Backup plan was to exfil right damn now, locate their vehicle, and either plant a tracker or tail them.
But … there were a bunch of innocent folks fighting for their lives a few corridors away from where I stood. If I left now to save my own skin, I’d be leaving them to die.
Inside my head, the Darkness whispered bad things.
Let them die, it told me. Saving them isn’t the mission. Find Santoro. What else matters?
It was as real as any voice I’ve ever heard. It was my own voice painted black.
Let them die.
I would like to say that I was in no way tempted to do exactly that. To slip away in the smoke and confusion and stick to my goal. Saving these people fell under the heading of “mission creep,” adding to the scope of work I already had. It would put me in danger. It would put Ghost in danger. We might not even succeed in saving anyone and die in the process, leaving Santoro free to destroy more lives. More families.
I watched the gun battle on the computer screen.
And for a few brittle moments, I saw my family there. Standing to one side of the barricade. Clustered together. Not watching the battle. They were all looking at me. I saw my father’s lips move as if he were talking.
To me.
But I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“Dad…?” I breathed. “Dad, for god’s sake, tell me what I should do.”
He stopped talking and just looked at me. And then, one by one, they turned their backs and walked away into the smoke.
It came close to breaking me.
“Dad!” I yelled. Actually yelled it out loud.
He thinks you’re abandoning him, whispered the Darkness. They all do.
Tears, hot as acid, burned in my eyes.
I looked down at Ghost. His gaze was dark and scalpel sharp. He bared his gleaming metal teeth.
I holstered my dart gun, then released the magazine of the Sig Sauer, replacing it with a full one.
Together, we ran into hell.
CHAPTER 105
DAS VERARBEITUNGSZENTRUM
We used the smoke and confusion to move through the building, following the gunfire. We came upon one of the processing plant’s guards sprawled near another T junction. He was torn apart. Literally. Both arms and his jaw had been savagely ripped from his body. It was a hideous thing to see, and I only prayed he’d at least died quickly.
Around the corner, I found his partner. He sat against the wall with a gaping, ragged red hole where his throat should have been. It looked as if someone had taken a fistful of his windpipe and torn it out, discarding the mess by throwing it against a wall.
There’s killing in combat, and even a measure of savagery that sometimes happens in the heat of the fight, but this…? This was a kind of malicious mayhem that spoke to a pernicious delight. These Fixers were having fun. Playing with whatever faux superpowers were granted them by their armor.
Even so … it scared the absolute hell out of me.
But it also made me angry.
Really damned angry.
Ghost growled low in his chest, not looking at the corpses but glaring along the hall where bloody footprints showed the path the Fixers had taken.
“Yeah,” I told him quietly, “let’s go get some.”
We kept moving, but as we drew close to the sounds of battle, I slowed our pace so I could check the feed from the Busy-Bees. It looked like the guards were currently holding their own, and I could see why. Two of them had pump shotguns, and the big chunks blown out of the doorframe and walls told me these were loaded with slugs—what hunters used to call pumpkin balls. Heavy lead balls that my uncle Jack liked for hunting wild boar. Other bullet holes in the metal frame, the ones that clearly punched all the way through, had to be armor piercing. That kind of ordnance had stopped the Fixers for the moment. Clearly, none of those PMCs had been killed, because there was no sign of explosions, though I wondered if some of the other blasts I’d heard were from more successful counterattacks.
I angled some of the bee swarm to focus on the Fixers. One of them had his goggles off, and I let a bee hover to get a good look at him. The camera was small and didn’t have great definition, but it was clear enough to tell me a lot. His eyes were wide, staring, the whites stained with red and incredibly dilated pupils. Bloody tears streaked those parts of his cheeks I could see; the blood mingling with the sweat boiling from his skin. He looked like the kind of junkie who had taken too much of too many different kinds of stimulants and was way, way out on the edge. Proof that these Fixers were not only enhanced but strung out by it.
I looked at my pistol for a moment and then holstered it.
“Plan B,” I told Ghost and then spent a few seconds activating the other half of my swarm. The Killer Bees. Wish I had the time to swap Sandman out of their dischargers and replace it with something a lot more toxic. But I hadn’t planned on doing any harm at all to the staff here. No way I could have anticipated that the place would be hit by a full team of PMCs. Was it a coincidence? Or had the guy I got the Casanova intel from broken his promise to me and confessed to Santoro?
That would make logical sense, but it didn’t feel right. Something about this whole thing was freaky, which meant there was a lot I didn’t know.
Which meant that the Sandman might be useful to me, after all …
I hastily typed new orders into the swarm software. First, I told the Busy-Bees to engage their laser-targeting systems and paint each Fixer. Then I sent the Killer Bees to follow and sting. I crouched next to Ghost and watched.
The Fixers didn’t notice the bees coming, not with all the noise and smoke. But then the swarm struck. There was very little exposed skin on them, but they each wore a balaclava, which is thin, flexible cloth. I sent the Killer Bees smashing into their cheeks and throats and lips. Maybe only one in four hit true and hit well enough to penetrate the material, but it only takes one sting for Sandman to drop them.
And the Fixers began to fall.
