Deus Ex: Icarus Effect

CHAPTER SEVEN

North Springfield—Virginia—United States of America

The unmarked van rumbled along the central lane of Interstate 495, heading westward into the evening. If any of the other drivers in the sparse traffic had given it a second look, they might have noticed the opaque polyglass slits along its flanks and the air vent in the roof; but there were few people driving at this time of day, and for the most part the 495 was the domain of unmanned cargo haulers. The blank-faced, slab-sided machines hummed past the van, running lights bright around prows that had a whiskered look, like dogfish. Some of them had thinscreens along their flanks denoting cargo and livery, lighting up the road as they passed.

Shafts of color penetrated the interior of the van and made Anna Kelso blink and turn away. She shifted uncomfortably. The orange detainee jumpsuit she wore was scratchy, the fiber-paper material rough in the places where it rubbed on her skin. Restraints around her wrists and ankles gave her limited freedom of movement, but not enough to sit up or appreciably change position.

The only other person in the back of the van was Craig Tyler. His narrow face and small eyes were set in a professional expression of detachment, but Anna knew him well enough to see that he was uncomfortable with the job he’d been asked to do. Temple had charged Tyler and Drake to personally convey her from D.C. out to whatever holding facility they had lined up; the other agent was in the driver’s seat, on the far side of the armored bulkhead isolating the rear section of the van.

At first, Anna had been afraid that they were taking her out to some remote spot in the projects, somewhere that they could put a bullet in the back of her head and leave her for dead; but it soon became clear things were not going to be that simple.

All she’d been able to draw out of Tyler was that the agents were taking her to a rendezvous, where she would be transferred into the care of “contractors.” The word had an ominous ring to it; anyone who had worked inside the Beltway for more than a few months knew that behind that term lay a multitude of sins. Temple had been right; she would end up inside some ghost prison, a “black site” facility off the grid, and that would be the last anyone would see of her.

“They’re going to interrogate me,” she said, her fear giving itself voice. “Some faceless mercenary, someone with no legal oversight, no due process.” Anna stared at Tyler, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. “And when they’re done, when they get all they want from me, I’ll be executed.” She stamped her foot on the metal floor. “Right here, Craig. On American soil. You know that’s not right!”

He was silent for a moment. “What I know is that you’re a terrorist sympathizer, Anna. You’ve been classified an enemy combatant.”

“Bullshit!” she snapped. “You know me! You know what I was doing was not about terrorism! It’s about Matt Ryan—”

“Maybe so,” he retorted, speaking over her. “Maybe, yeah, that is what you think you’re doing, breaking the chain of command and conducting illegal operations without sanction… But you’re in bed with international criminals! You’re working with Juggernaut! They’re wanted by Interpol, the NSA, FBI—”

“I…” She tried to find the right words. “It’s not what you think!”

Tyler reached into a pocket and pulled out a data slate. “D-Bar. You know who he is, right? Your hacker buddy?”

The name brought Anna up short. How does the agency know about D-Bar? She’d kept that information to herself. They had to have been listening in on her calls. More than likely, her apartment was wired as well.

Tyler ignored her, reading from the slate. “Patrick Couture, also known as P-C, also known as D-Bar, from the French word meaning ‘to unlock’…” He frowned. “Escaped capture by RCMP forces in Quebec, currently wanted in connection with numerous data-crimes on three continents, known to be an active member of the Juggernaut Collective. Designated priority target.” Tyler waved the slate at her. “This isn’t some kid pirating software or deep-sixing parking tickets. He’s part of an international criminal conspiracy! And now so are you.”

For a moment, she couldn’t find anything to counter his accusations, and Anna began to wonder if she had been played all along. What if Juggernaut had been tracking her, watching while she conducted her covert investigation? What if they had used her, twisted her to their own ends? She bit down on her lip, feeling sick inside. Another lie on top of all the others? “No,” she managed, shaking her head. “It’s Temple. He’s the traitor! He’s been using his access to the DOJ network to pass classified data!”

“To who?” Tyler demanded.

