The van skidded and recovered, turning as the feed lane to the Pont du Mont Blanc opened up before it.
The next thing she did was a moment of pure instinct, without conscious thought; Anna kicked off and threw herself at the van as the two vehicles bumped. Her foot found the running board and her free hand snagged the mirror. She ignored the winds battering at her and fired blind, shooting out the glass and firing into the driver's side of the van.
Hermann shot back with a burst from a Hurricane machine pistol, spraying bullets into the air. His shots were wide; despite all his augmentations, driving the wounded vehicle, aiming, and firing at the same time were beyond him.
Her neurovestibular implant went hot and she felt the rush of new focus shiver through her; the feed-forward system augmentation tightened her aim to the point between the muzzle of the Zenith and her target. Anna let the ice-cold flood of her anger take over, let it ride the aim point.
Time slowed as the van hurtled across the bridge. Anna brought up the pistol and fired again. The shots struck Hermann in the head, carving across the front of his skull, ripping flesh and breaking bone. The impact trauma was massive, throwing him off the steering wheel.
The van skidded again and this time there was no one to stop it. Anna's grip was torn away by the hard pull of gravity and she instinctively fell into a roll as she struck the highway. The pain was breathtaking; Anna screamed as the road tore at her, her forward velocity shed in agonizing impacts as she tumbled.
The van veered into the guide rail and cut straight through it, bouncing over the pedestrian path to slice through the side barrier. Engine roaring, the vehicle plummeted toward the Rhone river and clipped the rear quarter of a barge passing below.
As the van hit the water, something in the makeshift bomb broke. Perhaps a connector damaged by Kelso's gunshots or a vital component short-circuited by the force of impact; the effect was the same.
The bomb went off in a howling, thunderous discharge of water and air, tearing the vehicle apart with the force of concussion.
Blood streaming down her face, Anna lurched to her feet as Croix came running. In the light from the streetlamps she saw the remains of the van spin into the froth of the river and vanish from sight.
Saxon heard Powell die as the last detonation took him off his feet and threw him across the hangar and out onto the runway. Powell's scream was torn away by the roar of the fire and then Saxon's world spun around him.
He landed hard, scraping his skin across the tarmac, pain lighting him up all over. The great ball of fire ejected a rain of steel fragments and burning debris, and Saxon dragged himself to his feet, trying to get clear. The heat rolled over him and he coughed, smoke and the stench of burning jet fuel searing his lungs.
He cast around, and his heart sank. Again… Not again…
No one else moved among the devastation and the flames; he cursed himself for being the survivor once more. Powell and his team were gone, the jet and any chance of finding Namir and the Tyrants obliterated… Saxon stumbled and collapsed on the grassy verge across the runway. In the distance he could see the flash of lights from approaching fire tenders and police vehicles. He had to run. He had to get away…
His legs refused to move. How? The question thundered in his head, robbing him of all motion, all power. How did they know we were coming?
Kelso's face blurred through his thoughts and he tensed. He had to warn her.
Saxon's blackened, pained fingers found the spot on his jaw that toggled his comm implant. "Kelso…" His voice was a crackling, painful wheeze.
"Kelso, do you read me? This is Saxon! We've been set up!"
For a long moment there was nothing but static; and when the reply came it was like a knife between his ribs.
"Ah, Benjamin," said Jaron Namir. "I'm afraid it's worse than you think."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Pont du Mont Blanc-Geneva-Switzerland
Anna hobbled to the edge of the bridge and steadied herself with one hand on a piece of the broken guide rail. A layer of smoke and fumes hung over the Rhone, shrouding the damaged barge as it listed in the shallow swell. Small fires were burning where patches of oil on the surface had caught fire, and she saw indistinct shapes bobbing in a slick of wreckage. The damp air was cloying.
She glared at the river, willing it to give up what she wanted to see; but there was no sign of anything that looked like a human body. Her fingers dug into the palm of her hand. It had all happened so fast; the car catching up to the van, the gunshots, the crash.