“Booyah,” I murmured. Ghost answered with a soft whuff!
I gave it four seconds and then I broke into a run, drawing my knives as I rounded the last corner. Half the Fixers were down, and I was both astonished and horrified to see that they were not out. Somehow, they were managing to fight the effects of the damned drug, and that was supposed to be impossible. I’d never once seen Sandman fail. Sandman was the latest version of a compound originally designed to knock down grizzly bears so rangers could transport them away from campers and homes. It should have had every single one of those pricks unconscious before they hit the floor.
Should have.
I used Q1 to cycle through the radio channels until I found the one for the security team. I yelled to the guards behind the barricade, telling them not to shoot, that I was a friendly. I yelled in German and in English. I had to repeat it several times before the gunfire slowed and then stopped.
I had the Snellig in one hand and a knife in the other as I moved into the group of Fixers, all of whom were darted now. Two still stood, but they were swaying drunkenly, their weapons hanging from loose hands and slack fingers. Ghost raced past me and jumped at one of them, catching a wrist and dragging the man down. His teeth crunched audibly through bone.
“Ghost—own!” I yelled, wanting that man injured but not dead. “Own” was not a command to be nice, though, and I heard the wolf that lives inside my dog snarl with savage glee. And, let’s face it, over the last month, he’d been getting a lot of practice.
I went for the other one, bashing aside his gun barrel and then kicking him in the knee. It took two good kicks to destroy the joint, and then I ripped his goggles off and smashed the bridge of his nose with the pommel of the heavy knife. Cartilage and the lip of nasal bone exploded, flooding his eustachian tubes with blood, likely blinding him with the shooting stars of photopsia. I hit him again, this time on the temple, and then again once he was down.
Then I whirled as two guards with shotguns began creepin
g out from their place of concealment.
“Listen to me,” I roared in German, “these men are wearing suicide vests that will detonate if they die. We need to disable and restrain them. I shot them with tranquilizers.”
One of the guards hurried out, looked at the men groaning and crawling around on the floor, and then he raised the barrel and pointed it at me.
“Drop your weapon,” he ordered.
“Did you hear what I said? I’m a friendly.”
“Drop your weapon, or I will kill you,” he growled.
“Fuck me blind and move the furniture,” I snarled. “I don’t have time for this.”
I snapped off a Sandman dart that took him in the chest. He went right down, the shotgun falling to the ground before he could pull the trigger. Then I wheeled and pointed the Snellig at his partner, whose gun was still aimed at the Fixers. “Sorry,” I said and shot him, too.
There was no win here. Not for me anyway. I barked a command at Ghost. He disengaged with a great show of reluctance, but now the other guards were surging out from behind the stack of tables. This was going south too fast.
“Out,” I snapped, and together we fled. Even while we ran, I kept yelling at them to not kill the Fixers because of the bomb triggers synced with heartbeats. But their response was to open fire on me.
We dove for the first turning in the hall as a fusillade pocked chips of stone from the walls.
I sincerely hoped the guards would try to cuff and arrest those dazed Fixers rather than do something suicidal like pop caps in them as a way of getting revenge. I hoped that professionalism would trump the need to avenge their fellow guards.
CHAPTER 106
DAS VERARBEITUNGSZENTRUM
“Miss Eve,” said Abel, “we have movement.”
The two Fixers raised their rifles and took up shooting positions facing the destroyed entrance. Smoke swirled inside, but now shadows moved within the clouds. Eve slipped a Glock 19 from a hip holster and stood between the two men, making no attempt to find cover. She did not see Cain and Abel share a quick glance. Abel began to say something, but Cain shook his head.
There was a squawk of static, and then a voice spoke on the coms unit. “Jedidiah to command. Coming out the front with the package.”
“Come ahead,” responded Abel.
The shadows resolved into figures—two of the team, bulky in their body armor, helmets, and equipment. They held handguns and used their free hands to support a very thin man who wore only a chest protector and helmet with a blacked-out visor. The thin man wore prison coveralls and slip-on boat shoes. His wrists were zip-cuffed, and he stumbled—though from injury, shock, or weakness was uncertain.
The Fixers hustled him out of the building and ran to the shelter formed by the parked truck. There they turned him around and leaned him back against the vehicle. Eve hurried over and watched as Abel quickly checked the prisoner for injuries. Then Cain removed the blackout helmet to reveal a white man with a scraggly beard and terrified eyes.
“We verified ID with fingerprint and retina scan,” said Jedidiah. “This is he.”
Eve smiled like a happy kid on Christmas morning. She bent forward and kissed the man on the mouth, which shocked the prisoner but not the Fixers. They were used to her random impulses by now.
“Dr. Dejan Brozović,” she said, mangling the Croatian pronunciation. It came out as Broozoveek. The man blinked in fear and uncertainty.
“Who … who are you?” stammered Brozović. “What is this?”
“This is a rescue, sugar.”
“I don’t understand…”
Even leaned close. “We’re the white knights come to save you from the deep, dark dungeons.”
“Who are you?” demanded Brozović.
“Let’s just say Kuga sends his regards.”
Brozović’s eyes widened. He echoed the name, then smiled with tremendous relief. “Thank god.”
