operations; she liked the hunt and the kill better than the stalking. "You're late," he said.
She looked up and saw the same scarring on the hull, and cast a questioning look at him. He smiled slightly. Yelena loved the sound of her own
silence; sometimes it seemed as if he had never known her to speak at all.
"It's nothing of concern," he noted. "I'm afraid Ben Saxon made a decision to part company with us. He chose the time and place rather poorly."
Her eyes narrowed and she made a throat-cutting gesture.
"Likely." He held out a hand, changing the subject. "So. Give it to me."
Federova produced a small digital slate from her pocket and handed it over. Namir tapped the screen and scrolled through the images in the
memory. The display was full of shots of the Metropol Grande, one of the more opulent of Geneva's great hotels. The footage highlighted
locations for monitor cameras and security posts around the front entrance and throughout the underground garage beneath the building;
others showed corridors on the executive penthouse level, accessways, and the like. The last image was at an angle, a surreptitious shot
captured in a moment of opportunity. In the frame was an older man flanked by a coterie of bodyguards and personal assistants. The profile of
William Taggart's face was unmistakable. He scanned the other people in the frame, measuring them against himself, looking for anything that
could be a threat. Some of the faces he was already familiar with from the files that Temple had supplied to the Tyrants; there was Isaias
Sandoval, the Humanity Front's right-hand man and chief of staff alongside Taggart's personal assistant Elaine Peller, and a few others. Not one
of them possessed even the most basic of augmentations. Namir wasn't foolish enough to believe that his implants made him invulnerable, but
they did make him superior. Quite how these people believed they could ever hope to protect themselves from the threats of this world—
threats like the Tyrants—was beyond him.
"Good work," he told her. The rest of the slate's memory was filled with copies of itinerary files and route maps, but the majority of that data
had already been in the hands of the unit for some time. "Take this to Gunther. Make sure there are no last-minute variables, then help him
secure the payload."
She walked off, casting a sideways look as she crossed paths with Hardesty coming the other way. The operative ran a hand over his bald pate.
"Ice queen's back, huh?" He watched her traverse the hangar. "So, I guess that means we still have a green light?"
"We still have a green light," Namir repeated. "Gunther can function, despite his injury. This sanction is too critical to the group for
postponement. It must go ahead." Hardesty nodded, but he didn't leave. After a moment, Namir spoke again. "Was there something else you
wanted to say, Scott?"
The other man folded his thin arms over his chest. "I was right about Saxon."
"Yes, you were." Namir met his gaze and waited for the rest of it.
Hardesty didn't disappoint. "He was weak. He never had the steel for this work. You made the wrong call—"
"Enough," Namir silenced him. "What do you want from me? An apology?"
"You misread him, and it almost cost us the operation!" Hardesty was emboldened by Namir's admission of error, and he was pushing it.
"Do you know why I wanted him to join us?" said Namir. The ice in his tone chilled the air between them. "It's because he had a code of
conduct, Scott. Unlike you. Because this unit needs balance."
Hardesty was on the verge of launching into an argument, but he caught himself before he said something he might have regretted. As much as
he was a braggart, Hardesty wasn't foolish enough to cross swords with Jaron Namir. Instead, he allowed himself a belligerent smile. "Balance,
huh?" He glanced up at the scarred hull of the jet. "Look what that got you," he said, walking away.
Aerial Transit Corridor—Maury Sea Channel—North Atlantic
It was cold inside the airship's cavernous cargo bay. Faint layers of frost gathered on the sides of the container pods filling the length of the
compartment. Breath emerged from Saxon's mouth in streams of white vapor as he walked the length of the companionway; the Caidin
replacements for his lower legs were starting to bed in at last, and he'd used the downtime to get himself back into fighting condition. He didn't
want a repeat of what happened when they boarded.
Powell and his men kept close to the aft service bay, where noisy electric motors fed the airships rotors and kept the area a little warmer than
the rest of the cargo spaces. Without comment, he crossed into the group and helped himself to a couple of cheap YouLike self-heating coffee
cans and power bars.
He found Kelso on her own, huddled inside a solar foil blanket. She was miles away, her gaze fixed on a brass coin as she turned it over and over
in her fingers. She looked up as he approached and palmed the coin, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. He held out a can and she
took it, striking the base on the deck to get the thermal tab working.
