Marc’s gaze was drawn toward the pack on al-Baruni’s back. It was brand new, unlike the man’s secondhand clothes, and when he shifted nervously, it moved like there was weight inside it. From this distance, Marc saw no signs of visible triggers, no wires leading into pockets or the like. Then the man pulled up his sleeve to look at his wrist, mirroring Marc’s earlier action, and he saw something else that didn’t match—a bulky smartwatch with an illuminated display. Was that the trigger, or something else?
One way to find out, he told himself.
Marc took out his smartphone, idly flicking at the screen as if he was swiping through a social media app, and wandered over to the bench where al-Baruni waited. Marc sat at the far end from the man, still absorbed by his phone. He had grown up in London, and he possessed the unconscious ability of all urbanites to be right next to another human being while completely ignoring their existence.
In reality, he was using the Rubicon spyPhone to send out experimental wireless pings to the man’s smartwatch, and in a few seconds the scanning software in the phone registered that the other device was receiving incoming signals. Marc activated a mirror-effect program, a clever bit of code that he had stolen from a group of black-hat hackers Rubicon had tangled with the previous year, and the data going to the watch was paralleled on his phone.
The smartwatch wasn’t a trigger; it was a control. The incoming information was a series of terse warnings: Speak to no one. Do not raise suspicion. Avoid the police.
The tram arrived, rolling to a halt, and the chatty gang of teenagers came back with the other commuters and crowded toward the doors, before stepping aboard. Marc’s skin prickled as he became aware that the longer he sat on the bench and didn’t move, the more suspicious he would appear.
Suddenly, the watch on al-Baruni’s wrist let out a distinctive chime and the man flinched in surprise. He gripped the smartwatch as if it had shocked him, but a fraction of a second later the mirror program caused Marc’s phone to emit the exact same noise. He’d been so quick to spin up the software, he had neglected to alter the alert settings.
The man shot him a frightened look. Reacting without thinking, Marc caught al-Baruni’s eye and then it was too late.
The man shot up from the bench and shoved his way on to the busy tram car, even as the doors hissed closed. Marc was on his feet, but the tram was already moving, humming away toward the next stop. His target vanished into the press of the passengers and was gone from sight.
Marc had less than a second to react. There was no way he would be able to run and catch the tram at the next stop. The fitness regime that Rubicon’s in-house wellness experts had imposed on Marc had done wonders for him, but he knew his limits. If he lost the target now, it would all be over.
He shoved his phone in his pocket, and as the last carriage of the tram rolled by, he jumped. Marc put one foot on the thick rubber bumper and his hands snatched at the single windscreen wiper on the rear window. The wiper was the only thing he could hang on to, and as the tram picked up speed, it bent out of shape and twisted in his grip. Marc drew himself in and hugged the bullet-nosed curve of the trailing carriage, hanging on for dear life as the boulevard flashed past on one side, and the waters of the Brussels–Charleroi canal ran deep on the other. Losing his footing would tip him into the path of oncoming traffic.
Marc saw a chubby face staring back at him through the rear window of the tram. All the other passengers were engaged in conversations, their newspapers or the screens of their phones. A baby girl in a sling over her mother’s shoulder was the only passenger who seemed to notice Marc, and she stared blankly at the frantic determination on his face.
To Marc’s dismay, the next station was closed for roadworks and the tram rolled right through it and kept on going. He could feel the wiper mechanism starting to part from the framework of the carriage, and for one horrible moment he visualized himself tumbling away to a messy end beneath the wheels of a cargo truck, with only that silent child seeing him go.
The tram juddered over a set of points and on to a wide, tree-lined street before finally, mercifully, slowing to a halt at the next intersection. Marc dropped to the cobbles, massaging his hands, and ducked around the side of the carriage to get on board.
He saw the dark nylon backpack moving at the front of the tram, and tried to squeeze through the passengers embarking and disembarking to close the distance. He was four meters away when al-Baruni saw movement reflected on the inside of the windows, and he twisted, catching sight of his pursuer. The man burst into frantic motion once more, diving for the doors on the far side of the tram. He scrambled out into the street, and as Marc went after him, the doors began to fold shut.