She wanted Hermann to see her face, to know who she was. She wanted him to understand what she was feeling, the need, the hard, sharp darkness of her anger. It wasn't enough for him to just die. It wasn't enough.
Anna's rage boiled out of her in a cry. "Bastard!" She snatched up the Zenith automatic from where it had fallen and emptied the rest of the clip into the water, firing rounds at random into the murk, as if that would force the German's corpse to rise from the swell; but the river gave her nothing. Part of her wanted to throw herself in after the crashed van, trigger the rebreather implant in her chest cavity, and go deep, until she found Hermann's body.
Then Croix was at her side, wrestling the gun away from her bloodied fingers. She shook him off and stumbled back a few steps, pain sharp in her legs. "Get away from me…" she grated, swallowing a sob.
Croix peered over the split in the barrier. "II est mort" he muttered. "Come on. We can't stay here. Something is wrong. I've lost contact with
Powell and the others." He grabbed at her arm, but Anna shrugged him off.
"I want to see his face," she snarled, her voice rising into a scream. "I want him to know what this was for!"
The Frenchman's expression shifted as understanding came to him. "Ah. Vengeance, for someone close to you?" He saw the look in her eyes and nodded to himself. "It does not follow the path you lay out for it, cherie"
"It's not enough," Anna hissed.
"It never is," agreed Croix. He took her arm and this time she let him. "Come on."
Limping painfully, she followed him back to where the black sedan was parked on the outside lane, the engine idling. She strained to listen for the sound of sirens, but heard nothing; Anna wondered what remnants of Hermann would be dragged from the river when the emergency services came to investigate. Was he really dead? The detonation of the improvised bomb had been attenuated by the river, but the ball of fire and the torrent of currents beneath the surface would have been enough to tear anyone to pieces.
She looked to the sedan and saw D-Bar getting out of the backseat. Croix called out to him, but the hacker's face was set in a dogged glower.
D-Bar's hand emerged from behind the car door with a small, slab-sided pistol in his grip. He fired twice, without hesitation; Anna heard the snap of the rounds cut the air.
The shots struck Croix in the chest and stomach. He let out a choking wail and stumbled backward, collapsing to the road. She saw the whites of his eyes and he gasped, flecks of foam gathering at the corners of his lips. "What the hell?"
"Shut up, bitch!" D-Bar's retort was full of venom. "Just fucking shut up!" He advanced. "You stay right there and you… you don't move!" He was breathing hard. "Do you realize what you just did? You have no idea!"
Anna cradled Croix's head and found a thready pulse at his neck. "Patrick," she said, "tell me-"
The youth exploded with ferocity. "Don't you talk to me like you know me!" He came closer, aiming the pistol squarely at her head. "I didn't want any part of this! I didn't want to come here!" He gestured to the radio clipped to Croix's tac vest. "Give me that! Slide it over!"
She did as he told her. "What are you trying to do?" she asked, feeling for a read on D-Bar's emotions. He was confused and angry, fearful and brimming with energy, all at once. With the gun on her, she knew that any move she made would cause him to shoot.
D-Bar grabbed the radio and stuffed it into a pocket. "You're so stupid," he retorted. "You r
eally think you were lucky? They don't make mistakes!"
Anna felt sick inside. "You've betrayed us."
"Us?" D-Bar shouted the word at her. "You're not one of us! You never were, you're just a tool, that's all you ever were. Juggernaut used you, I used you…"
"For what?" she demanded.
But he went on as if she had never spoken, the gun's muzzle drifting back and forth. "I didn't know… I didn't see it! I thought we could win, but we can't. Kept trying to tell myself it was a game… But it's not." He shot her a wild glare. "The files, Kelso. You never saw what was in those files, did you? Not the whole thing. Not all the things they've done…" He blinked, and in the depths of his throat D-Bar made a noise that was almost a moan. "All the things. What they're capable of. We can't fight them." Then the hacker shook off the moment and straightened.
"Juggernaut, the New Sons, L'Ombre… Sarif and Caidin and the rest, all on the losing side! It's like a raindrop fighting the ocean, there's no way to win!"