“I… I don’t know!” she said angrily. “All I know is that he’s responsible for the deaths of a half-dozen Secret Service agents, men you and I worked with!”

Tyler sat back, his expression souring. “I’ll tell you where you are going, Kelso. You’re being transferred to a secure psychiatric unit out of state. Maybe there you can get some help. If Juggernaut were just using you—”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m delusional!” Anna snapped, pulling against her restraints. “I know what I saw!”

Tyler’s hand slipped to the stun gun on his belt. “Sit back,” he ordered. “Don’t make me knock you out.”

She sagged and fell against the metal bench as another truck hummed past, the light cast from the screen-panels along its flanks moving slowly along the inside of the van. Something made her look up, and for a moment Anna thought that the stims, the stress, and the lack of proper sleep had all conspired to make her hallucinate.

Visible through the slit-windows, she saw a line of text marching along the side of the driverless truck as it paralleled the van. Brace Yourself Kelso, it read, This Is Going to Hurt.

Her jaw dropped just as Tyler caught on, and the agent turned to look out the windows, catching sight of what she had seen. He tapped his mastoid. “Drake, do you see—?”

Before he could complete the thought, the wheels of the computer-controlled hauler gave a savage screech and the glowing screen-panels loomed through the windows. The robot truck broadsided the van and the vehicle resonated with the force of the impact. Tyler was knocked aside, but Anna was ready, riding out the collision. Through the security panel in front of her, she heard Drake swearing as he tried to stop the van from spinning into a wild skid. Then the truck veered across the lanes a second time and Drake lost control as they collided. The vehicle fishtailed across the freeway and momentum turned it sideways. There was a moment of stomach-churning vertigo as the van flipped over and crashed onto its side. A horrible grinding shriek sounded out as the prisoner transport scraped to a halt along the asphalt.

Anna recovered quickly, ignoring a cut over her right eye. Tyler was lying on his side, his breathing shallow but ready. She pulled as far as the restraints would let her and grabbed at him, dragging him closer. Her hands snagged the magnetic key rod on his belt and she tapped it on the cuffs; they fell away and she immediately felt a prickling sensation as proper blood flow returned to her extremities.

Someone banged twice on the rear doors. A hissing, fizzing glow appeared where the lock was mounted and she turned away. Metal parted with a heavy cracking sound and the doors fell open.

The bright beam of a torch engulfed her and Kelso held up a hand to shield her eyes. “You gonna sit there and stare, or are you gonna get the hell out?” said a voice.

Anna lurched onto the highway, panting, and found D-Bar standing there, a manic grin on his face. The unmanned truck was idling nearby, blocking the view of the wrecked van from passing traffic. The hacker jerked his thumb at a sporty Redline roadster parked nearby on the hard shoulder. “C’mon, your ride’s here.”

“You did that?” She blinked. “Tyler… Drake… You could have killed them!”

D-Bar gaped. “Excuse me, but weren’t they taking you off to some deep dark hole, never to return? And you re welcome, by the way!” Anna took two steps toward the front of the van, but D-Bar grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “The driver is okay, I checked. Don’t worry, I don’t want a murder rap any more than you do.”

Limping, she followed him to the sports car; it was a Falcon GTG, worth maybe ten times the sticker price of Kelso’s commonplace sedan.

“I hadda dump your wheels,” he said, before she could ask. “Which I managed to do, despite the whole handcuffing thing…” He drifted off, and paused. For the first time, Anna noticed he was wearing an earphone. “Yeah, okay,” he said, speaking to the air. “Just monitor the traffic cameras at the exits. If anything looks jagged, let me know.”

“Who are you talking to?” she demanded.

“Some people. Springing you, getting a new ride, all on short notice, that had to be a team effort, y’know? And I’m still waiting for some gratitude.” He pointed. “There’s some clothes in the back, nothing fancy though. Better ditch the romper suit soon-as, yeah?”

She reached the car and sagged against the hood. “Temple. It’s Ron Temple, he’s the leak. The son-of-a-bitch was giving the Tyrants all they needed.”