Saxon dropped into a lotus settle and did the same, tossing her one of the bars. She unwrapped it with her teeth, waiting for him to speak; he
tried to frame the question the right way, then finally gave up.
He nodded at her hand, where she had the coin. "How long have you been clean?" When she didn't answer straight away, he went on. "S'okay. I
know what the chip is for..." He drifted off, frowning at himself.
Kelso studied him. "You were in the program?"
He shook his head. "Not me. My old man." He made a drinking motion with the can. "He didn't do that well with it."
"Stims. For a while." Her eyes narrowed; she was taking this as a challenge. "It doesn't make me weak," she told him.
"Of course not" he replied. "If anything, they give you the chip, it means you're stronger, yeah?"
"Yeah." She didn't sound convinced by her reply.
He swigged at the coffee and made a face. It tasted like someone had stubbed a cigarette out in it; but it was hot, and that was what counted.
Saxon leaned forward. "You don't think you can trust me." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Like Powell and the rest. You think I'm
marked."
"After everything that's happened to me over the past few months, I'd question my own family." She grimaced as she took a pull from the can,
then shot him a look. "Why'd you lie to Powell?"
"About what?"
"When I said I wanted to come. You told him I'd seen the faces of the Tyrants. That's stretching the truth."
"You saw Federova and lived to talk about it. Trust me, love, there's not a lot of folks can say that."
Her eyes narrowed. "Her and one other." Kelso's lips thinned. "I need you to tell me something. Washington, D.C., the hit on Skyler. Were you
one of them?"
The question came out of nowhere and he took a second to follow it through. "When?" Kelso told him the date and he shook his head, his gut
tightening as an old, hateful memory made itself known. "No. I was halfway around the world that day, trying not to die. Namir recruited me
afterward. He was a man down, he said." He eyed her. "Were you responsible for that?" He thought about Wexler, the man he had replaced,
and the lines of invisible influence that had brought him to this place at this moment.
She ignored the question. "Why did you lie?" she repeated.
He gestured at his eyes. "You got the same look I see in the mirror. You're like me. You're looking for someone to pay a butcher's bill."
"They killed a man who saved my life," she said, her gaze becoming distant. "Did it right in front of me. And I
couldn't do a damn thing. Then
the Illuminati's proxies covered it up and buried him under the lies." Kelso shook her head. "I couldn't let that stand."
"Illuminati" Saxon turned the word over, sounding it out, connecting it with what he knew. "Namir called them 'the group,' like he was afraid to
say any more. They're the ones pulling the strings, signing the death warrants, fronting the cash ..." He sneered. "I've heard the name. Some
bullshit secret society, something outta trashy thrillers ... only not." The soldier considered it. "Makes a cold kinda sense, when you think about
it. Ghost orders and missions that never were ... men and women sacrificed for the sake of keeping the shadows long."
"If what Janus says is true, these people are positioning themselves to manipulate ... everything. The future of humanity. The creation of a new
world order."
"Maybe so." Saxon looked back at her. "But you want to know something?"
"Go on." Kelso clasped the heated coffee can, drinking in the scant warmth from it.
"I don't give a fuck about all that shit." He shook his head. "I'm a blunt instrument, me, I'm not a clever bastard like the kid or Lebedev." Saxon
nodded toward the others. "I've got a very simple need, and it's the same as yours. I want some bloody payback."
She looked away. "I... I'll tell you what I need, what I want. I want my life back. I want to go home. I don't want to have to know any of this!"
Her voice rose suddenly. "Because now I can't walk away!"
"Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?" said another voice. Saxon looked up as D-Bar approached. He looked pale and sweaty.
"Anyone ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop?" Saxon retorted.
"Please," said the young hacker, "I spend my life finding out other people's secrets." But almost as soon as he said the words, his bravado
disintegrated; and suddenly Saxon remembered that he was looking at a boy still in his teens, just a scared, cocky kid who was only now waking
up to the fact that he was in way over his head. "Makes you wish you could just erase the data in your brain, right?" he was saying. "Search and replace 'Illuminati.' Go back to being one of the happy cattle."