Marc pushed up and caught the emergency exit button over the concertina-type doors before they could close, and they stuttered to a halt. He forced himself through the gap, trailed by irritable comments from the rest of the passengers, and hit the pavement a few meters behind his target. The man with the backpack was sprinting away down a side road, and Marc dashed after him, cursing inwardly.
All hope of a careful, controlled interception was blown. Meddur al-Baruni was a guided missile, and all Marc could do was try to catch the frightened man before he got to wherever the Lion’s Roar had aimed him.
* * *
Indistinct, angry voices filtered out from the back of the parked truck, drawing Verbeke’s attention. He could hear Ticker in there, yelling at the mule’s wife.
The rest of the men working in the warehouse ignored the noise. They had seen and heard far worse from their brethren over the years, and not one of them would even consider lifting a hand to stop Ticker from slapping the foreigner around. All of them understood what these immigrants were worth. There were no soft hearts here, only stony glares where the mongrel invaders were concerned.
The phone in Verbeke’s pocket rang and he raised it to his ear.
“Speak,” he said.
Brewn’s voice was rough and ragged with exertion.
“The shopkeeper is dead,” he began, using the group’s derogatory codename for Elija Van de Greif.
“He won’t be missed.”
“It wasn’t deliberate. He was in the way. Call it a lucky bonus.” Brewn gave a guttural cough. “But there’s been a fire. His place—it burned.”
“You did that?”
“Yes. Those two were there, the black woman and the English.”
Verbeke frowned. Now he had confirmation that Saito had been truthful with him, he knew his first instinct to withdraw was right. He looked around. The tear-down would soon be complete, and out on the canal, a pair of fast boats had arrived and were in the process of mooring up.
“Are there police at the fire?”
“Yes,” repeated Brewn. “We left before they saw us. What do you want me to do?”
“Did you lose anyone?”
“A couple of guys. We had to leave them there.” There was a pause. “The woman and the Englishman escaped.”
His first thought was to berate Brewn for his failures, but he rode down the instinct, gripping the phone until his knuckles whitened.
“Listen to me. Forget the shopkeeper. I need you to locate the mule and shadow him. Keep your distance, understand?”
“Why?” Brewn seemed worried.
“If those two are still around, they’ll be looking for the mule. Protect him until he gets to where he needs to be.”
“But…” He could almost hear Brewn frowning. “What about the … thing? If we’re close when it goes off—”
“You’ll be safe,” Verbeke lied smoothly. “Axelle has a cure. She’s dosing everyone here. You’ll get a shot when you get back.” Before the other man could say more, he wound up the conversation. “Get to Place de la Bourse, to the Irish pub on the corner. Wait there. Follow the mule when you see him.”
Brewn started to say something else, but Verbeke cut him dead and ended the call. Axelle stood behind him, drawn by hearing the mention of her name.
�
�There isn’t any cure for Shadow,” she said, cocking her head. “The Marburg virus doesn’t work like that. You either survive it, or you don’t. Mostly the latter.”
“Brewn’s not much of a reader,” Verbeke replied, with a sneer. “He won’t know any different.”
Axelle gave a dismissive shrug.
“Victimes de la guerre.”
Verbeke rounded on her, irritated by her tone.
“The Japanese was telling the truth,” he snapped. “Those Rubicon idiots are alive, and they’re here. Van de Greif is dead, the gallery burned down.” His hands opened and closed into heavy fists. “This is what happens when I delegate.” He walked to her, looming over the pale woman. “You couldn’t just fucking kill them…”
“I only did what you told me to—”
Axelle’s words choked off in a high-pitched yelp as Verbeke slapped her hard across the face, drawing a curl of ruby blood from her lip. The blow had enough force behind it that she almost stumbled to the cracked concrete, but the woman held her ground, clutching at her face.
None of the men paid even the slightest bit of attention to the casual violence. They, like Verbeke, knew the worth of the woman.