On the breeze, Anna thought she heard the hum of rotors coming closer; but she kept her eyes on the hacker. "When did they turn you?"
"On the zep." He gave a brittle, bitter laugh. "Or maybe before, but I just didn't want to admit it. They'd tried once or twice. Always laughed it off. But that's because I never understood. Not until you brought us the flash drive. Then I got it. I got it all." D-Bar's eyes flared with hate once again. "Why couldn't you have lost that thing? I didn't want to know all this! I wish I never knew!" He shot a look up into the air, then back at her. "I called them. And they made me a better offer. Juggernaut's days are numbered. The Illuminati have already taken all the people they need. They're going to win." He shook his head, grim faced. "I want to be on their side." "The jet was an ambush." Anna thought it through. "But they never expected us to go after the van, not like this…" Saxon's face rose in her mind and her breath caught in her throat. "Are the others…?"
"You fucked it all up!" D-Bar was about to go on, but the hum of rotor noise grew loud and Anna looked up, shielding her eyes as a black shape angled in to land on the bridge. She saw the spinning discs of lifter rings and a compact armored fuselage with no markings of any kind.
A man dropped from the open compartment behind the black helicopter's cockpit and strode toward them, glancing around, taking the measure of the situation. He reminded Anna of Saxon in manner, sharing the same wolfish stride, the same trained economy of motion in everything he did. Muscular cyberarms made of dull steel bones and bunches of dark crimson muscles caught the streetlights. He cradled an assault rifle in a deceptively casual carry across his torso.
"This isn't what you promised," he called, irritation flaring. "You've made a very poor start to our working relationship, Mr. Couture. Do you have any idea how much effort went into this operation?"
"It was Kelso!" shouted the hacker. "She killed your man, Namir, not me!"
"That remains to be seen," said the Tyrant leader, sparing Anna a passing look. "What matters now is that we employ a contingency." He frowned. "We need to reassess the situation and deal with this mess. Yelena?"
Anna felt the air shift behind her and she half turned. The woman from the apartment was suddenly there, right at her back, looming over her.
Anna tried to scramble to her feet, but a gloved fist backhanded her and she spun away, new pain cascading through her skull.
She blinked as Namir nodded toward Croix. "Leave him for the gendarmerie. Secure the woman."
In one fluid move, the assassin bent down and snapped the unconscious Frenchman's neck; then she stalked toward Anna on her slender, silent machine legs.
"Wh-what about me?" D-Bar managed, trying to keep the fear from his voice as he watched Federova drag Anna to her feet. "We had an agreement…"
"Contingent on your continued value to the group," Namir replied coldly. "Care to prove that?"
Before the hacker could reply, a hiss of static rattled from the radio in his pocket, and he gathered it up. Then there was a voice, wracked with pain "Kelso…"
Namir stormed forward and snatched the radio from D-Bar's hand, meeting Federova's gaze. "The jet…"
"Kelso, do you read me?" said the voice. "This is Saxon! We've been set up!"
"You… said they'd be gone," D-Bar replied.
"Be quiet," Namir told him, looking into the distance for a moment. Then he turned his attention to Anna and raised the radio to his lips. "Ah,
Benjamin," he began, "I'm afraid it's worse than you think."
"Saxon, no-!" Federova's hand shot out like a striking cobra and clamped tight around Anna's throat, silencing her.
"Namir." Saxon moved away as fast as he could, dropping into the shadows cast behind a dormant runway service robot. "You're getting sloppy, mate. I'm still breathing."
"I admire your tenacity, Ben." The reply resonated through the bones of his skull, making his teeth itch. "It's one of the things that drew me to you. I'm only sorry I couldn't find a way to make better use of it."
"You're welcome to try and kill me again," Saxon retorted. "Let's have a face-to-face and talk about it over a pint, yeah?"
There was a long pause before Namir came back on. "Be realistic, Ben. You don't have a play here. Even if you make it outside the airport perimeter, where can you go? Geneva belongs to our people. By dawn, all this mess you've made will be glossed over and done with."