D-Bar nodded gravely. “Okay. Well, look, don’t sweat it. We know it’s him now, so there are other approaches we can make. And with your help—”

Anna shook her head. “I’m not in this to help you, I’m doing this for me. For Matt.” She tore off the prison garb and threw it into the bushes, ignoring D-Bar as he gawked at her. From the backseat she recovered a track suit and sweatshirt. “He has a contact, he must have. I’m going to make him give it to me.” She climbed into the car and started the engine.

Abruptly, D-Bar realized that she wasn’t going to take him with her. “What about me? You’re just gonna leave me out here on the highway?”

“I don’t trust you!” she snapped, stamping on the accelerator. The Falcon peeled out into the main lane with a snarl of engine noise that smothered the hacker’s string of curses. She aimed for the next exit, already plotting the route in her head that would take her back toward the D.C. suburbs.

Romeo Airport—Michigan—United States of America

The helo extended its rotor-rings and turned them this way and that, running through the last of the preflight checks. Saxon watched, his fist tapping absently against his thigh. It seemed like they had been here for hours, primed and ready to go, watching the clock. Waiting for the word from the forward waypoint. Once or twice he had seen Hardesty and Barrett in quiet conversation, talking animatedly in low tones that didn’t carry. Saxon found himself wishing he had an aural booster implant, or maybe one of those lip-reader software upgrades for his optics. He looked away, unable to ease the tension knotting in his chest. After the fight room, after that night in London, he’d expected this feeling to drop away—but it was still there. Saxon could not shake it, no matter how hard he tried. He still felt like an outsider—what he had thought were the first inklings of comradeship were ghosts, illusions. The reality was that the bond of brotherhood, of shared purpose he’d felt in the service and then again with Strike Six, was absent here. He wondered if he was fooling himself, holding on to some mawkish ideal of esprit de corps. Perhaps there was no place for something like that in the Tyrants.

His train of thought stalled as Namir emerged from the hatch of the transport plane, stepping quickly down the ramp. The other man had been called back aboard by the pilot; Saxon had caught the tail end of the conversation, something about an urgent signal from “the group.” Now the commander’s face was furrowed with irritation; whatever he had been told, Namir wasn’t happy about it.

“We’re going?” Hermann asked, gathering up his rifle. He couldn’t keep the eagerness from his voice.

Namir ignored him and beckoned Federova closer as he approached Barrett and Hardesty. “There’s been a change of plan,” he said, his tone terse. He glanced at the big American. “Lawrence, it seems you’ll have the chance to put your boasts to the test. We’re proceeding with the Sarif exfiltration at reduced capacity. I expect you to compensate, yes?”

Barrett gave a nod. “Not a problem.”

Namir nodded to Federova. “Yelena, you and I will accompany him.”

“You’re benching us?” said Hardesty. “What the hell for?”

“Close your mouth and listen, Scott.” Namir’s reply was sharp. “There’s been a development. Apparently, one of our North American assets has been compromised and there’s a very real danger of some serious blowback. The situation needs to be dealt with immediately.” His gaze bored into the other man. “A scorched-earth protocol is now in effect. You will lead a team to expedite immediately.” He nodded toward Saxon and the German.

Hardesty’s expression changed. If anything, he seemed reassured. “Well. That’s different.”

“Sir,” insisted Hermann, “we have an objective here, in Detroit. We’ve planned and prepared for it.”

“And now you have a new one. Adaptability is something I require from all my operatives, Gunther. Circumstances on the ground are always fluid. We meet the mission needs as they occur.” Namir’s tone made it clear he would brook no questioning of these orders. He offered Hardesty a data slate. “This isn’t something we can trust to hired hands. Details are here. Transport has already been dispatched for the rest of us. The helo is at your disposal.”

Hardesty nodded, scanning the data. “It’ll be tight. We’ll have to do this quick and dirty.”

“I made that clear to the group,” Namir replied. “It’s not an issue.”

“Fine.” Hardesty passed the slate to Hermann and walked away to brief the pilot of the flyer.

Saxon broke his silence. “This… asset. You want a straight recovery?”