“Don’t ever talk back to me.” He pointed toward one of the trucks, as Ticker climbed out of the back. “I’ll give you another chance to do something right, and this time don’t screw it up.”
“The wife and the children…” She gave a brittle smile at the thought.
He nodded. “Get rid of what we don’t need.”
* * *
Some up-and-coming urban professional had made the mistake of leaving their Piaggio MP3 unsecured, in a side alley off the Sablon main drag. It was a mistake Lucy was quick to exploit, and she had the reverse-trike running in a matter of seconds, before gunning the motor and shooting out into the traffic. The moped wasn’t a patch on the Ducati racing bike she usually favored, but current circumstances meant making allowances.
As the rush of the wind caressed her close-cropped hair, she automatically leaned into it, reducing her cross-section to cut down air resistance. The Piaggio was nimble, and she threaded it between the larger, slower-moving vehicles in her path. Every minute or so, her eyes flicked to the smartphone clipped to the moped’s tiny dashboard, where a military-grade GPS mapping application laid out a minimum-timeline path for her. She wove down narrow side streets and around skinny iron bollards, taking shortcuts along alleyways until they spat her out back on to a main road. Soon the character of her surroundings changed, the densely packed tenement buildings replaced by the shells of derelict light industry and disused warehouses. Lucy saw blinks of sunlight off the canal to her right and knew she was in the right place. On the phone screen, the display told her she was almost at her destination. She diverted into a turning and pulled up well short of her target.
Stowing the Piaggio behind a clump of overgrown bushes, she crouched low and dropped her bag off her shoulder. There were no pedestrians around—in fact, there was precious little sign of anyone at all, which was likely why the Lion’s Roar had chosen this as their staging area in the first place. That was fine. If things went sideways, having a background clear of civilians would make Lucy’s job a lot easier.
Working quickly, she unfolded the hinged metal form of the XAR Invicta assault rifle in the bag, and surveyed her target through the weapon’s scope. The body of the moped and the shade from the bushes kept her in shadow, allowing her to glass the length of the warehouse across the street.
The rusting corrugated metal walls supported a low, sloped roof, and windows sprayed carelessly with black paint were visible every few feet. The only angle inside came to her through an exposed truck entrance, through a roller door that seemed to be jammed three-quarters open. She could make out figures moving around, in the process of loading gear into the back of one of two weather-beaten Isuzu box trucks.
Lucy scoped their faces and she knew she was in the right place. These men had the hard, cold manner of career thugs, and every one of them was dressed in similar fashion. Army surplus jackets in decade-old NATO camo, black jeans, steel-toed work books. Some had tattoos on their faces, most likely prison ink.
A charming bunch, she thought, in town for the monthly lace-making circle.
The grim smirk on her face faded when she heard a woman scream. From out of nowhere, a woman in a dark brown hijab came stumbling after a young boy as the kid tried to make a run for it. A similarly dressed girl trailed at her heels, her hands pressed to her face.
Lucy’s whole body tensed as the scene unfolded. Some of the men dropped what they were carrying and jogged up to corral the boy before he could get too far. The woman cried out, screaming at the kid to run away. But he staggered to a halt, menaced by the men, and threw a panicked look out toward the open door. Lucy had a good look at the boy’s terrified face. Then a tall, muscular man came into sight.
Verbeke.
The sneering brutish grimace on his face was the same expression he’d worn in Iceland, and Lucy let the XAR’s cross hairs settle on his chest. For a second, she played with the idea of putting a shot through him, but held off. The scope on the folding rifle had not been sighted in, and at this range there was too great a chance of her shot going wide and clipping the woman or the girl.
The men surrounding the kid shepherded him back toward the trucks like he was an errant dog, and as Lucy watched, Verbeke rewarded the boy’s mother with a punch in the gut, shouting at the girl when she tried to intervene. He shoved the three of them over to the truck and forced them inside with the threat of more violence, before moving out of sight behind the vehicle.
