Zuri's attention drifted, the way it sometimes did when the subject moved too far away. She looked at a woman walking a dog, at Lou refilling his coffee urn, at a group of men near the curb beside the lead car.
She stopped.
There were two of them dressed like the others: dark suits, earpieces, the whole look. They stood close to the car's rear door, and from a distance, if you were busy, if you weren't Zuri, you'd assume they belonged. But they were talking—not into earpieces, not reporting something. They were talking to each other quietly, the way people talk when they don't expect to be heard.
And they weren't speaking English.
Zuri's father, James Bennett, had spent three years working overseas for a logistics contractor before she was born, and another stretch when she was very small. He'd picked up Russian the way practical men do: not beautifully, not with grammar books, but functionally enough to manage. And he'd taught her pieces of it the same way he taught her everything else: by weaving it into ordinary moments. Good morning while she ate breakfast. Be careful when she crossed the street. Small words, small phrases repeated until they were part of her. She didn't speak Russian, but she understood more than anyone who looked at her would ever guess.
She tilted her head very slightly, the way she did when she was trying to hear something over the street noise. One of the men said something low and quick that she almost missed, but she caught the last part clearly:
"Kak tol'ko on syadet, vsyo proyzoydyot."
Once he's inside, it happens fast.
She sat very still. The words moved through her the way cold water does: slowly, then all at once. She turned them over, checked them the way her father had always told her to do when she heard something she wasn't sure about: Don't react to what you think you heard. Hear it first, then think.
She had heard it: Once he's inside, it happens fast.
Adrian Cole was maybe thirty feet away, still talking to the woman with the tablet, maybe fifteen seconds from reaching the car.
For a moment, Zuri didn't move. She thought about what adults did when children interrupted them: the sighing, the polite dismissal, the look that said, You don't understand, sweetheart. This is grown-up business. She thought about how many times she'd said something true and had it wrapped back up and handed to her like a gift they didn't want.
But her father's voice was louder than all of that: If something feels wrong, speak. Even if your voice shakes, even if no one listens, you speak.
She was off the wall and moving before she'd fully decided to move.
She crossed the sidewalk at a near run, weaving between two people who turned to look at her. One of the security men stepped toward her immediately; she saw him shift, saw his hand come up, but she was already past him, reaching the edge of the circle around Adrian Cole, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket with both hands.
"Don't get in that car."