Namir shook his head. “No. Locate, terminate, and sanitize the area.”

Terminate and sanitize. He had just handed them an assassination mission. Hermann passed Saxon the slate and asked another question. “There’s little suggestion of what kind of resistance we can expect.”

“Minor” Namir replied. “Nonlethal embedded security. Perhaps one or two threat vectors, including the target himself. The primary concern is that the asset does not escape and no materials are left behind in any recoverable state.”

Saxon read, and he kept his expression neutral. The location was an expensive gated community, part of a suburb of Washington, D.C., called Great Falls. In the helo, flying full tilt, he estimated they could reach it in less than ninety minutes. The target’s residence was a large home set in grounds and woodland; he ran his finger over the surface of the slate to reveal the next page, and found the face of the person Namir wanted them to kill looking back at him. He read on, and his eyes narrowed. “This man is a federal agent.”

Namir came closer. He nodded, making no attempt to show any disquiet over Saxon’s concern. “Correct. As such, he may be armed. He’s certain to be on alert, given the situation.”

“Which is what?” Saxon insisted. “I’d like to know what requires the murder of a ranking officer of the United States Secret Service.”

“Ben,” said Namir, his human and synthetic eyes measuring him carefully. “You need to believe me when I tell you that this is necessary. You have to trust me. The Tyrants have a mission, and sometimes that mission requires that we make choices that are difficult, ugly… bloody. But I know you understand that.”

“Why does this man need to die?” He didn’t flinch from Namir’s gaze. “What’s the reason behind all this, Jaron? I’ve followed your orders… the group’s orders without question now for months. But blind faith in your CO only goes so far.”

Namir nodded. “I respect your honesty. It’s part of the reason I recruited you. So I’ll give an answer, but it will be the last time, know that. Because I cannot afford to have men under my command who continually question me at every turn.”

The ghost of a threat hung in the air between them, the Israeli face-to-face with him. Saxon tensed, feeling the edges of ready menace coming off the other man; once again he found himself wondering who would prevail if they went against each other. He didn’t like the odds.

“The group has been observing a… situation. This man has been classified as a liability,” Namir went on. “He can expose us to our enemies. What he knows could severely impede our objectives if it were to be revealed to the wrong people. Ronald Temple is a serious threat to stability.”

“And we can’t have that,” said Saxon, without weight.

Namir gave the slightest of smiles. “I knew you’d understand.”

Great Falls—Virginia—United States of America

Configured for stealth and speed, the helo flashed over the countryside at treetop level, ducted blades chopping the air in a low, droning thrum. The pilot kept them off the line of any major population centers or highways, following power lines or river courses as they raced eastward. The radar-transparent polymers and sleek, blended lines of the hull gave the craft the detection footprint of a bumblebee, and in tandem with infrared and ultraviolet baffles cloaking the engines, the flyer was virtually invisible.

“Two minutes ” said the pilot, the words resonating through Saxon’s head over the mastoid comm. He began his final premission ritual, losing himself in the simple, robotic motions, trying not to think about the job he had been sent to do.

Weapons. Equipment. Armor. All secure. He zipped open a gear pouch to check the contents and hesitated; something inside was emitting a soft glow. Hardesty and Hermann were busy with their own checks, so Saxon reached inside. His gloved fingers found the lozenge shape of the disposable phone; the morning they had left London, he had stuffed it into his kit and thought no more about it. He was certain he had deactivated it. Turning the device to conceal it from the others, Saxon tapped the screen.

An error display told him the vu-phone’s digital mailbox was full. He scrolled down and found hundreds and hundreds of text messages, all of them sent from the number he had seen on the side of the advertisement blimp, all of them the same five words: What master do you serve?

Uneasy, he hit the mass delete tab, opened the phone’s case, and disconnected the battery before concealing it once again.

“Will we need electronic support for this engagement?” Hermann was asking, loading heavy-gauge rounds into the magazine of a Widowmaker tactical shotgun.