“Thank me,” corrected Eve.
“I thought they were going to let me rot in there.”
“Oh no, sweet cheeks, we need you,” Eve said. “We’ve had some issues with the R-33.”
“You’ve been using it?” he gasped. “It’s still unstable.”
She beamed. “Well, no shit, Sherlock. Why do you think we’re galloping to the rescue? It’s not your boyish charm.”
Brozović looked at the building and then at Cain and Abel. “You’re Fixers,” he said, peering at their faces. “You’re not using R-33. Your eyes…”
Abel ignored him and touched his coms unit.
There was another explosion inside the processing plant.
“Jubal is offline,” Abel said.
“Dipshit,” said Eve, then turned back to Brozović. “We’re getting you out of here, honeybuns. Kuga and Daddy have very big plans for you.”
“‘Daddy’?” echoed Brozović.
Cain gave the scientist a small shove. “She means Rafael Santoro. Now shift your ass.”
Eve just laughed.
CHAPTER 107
DAS VERARBEITUNGSZENTRUM
Ghost and I hurried through the smoke back to the door through which we’d first entered. A good portion of that part of the prison was in ruins now, so we simply exited through a hole in the wall. We ran low and fast for the fence, and I only paused when I saw a group of three people standing outside the main entrance. Two Fixers—big ones, real brutes—and a slender blond woman.
I skidded to a stop and turned, clawing my binoculars from a pouch on my belt. My fingers were trembling so badly I dropped it. But then I had it pressed to my eyes as I adjusted the focus.
It was she.
Eve. God damn.
Even without the leg brace over the knee I’d put a bullet through, I’d have recognized her anywhere. Eve. Rafael Santoro’s little pet. She called him Daddy. She loved him, had killed for him, had become his star pupil in the game of brutal extortion. She and her ex-lover, Adam, had managed to forcibly corrupt Navy SEALs and turned them into mass murderers. While trying to shoot me, Eve had accidentally killed Adam. I’d made a critical mistake by not putting my bullet into Eve’s brainpan instead of her knee. Every life she destroyed from now on was on me as much as her.
And here she was, with a squad of spooky-ass enhanced Fixers.
Had she known I was going to be here? Or was this one of those coincidences that make me believe the whole universe is run by demented gods?
As I watched, three more figures came out—a pair of Fixers half dragging, half carrying a prisoner in an orange jumpsuit. I swapped a new magazine into my Snellig and then tapped keys to bring the swarms of bees out so I could stage another assault. I could hear police sirens in the distance, but not too close. Maybe I could take out the Fixers and drag Eve off to a quiet spot for a little game of Truth or Consequences. But before I could even begin to formulate a plan, the air was chopped by the whup-whup-whup of helicopters coming in low and fast. I turned to peer into the night sky, hoping they were also police or maybe a military sent in response to alarms from the processing plant.
They weren’t.
A pair of unmarked black choppers came roaring out of the night. One was a muscular NH90 medium troop transport, and the other was a deadly UH Tiger that bristled with rocket pods, chain guns, and missiles.
I may be crazy, but I’m not that crazy. This wasn’t a fight I could win.
Ghost made low growling sounds of frustration. He knew it, too.
So instead, I set some Busy-Bees to get pictures of Eve and the prisoner.
We waited until the bees completed their task. I collected them, and then Ghost and I vanished into the night.
CHAPTER 108
THE TOC
PHOENIX HOUSE
OMFORI ISLAND, GREECE
Doc Holliday was not done with her presentation.
“What we don’t yet know is where and how they plan to use this tech,” she said. “As of right now, they could walk right into any venue, any stadium, any public of
fice, or—hell—even any military base and destroy it.”
“Do we think the Fixers know they’re wearing what amounts to suicide vests?”
She thought about it and then shook her head. “I’d have to say no. I mean … why on earth would they strap it on knowing that they were that completely disposable? Remember, the Kuga organization isn’t a religious or political movement. They’re basically the Mafia on steroids. Criminals are not known for heroic sacrifice. They don’t want to die for a cause, they want to get rich, get fat, screw down and marry up, and retire old. PMCs are no different. They take risks because it’s a job that pays them for that; but in the end, they want to be able to spend that money.”
“Maybe we can find some way to tell them,” said Bug. “If they stage a hit, then I can try and hack into their coms systems.”
“That’s good,” said Wilson.
“Unless the suits can be remote detonated,” said Coleman.
“Thank you, Debbie Downer,” said Doc.
“Ron is correct,” said Church. “It’s doubtful Kuga would make the critical error of sending his troops out without a fail-safe. He really only needs them to get into position. Whatever collateral damage they inflict with guns and grenades amounts to theater. The real goal would be to destroy a very specific target, either for maximum body count or to make a point.”
“Like what?” asked Isaac. “Walking into the United Nations?”
“They’re diplomats,” said Wilson. “Parliament or the Capitol Building are more effective targets. Or the White House.”
“Agreed,” said Church. “But we need to consider nonpolitical targets. Or targets of a military nature.”
“Yes,” said Wilson slowly. “If, say, they sold that tech to the Kurds and had a couple of them go after Assad’s palace.”
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