Marc had sent her the photos of Meddur al-Baruni’s family from Saito’s FTP site. A woman, a teenage girl, a young boy. If the Brit was right, then Lucy was looking at the leverage being used to make the man carry a bioweapon for these vicious extremists.
Icy fury settled in her chest. All through the ride out here, the analytical, tactical element of Lucy Keyes as covert operative had been weighing the pros and cons of what she was doing. It felt like a set-up.
Hell, it was a set-up, because she had looked in Saito’s eyes as the son-of-a-bitch put a dagger in her belly back in Somalia, and in that instant she had known exactly what kind of man he was. Calculating. Detached. Focused. And not the kind of man to do anything without a good reason.
Lucy thought she would be walking into a trap. But unless what she had seen was some elaborate bit of theater designed to kick her in the feels, she was fast coming around to the idea that this was a real hostage situation. One where the people with guns to their heads were not just Meddur’s family, but the whole population of Brussels.
Through the scope she saw another face she wouldn’t forget any time soon. Axelle, that Goth-looking bitch with the French accent and bad attitude, directed another pair of Lion’s Roar meatheads to carry something hefty and dump it in the back of the same truck. It was a piece of industrial equipment, tightly wrapped in polythene and duct tape, and after a second Lucy realized she was looking at the second stolen bioprinter.
One of the thugs climbed into the box truck’s cab and Axelle did a circuit of the vehicle, securing the doors before taking the passenger seat. Then it was moving, rolling up through the open doorway and on to the street.
Lucy dropped into a prone stance, willing herself to vanish into the backdrop of the bushes. The truck ground gears and rumbled past her, heading northwest.
As a soldier, what had kept Lucy Keyes alive was the ability to make a split-second decision and commit to it; to negate doubt and embrace her choice without hesitation and trust fully in her training. The choice she wanted to make was to get into that warehouse across the street and kill everyone in there, starting with Noah Verbeke.
Ji-Yoo Park’s grisly death still resonated in her mind, and Lucy couldn’t help but dwell on what might have gone through the scientist’s thoughts in those last agonizing seconds. Everything promised to her, every piece of her new an
d better life, Verbeke had destroyed. Lucy wanted to make him pay for that.
Fuck detachment. Fuck that warrior Zen controlled-emotion bullshit.
More than anything Lucy wanted to burn the thuggish murderer down for all that he had done.
Her odds were middling. She was a crack sharpshooter, even with a non-zeroed rifle. But given time and application, Lucy could put a world of hurt on those Lion’s Roar pricks, maybe even put Verbeke down right here and now. Would that stall the release of the Shadow virus? She had no way of knowing, but a world without Verbeke in it was infinitely better than the alternative.
Of course, if she went in there, the wife and the kids in the truck would be dead by the time the smoke cleared. There was no doubt of that in Lucy’s mind. Axelle was taking them away to be disposed of, three more innocents cut down as collateral damage in the twisted campaign of extremism that the Lion’s Roar was fighting.
The deaths of Park, her husband and stepson were marks on Lucy’s butcher bill, they were her weight to carry. And try as she might to ignore it, the thought of adding three more to that tally made her sick inside.
No choice, she told herself.
The XAR rifle went back into her bag and Lucy revved the Piaggio’s engine, hauling it around to speed after the retreating truck.
* * *
The target jackknifed around a sharp corner and Marc had to sprint across the street to get after him.
The man with the black backpack ducked into a narrow one-way street barely wide enough for a single vehicle, moving fast and low past lines of cars nestled in residential parking bays. Marc lost sight of him for a vital few seconds and when he rounded the corner, Meddur al-Baruni was gone, as if the earth had opened up and swallowed him whole.
Panting, Marc slowed his headlong run and tried to take in everything at once. Security doors covered every entrance spilling out on to the street and the windows he could see were closed. The street was full of apartments, and at this time of the day most of the people who lived there were out. He stopped, forcing himself to breathe evenly and listen. Filtering out the sound of traffic a block away, Marc strained to pick out a panicked stumble or the scuff of a boot on a cobble.
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