Hardesty’s tone was dismissive. “Namir said digital interdiction is being handled by other assets, so don’t fret about getting caught on camera. Just do what I tell you.” He sensed Saxon looking at him and met his gaze. “You got a question, too? Make it fast.”

“Ninety seconds to deployment” called the pilot. “Thermograph can’t get an accurate read… At least ten-foot mobiles inside target structure”

Saxon glanced out the window and saw the flicker of lights below, the soft glow of streetlamps amid patches of darkness. He looked back. “We can do this without collaterals. Cut the power, go in quiet, hit the mark, and extract.”

“Like a ghost, huh?” Hardesty snorted. “It’s funny. You bitched to me that I didn’t have the stones to get my hands dirty in Moscow, but here I am going in at the sharp end and suddenly you wanna soft-pedal it?” He gathered up his FR-27 assault rifle, securing the ammo magazine in place. “How about that. All of a sudden, you’re gun-shy.”

“This is different. There are civilians in there.” The helo dropped into the low grass with a bump and the engine note fell as the rotors went to idle. Through a stand of trees Saxon could make out the house.

Hardesty shook his head. “There’s only targets.” He pulled a lever to let the hatch slide open and thumped Hermann on the back. The German vaulted out into the darkness. Hardesty went next and Saxon followed him, but he’d barely taken a step before the other man placed the flat of his palm on his chest. “Where you going?”

“Namir—”

“Is not in command of this engagement,” Hardesty replied. “I am. And I’m telling you to wait here and hold the landing zone. Y’know, in case a troop of Girl Scouts tries to sneak up behind us, yeah?” He gave a snort and set off.

Saxon stood there, watching the two men melt away into the shadows, his hands tense around the grip of his rifle, a nerve jumping in his jaw. For a second, his finger rested on the FR-27’s trigger. A single three-round burst would put that son-of-a-bitch down…

Then the moment faded, and the lights in the house went dark. He caught the faint sound of breaking glass and what might have been a woman’s scream.

Kelso left the Falcon at the side of the road and crossed a stretch of scrubland to the wall of the estate; she’d been to Temple’s place once before, back when he’d just taken the job as department head. It was after the Anselmo case had broken, and in celebration their new boss had held a barbecue to toast the team’s success. It seemed like a century ago, a warm summer day with good food and a few beers, Matt there with Jenny… Back before the first time Anna’s career had gone off the rails.

She shrugged off the memory and scrambled up over the wall, concentrating on the moment. Temple would have security, she decided, some kind of alarm system—

Anna caught sight of the house as her head came level with the top of the wall, and in that moment she saw every light in the building die. Her fingertips touched a sensor strip on the top of the bricks, but no alarm sounded. Whatever had killed the power had given her a way in. She took the opportunity and scrambled the rest of the distance, dropping to the gravel drive. There were a few cars parked outside the three-story house, mostly high-end sedans and a couple of SUVs. The house belonged to Temple’s second wife and she was old money; Anna recalled office talk about how she liked to play the hostess, gathering movers and shakers from the D.C. community. The whole city ran on that kind of networking; Anna was disgusted that Temple could send her off to be disappeared, then stroll home for some overpriced wine with his spouse’s cronies without breaking stride.

She moved closer, using the cars as cover. Her hand strayed to where her service weapon would have been holstered and she grimaced. After the van crash, she hadn’t thought to steal Agent Tyler’s firearm or stun gun. Going in unarmed made her feel naked and supremely vulnerable.

She caught the sound of glass breaking and froze. Something wasn’t right; a power outage should not have lasted more than a few seconds. Anna glanced over her shoulder, and in the distance she could see the next house over, the lights still on.

Her head snapped back as she heard gunshots, twice in quick succession. She guessed they were 10 mm rounds from a pistol. The gun sounded again, and this time she saw the reflection of a muzzle flash through a ground-floor window. A woman screamed and a shotgun answered.

She blinked her optics to low-light mode; they had the Eye-See vision-enhancement package, the law enforcement variant, and while they were not as powerful as military-grade cybernetics, they were enough to throw the view of the house into an ashen pattern of green and white. Anna kept to her cover as two figures burst out the front door, stumbling in panic as they tried to flee—a woman in an evening dress and a man in a sports jacket. They raced across the drive, the gravel crunching under their feet.

