance cameras throughout the launch facility that hadn’t been there the day before. Everything we did, every ability those kids employed—the whole show—was broadcast somewhere and no doubt recorded. Someone wanted us to reveal our cards, and we obliged them, damn it. They got a nice, long look at our team and its capabilities.”

  “So who are we dealing with exactly? Who are the Scale?”

  “The shape shifter goes by Shadow Dancer. She was instrumental in the Champion’s demise back in ’61. But she had help.” Director Kilmer slid one of the faxed images across his desk. “The facility’s outside cameras were all deactivated, except the one that captured this image. It caught the van that dropped off Trips and the others. I know its hazy, but do you see the face through the windshield?” Kilmer tapped it twice, hard. “See the eye patch? If he’s who we believe him to be, his name is Henry Tillman. When he was a Champion, we called him Titan. Think of an indestructible version of Jesse and you’d be in the ballpark. He betrayed the Program back in ’60, ’61, and now he’s its only surviving member, though this is the first I’ve seen him in over twenty years.”

  “They’re aiming for the current Program,” Agent Steel concluded.

  “That’s the picture I’m getting. But we’re not going to let it happen. I’m charging you with a full review of our security capabilities and procedures. I’ll get you the files on Shadow Dancer and Titan. There may be others. Can you have a report on my desk with recommendations within forty-eight hours?”

  “You can count on it, sir.” Agent Steel stood. “Are you going to tell them?” She raised her eyes toward the ceiling, where, twenty feet above them, the Champions were celebrating their induction.

  Director Kilmer shook his head. “No. Not yet.” He gathered up the faxes.

  “Who’s financing the Scale?” she asked. “Who’s directing them?”

  Kilmer paused, thinking of those final days of the original Champions Program and how, with their remaining funds and on Director Halstead’s insistence, they had investigated the big names in the U.S. defense industry.

  All of them had come back clean.

  “That we don’t know.”

  Agent Steel nodded and departed.

  Director Kilmer tapped the faxes into a stack. The top one showed a close up of the blurry face, the eye patch little more than a smudge, but it was him. Titan frigging Tillman.

  Frowning, Kilmer thought of the promise he had made to Janis, a promise to protect this class of Champions. But it wasn’t just Soviet mercenaries anymore, was it? Now they had an apparent super-villain group in the Scale. A group whose powers were at least equal to those of the Champions—though Kilmer had a nasty feeling the Scale were holding more aces.

  I hope we can protect you, Janis, he thought, placing the faxes into a red file. God, I hope we can.

  42

  New York, New York

  Sunday, April 16, 1961

  4:05 p.m.

  Reginald Perry surveyed the park from a recessed iron bench. As recently as two weeks before, ice had bearded the grille of the truck-shaped jungle gym off to his right. But now children in short sleeves screamed and clambered over it. More children shouted from the swing set, slapped jump ropes, and chased one another across the sun-speckled pavement, skirts and shirttails flying. Spring had finally come to Harlem, and Reginald couldn’t help but smile a little.

  But not for long.

  When he crossed his legs, an icepick-like pain bit into his left hip. Wincing, he eased his leg back down. Titan’s kick had fractured his femoral neck in three places. Pins and traction could only achieve so much, the doctors told him. The ache in his hip could persist for up to a year, maybe longer. He eyed the wooden cane that leaned beside him. Might never walk again without a limp.

  But Reginald had escaped the motel room that day. He had made it to New York City and gotten treatment. He had survived. That’s what mattered.

  The question was, had Titan?

  Reginald frowned. There was no way of knowing. But whether Titan was alive or dead, Reginald didn’t think he would see him again. Whoever had recruited him had accomplished their mission.

  Final count: four Champions dead, one turned, and one on the run. And the Champions Program itself was officially done. Reginald had received the news at a bank stop in late January. The wired communication was long for Halstead. Decrypted, it read:

  I received your message. Security team performed a search of the motel and area but could not locate Tillman or this Shadow. Evidence at the site, however, confirmed your account. The team regrets that you were ever under suspicion.

  As much as we want to bring the killers to justice, our hands are tied. President Kennedy was briefed on the Program and passed. He campaigned on a missile gap with the Soviets, and that’s where he plans to focus spending—on new missiles and missile systems. Program is being denied further funding. The executive account is closed.

  With the end of the Program, I am retiring. The assistant director and chiefs are transferring to other areas of the government. The president expressed an interest in meeting you (probably out of curiosity), but I reported you missing, likely dead. Told the others the same. It’s the only way I know to keep you safe. In addition to the deposited money, I made you a new identity.