"You really mean that?" asked the woman.
The more he watched D-Bar, the more Saxon saw how shaken he was. "I... I've been going through the files we got, the fragments we could
salvage. You wouldn't believe the stuff in there. Hints about the things they got planned. The things they've already done. We're not just talking
JFK and Roswell here, I mean this is big ..." His eyes lost focus and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Majestic 12, the United Nations, the WTO ...
They're so big. Every time you think you've seen the top, but it's all just layers and other layers!" D-Bar caught himself and blinked. "I mean,
how can we fight that?"
"We break up their game." Saxon's reply was iron hard. "They think they got a clear hit on Taggart? Not today." He got to his feet. "Today we
got the edge."
"How's that?" asked Kelso.
He smiled wolfishly. "They think you're hiding in fear. They think I'm a dead man. So they'll be looking the other way when we stick a knife in
them."
The countryside was dark and shrouded by heavy storm clouds, masking the approach of the airship. The transfer was swift, the massive craft
moving low with all running lights extinguished, drifting along the center of the river to match pace with a long cargo barge steaming north
toward the Swiss capital. On descenders, Powell and his men led the group to the deck of the vessel, and Anna looked up as her feet touched the
rain-slick metal. In the night's gloom, it seemed an impossible sight; the airship a featureless black cloud among gray companions, rising in
silence amid the wind. In a few moments it merged with the overcast skies and was gone as if it had never been there. The rain came harder,
and she pulled her hood tight over her head, hurrying below.
Inside the barge were five more men; they all had the same aura as the New Sons, the same wound-tight aggression simmering just beneath
the surface, the same eternally alert manner of the career renegade. All of them were armed and showed off augmentations to a greater or
lesser degree. Powell shook hands with their leader, a rail-thin man with unkempt, greasy hair and a ragged beard. He had implants covering
his eyes, like frameless glasses. They were dark and reflected no color.
He extended a hand to Kelso and she shook it. "Welcome to Switzerland," he said. The accent was French, but she picked up inflections that
suggested he'd been educated in the States. "I'm Croix. You've brought us something interesting. The information on the hit is confirmed?"
"It's solid," said Powell, looking around. "Where's the rest of your people?"
"Standing right in front of you," said the Frenchman. Before Powell could argue he went on. "We have our own operations in progress. And this
is extremely short notice."
"You understand how important this is?" A nerve jumped in Powell's jaw. "The reason we're moving so fast on this is precisely because we have
an unparalleled opportunity here. A chance to get the drop on the Tyrants!"
"Uaccord" said Croix, stepping closer to Saxon, "but we don't have the manpower or the money that you do, my friend. We have to pick our
fights."
"You're members of L'Ombre," said Saxon. "I read the file on you guys when I was at Belltower."
The name rang a bell with Anna; L'Ombre was on Interpol's watch list as a known militant activist group in mainland Europe, linked to a
number of incidents with an antiglobalization agenda. But given what she knew now of a clear connection between them and the New Sons of
Freedom, she wondered how accurate that intelligence really was.
Croix allowed a smile. "Do we get good press?"
"Not really," he admitted. "They wrote you off as day-players."
The other man's smile vanished. "Their mistake. We're in this fight for the duration, believe me." He looked Saxon up and down. "So you're the
turncoat, then? Lebedev told me you'd be joining us. Should I trust you?" His hand slipped to the revolver holstered at his belt.
"Your call, mate," Saxon offered. "But I don't think Lebedev would have shipped me halfway around the world just for you to kill me."
"True," said Croix.
"He helped us get the data on the Taggart hit," said Anna, uncertain why she felt compelled to defend the man.
Croix glanced at her. "And you. You're the fugitive. Interesting choice of recruits, Powell."
"That's one way of putting it," said the other man. "So, can we cut to the chase here? What do you have for us?"
Croix snapped his fingers and one of his men produced a laptop. D-Bar immediately crowded in, studying the device. "As I said, we lack
manpower but we make up for it in other areas. L'Ombre has access to certain sources of electronic intelligence."
"What do you mean?"
D-Bar sniggered. "According to this, the Swiss sat-comm network has more holes than ... well, you know, the cheese."
Deus Ex - Icarus Effect Page 28