A shimmering thread, invisible to the naked eye, fell from a first-floor window and drew swiftly across the ground until it crossed the woman’s back. There was a hissing snap and a cloud of ink-dark mist blew from her chest. The man turned in fright and took a second round in the sternum. Both of them were dead before they hit the ground.

Anna dared to peer over the wheel well and saw a shadow move away from the window, a rifle slung in a casual carry.

For a moment she considered turning tail, heading back to the car; but she was too deep in now to give up. Anna waited as long as she dared, and then stole toward the house, staying low as she threaded her way in through the front door the dead couple had left open.

Inside, the horribly familiar smells of spent cordite and blood reached her nostrils. A man in a suit lay against the staircase leading upward, his eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. Anna felt for a pulse; there was nothing.

She moved on, hugging the walls, finding her way into the open lounge. More of Temple’s guests were here, some of them caught still sitting in chairs with glasses of wine in their hands, others shot in the back as they tried to run. Anna saw the telltale patterning of close-range shotgun blasts.

On the floor above, a floorboard creaked and she froze. She very clearly heard a shuffling footstep; then in the next second, a strangled, pained gurgle and the heavy fall of a body.

Cold certainty gathered in her thoughts. An assassin—or more than likely, a team of them—were stalking through Temple’s home, systematically executing everyone they found. It could only have been the Tyrants; the brutality and precision of the attack bore all their hallmarks. Above, she heard the creaking again. They were sweeping the house, floor by floor. She had little time; once they had completed their search, they’d double back and look for stragglers.

She scanned the corpses again; he wasn’t among them, and if Ron Temple was anything like the man she thought she knew, he would have had a plan for something like this. He was methodical to the last.

The house hadn’t changed much since she had visited it, and she concentrated, pulling up her memories of that day. Temple had shown Matt around; she remembered him mentioning something about the basement…

Anna found a doorway in an alcove, behind a privacy curtain. In the dark, it would be easy to miss. Slipping inside, she followed the weakest sliver of light her optics could detect, and with care, descended a shallow set of steps. She blinked back to a normal vision mode. There, half hidden behind a few wine racks reaching from the concrete floor to the low ceiling, was a work area. A desk, a monitor, a rudimentary office. It was cool down here, and the carnage above seemed miles away.

She was two steps into the room when she heard a faint breath. “Temple,” she whispered. “I know you’re here.”

There was a gasp of surprise, and he gingerly emerged from behind the desk, a small pistol in his trembling hand. “You…” he whispered. “Are you… Was this a test?” Temple’s face was a mess of conflicting emotions. “Did… Did I fail?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she hissed, throwing a worried look at the stairs. If the hit team heard them, it would be all over.

He kept muttering to himself, thinking aloud. “No… No, it’s not that. It’s you. It’s all your fault!” Temple rose up and aimed the gun at her. “You should be dead! How did you get away?”

“I had help,” she admitted, holding her hands open to show she was unarmed.

“That’s why they’re here… Because of you, you stupid bitch! They know! You compromised me and they know it! I’m worth nothing now! Nothing…” He choked off in a sob. “Oh god. Everyone is dead. They’re coming for me… They’re cleaning house.”

Temple’s self-pity grated on her and she stepped toward him. “This is the price you pay for betrayal. I’d kill you myself if I could, but that would let you off easy!”

“You can’t know what it was like…” Temple looked down at the pistol and studied it, turning it toward himself. “They’ll find me…”

“No!” Anna lunged at him and backhanded the man across the face. For a moment they wrestled, and then she knocked the gun away, sending it skittering out of reach under the wine racks. “I need you alive, you bastard. We have to get out of here!”

“And go where?” He met her gaze and Kelso saw a side of the man she’d never seen before. He was falling apart before her eyes. “You can’t run. You can’t hide.” Temple snorted. “What do you think is going to happen, Kelso? That you’ll get your day in court like all good citizens? They won’t let the Killing Floor be exposed!”