Saxon listened to the other man's words, feeling for a lie beneath them. He'd heard Anna Kelso's voice, just for a moment, so he knew she was still alive. But there was something else, something in Namir's manner, the same thing he'd heard when the mission in Detroit had been disrupted. The van… the bomb… If it had gone right, Namir's tone would have told the tale.
He decided to take a chance. "I'm not the one who just blew his objective. Taggart will be spooked. He won't show. You'll never get to him."
Namir's reply was all the confirmation he needed. "I beg to differ. Our friend in the Humanity Front has more courage than you credit him for. Believe me, he will speak tomorrow. We'll make certain of it. Too much has been invested in this for an irritant like you to derail things now."
Flashlight beams danced on the ground nearby, and Saxon shifted, stealthily making his way around the rear of the robot garage. Across a service road, he could see a chain-link fence and the shapes of cargo warehouses beyond. He sprinted from shadow to shadow.
Namir's voice dogged him all the way. "I have the woman, Kelso. Your fellow fugitive. I want your full and complete attention, Ben, or she dies. And it won't be quick. I'll give her to Barrett to toy with, do you understand?"
"Kill her," Saxon bit out the bluff, ice forming in his gut. "She's nothing to me."
Namir chuckled. "You really are a very poor liar. You won't let Kelso perish, not while there's a chance to save her. Let me tell you how I know that."
Saxon gripped a section of the fence and ripped it open, ducking under. In a moment, he was inside the darkened warehouse, moving away from the airport proper.
"You re guilty." The ghost-voice echoed through his thoughts. "Guilty about the men you lost during Operation Rainbird. Guilty about those who lost their lives tonight while you didn't. You're guilty because you didn't keep your promises. Am I close?"
"Piss off." The words slipped from him before he could stop himself.
Namir laughed again. Survivor's guilt, Ben. It's what makes you weak. It's how I controlled you when you were one of us and it's how I'm going to control you now." There was a pause, and when Namir spoke again, he was firm and commanding. "You and this little group of troublemakers are responsible for disrupting my line of attack against the target, but the plan is adaptable. You're going to help me put it back on track."
"Not bloody likely." Saxon halted at a window, peering out. A police car raced past and he ducked back into cover.
"I'm not giving you the choice" Namir grated. "When William Taggart walks out onto the steps of the Palais des Nations at midday, he's going to be shot dead b
y an augmented killer. Can you see where I'm going with this, Ben?"
A sense of grim inevitability settled on him. "Taggart's life for the woman."
"I knew you'd understand. Be at the grounds of the Palais one hour before. If you try anything foolish, I'll make sure Barrett transmits every last second of what he does to Kelso, so that the only way to silence it will be to dig that comm implant out of your skull. Are we clear?"
"As crystal…"
A click echoed in his head as the line went dead. Saxon sat in the dark and the quiet, the promises he had made turning over and over in his thoughts. Sam and Kano, Anna…
Damn Namir, but the bastard was right. He knew Saxon couldn't walk away, not now, not after everything that had happened-because for every second he was still alive, there was still a chance he could get Kelso out of there, still a chance he could find Jaron Namir and end him.
He had broken a vow to Sam Duarte, a promise to get him home again. He wouldn't let Anna down the same way.
Saxon found a door and forced it open, slipping out to the road. A tram terminal, empty this early in the morning, glittered in the dark. He climbed to the platform, finding a shaded corner to wait for the next train into the city.
When he was sure he was alone, Saxon reached for the cracked and scratched vu-phone in his pocket, and dialed a number.
The call was answered instantly by a voice made of echoes and phantoms. "Hello, Ben. Are you all right? I feared the worst." "I need help,
Janus." "What can I do?"
Saxon thought about the communications display he'd seen on board the Tyrants jet, and the Icarus ghost-node. "I need you to help me find something."
Route de Ferny-Geneva-Switzerland
He found a restroom at the terminal where he could clean himself up and take stock of his options. When Saxon was ready, he picked the pocket of an unwary night-shift worker and used her pass to ride the tram to the Nations station.
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