“The what?” She’d never heard the term before.

He wasn’t listening. “We are already dead!”

“Not yet,” she said. “You’re my proof.”

He went to the desk and tore through the papers scattered across it. “You want proof? Here. You came back for it, so take it\” Temple thrust something into her hands, and she realized it was the flash drive he had taken from her back at the office. “See how far you get!” He was blinking back tears.

Somewhere above them, she heard the crunch of broken glass. Anna grabbed Temple’s arm and twisted it. “I don’t give a damn what you say. You’re coming with me. Move!”

She went back to low-light mode as they emerged into the kitchen. Temple gasped at the carnage and she saw him lurch toward a knife block. He pulled out a butcher’s blade and cradled it in his hands, his breathing fast and shallow.

Across the room, a door opened onto the garden beyond. Anna heard movement in the lounge and she made for the exit. Her hand closed around the latch and she tested it: locked.

From the other room came a metallic click and an egg-shaped object rolled over the threshold, rattling as it came to a spinning halt on the tiled floor of the kitchen.

“No—!” Temple cried out just as Anna’s mind caught up to what she was seeing; she rocked off her feet and slammed her shoulder into the door, wood splintering around the lock and frame. It came open as the grenade detonated with a shriek of combustion. A churning wall of heat and gas picked her up and threw her the rest of the way, sending Anna spinning into the soft, damp grass outside. She rolled as a torrent of glass and splinters rained down on her. Smoke and flame gushed from broken windows and the cracked doorway. Temple was still in there. Too late now.

Anna pulled herself to her feet, the hot stink of the fire choking the air around her; the blast had to have ruptured a gas line. Without looking back, she took off toward the trees flanking the house. As she sprinted away, two figures in matte black combat gear emerged from the smoke, panning their weapons this way and that.

Saxon swore as the explosion from the house caused his night vision to flare out, and he switched modes to ultraviolet. Crouching on one knee a short distance from the silent helo, he peered down the sight atop his rifle and tapped his comm pad. “White, this is Gray. Respond.”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch ” came the terse reply. “We’re on the way out. Prep for dust off.”

“That’s your take on covert action? Blow the shit out of something?”

Hardesty ignored the comment. “If I want your opinion, I’ll give it to you. Meantime, keep your eyes open. We got a possible runner, heading your way. Intercept and execute, if you can handle that.”

Saxon cut the channel without bothering to answer. Rising from the ground he came forward, the rifle at his shoulder, sweeping back and forth. He heard the woman before he saw her, a moment before she emerged from the tree line. She was running across open ground, the last stretch before the rear wall of the Temple estate. On reflex, Saxon pulled the FR-27 tight to his shoulder and flicked the fire selector to single shot; at this range, he couldn’t miss. The assault rifle would put a titanium-tipped flechette round directly on target, enough to tear open an unarmored human body.

Then she saw him and stumbled, staggered, almost lost her balance. Saxon’s finger was on the trigger. The smallest application of pressure and she would be dead; an unarmed woman, a civilian, executed in cold blood.

She stood, frozen, waiting for the kill shot to come.

Ben Saxon was not an innocent. There were more than enough deaths that could be laid at his feet, kills he had made in the heat of battle and through cold, calculating aggression. Lives he had ended from afar, and some so close he heard the escape of their final breath. But then he was a soldier, and that had been war. But this…

The realization crystallized for him. What he was doing now went against every moral code Saxon believed in.

He let the rifle barrel drop slightly, and the woman saw the motion. In a few moments, she was at the wall and scrambling up over it. Conflicted, he watched her disappear out of sight.

As he got back to the helo, the aircraft’s rotors were humming up to full power. Beneath the sound, he could hear the skirl of approaching sirens.

Hermann was already on board, and Hardesty stood waiting. “You get her?” he demanded.

“Nothing out there,” Saxon replied. “If you missed one, they’re long gone.”

“What?” the American grabbed him by the collar, his eyes wide with anger. “I gave you one simple order—”

Saxon said nothing, shook himself free, and climbed into the flyer.