Icarus Effect de-1

by James Swallow

  "The Illuminati are working in tandem with one of their satellite groups, a faction called Majestic 12 born out of the Cold War era, a technology division of sorts… Together, they're in the process of securing a power base for something beyond the scope of the UN vote. Something much bigger."

  Anna was reeling from the import of what she was hearing, caught between incredulity and acceptance. "Bigger than regulating the most radical science ever created?"

  "We can see only the edges of the conspiracy " Janus told her. "But what we can be sure of is that the Illuminati s goal is and always has been command over the future of humanity. A New World Order, without freedoms, without questions. Without end."

  She turned away, shaking her head. "No… No! It's too much! I've come here looking for a murderer and you're telling me that the world is turning on all this?" Anna looked toward Lebedev. "Listen to me. I don't care about your damned conspiracy theories! I don't care about who else they've killed! I've thrown away everything I have because I want just one, single thing-Justice, for Matt Ryan." Her voice caught. "He saved my life. I couldn't save him. So I am going to find the person who killed him and make them pay. If you won't help me do that, then I'll be better off alone." Furious, she stormed out of the tent and strode away over the uneven concrete floor.

  Aerial Transit Corridor-Gulf of St. Lawrence-North Atlantic

  Saxon tried to think of a worse tactical situation he had been in, and came up empty. Trapped on board an airborne jet with four heavily augmented mercenaries and no means of escape, armed only with a couple of rounds of stun-dart ammo that was nearly useless against these adversaries…Yeah, it's pretty grim, he told himself. About the only positive point he could find was that without Federova among them, at least he would see the other Tyrants coming. He wondered how much good that would do him.

  Despite Namir's commands, the fire alarms were still in full effect, but retardants had only been triggered inside the ops room. Saxon moved quickly through the galley area, panning the Buzzkill this way and that, going forward.

  His mind raced through the tactical options open to him. He had to make a choice; he needed a better weapon, something lethal, and he needed it fast. He could set up a quick-and-dirty ambush, try to kill one of the others when they came for him, and take their gun-but that would cost him time. The second option would be to get into the cockpit, lock himself in there, and force the crew to land the jet on the nearest piece of ground, maybe Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Without at least one pilot, he'd have to handle the aircraft alone, and Saxon wasn't willing to trust himself on that score. With his rudimentary understanding of piloting, the best he could do in that case was ditch in the coastal shallows and hope he survived.

  Every second he spent deliberating, they were getting farther and farther away from land. He nodded to himself. Take the plane, then, he thought. Figure the rest out later.

  He could hear noises behind him. Namir hadn't come back on the mastoid comm after his first announcement, and Saxon imagined he'd be passing a new channel assignment to each of the others by hand. Another reason to move fast; once they were ready, they'd box him in and that would be that.

  He thought about weapons again; at least it cut both ways. None of the standard-issue firearms used by the Tyrants could be discharged inside the jet, not without taking the risk of overpenetration. A 10 mm round could pass right through flesh and punch a hole in the fuselage, causing a catastrophic depressurization.

  Saxon grimaced. Back down the length of the aircraft there was a weapons locker stocked with all he needed-a crossbow, maybe? A pulse gun? But he was thinking like Namir, and Namir would have posted someone there already. He'd have to make do.

  Saxon checked his pockets for anything he could use, and his fingers touched the vu-phone. He drew it out and considered it for a second before hitting the redial key. There was a good chance he wasn't going to get out of this alive; if he could make his last few minutes count, maybe contact the hacker-movement from the corner of his eye spun him around, and he forgot the phone, coming up with the Buzzkill. He saw a flash of spiked blond hair and a figure in black combat gear burst from the shadow of a storage cabinet. Gunther Hermann collided with Saxon with such force that they were both propelled across the galley and through a folding partition into the next anteroom.

  "This time it will be different," Hermann snarled. "I think I will enjoy this." He struck out with a storm of blows that made Saxon's skull ring, lighting flares of pain behind his eyes. Blood hazed his vision and he threw a punch that cut empty air but little else. Hermann came in and hit him again; each shot to the head was like taking a hit from a sledgehammer. Saxon's body possessed a base level of subdermal armor, the

  Rhino-class augmentation commonplace on Belltower spec-ops soldiers, but it wouldn't be enough to prevent the German's rain of punches pushing him into a concussion. He had to stop the mercenary, and he had to do it quickly.

  Hermann had learned his lesson from their brief battle in the fight room, moving constantly, using his nerve-jacked speed to stay outside the swings from Saxon's cyberarm. He punched at air, drawing a sneer from the German.

  He feinted into another haymaker that the younger man easily sidestepped; but while Saxon's other arm was only meat and bone, it was still deadly. His attention fixed on his opponent's augmentations, Hermann stepped into Saxon's range and he rushed him. He slammed the heel of his palm upward, breaking the other man's nose, and rode the momentum of the attack. Saxon's augmented legs powered him back across the cabin, with Hermann shoved out before him.

  The mercenary slammed into a glass-fronted refrigerator and crumpled with a cry of pain. Saxon punched him hard in the chest, feeling the satisfying crunch of bone breaking beneath the blow. But Hermann would not submit, and he scrambled to extract himself from the debris, cursing in his native language.

  Saxon drew the Buzzkill and fired a single, close-range shot. The electro-dart punctured Hermann's right eye, the discharge wreathing his head in a brief flash of lighting. Howling, he fell to the deck, wisps of smoke rising from burnt skin and hair.

  "Stay down," Saxon warned, and left him there, heading forward.

  Hardesty was waiting in the corridor leading to the cockpit. He announced himself with the crash from a Widowmaker. Saxon dove for cover, bracing himself for the inevitable tornado of depressurization; but instead he caught the edges of a spatter of gooey matter that chugged into the air. Specks of it touched his bare skin and burned; the sniper was firing crowd-buster rounds, saboted cartridges that burst in the air and coated targets with a sticky mess of contact irritants. Saxon resisted the urge to tear at his inflamed skin and swore; the fluid wasn't lethal, but it hurt like hell.

  And right on cue, Hardesty called out to him. "They say this crap can kill a man, if he takes a shot to the face. Makes your throat swell up, chokes the air from you." He snorted. "Always wanted to see if that was true. Let me try it out."

  Saxon checked the stun gun. One round remaining. At this range, he'd do as much damage with harsh language. Gingerly, he peered out from cover. Hardesty was blocking the entrance to the cockpit, and behind him a door of reinforced steel and plastic closed off the path to the flight deck. If Hardesty had made it up here ahead of him, then Saxon knew his entry code to get that door open was now null and void. Any hope of taking the plane was lost. Now he had to worry about staying alive; somewhere behind or below him, Namir and Barrett were still in the game.

  Across the corridor there was a stairwell leading to the other deck, but to reach it he would pass right in front of Hardesty, and give him ample time to unload the rest of the auto-shotgun loads into him.

  Think fast. He ducked back just as Hardesty poked the Widowmaker's muzzle out and let off a triple-shot salvo. Saxon tasted vaporized capsicum in the air and winced at the acid tang in his throat. Above him, a portable fire extinguisher the size of a wine bottle sat in a recessed alcove. He snatched it from the clip securing it in place and held it
like a club, bringing it down on the arm of a chair at the point where the discharge nozzle joined the foam canister. It bent on the first hit, and he repeated the action.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Hardesty called. "Trying to dig your way out?"

  On the second strike the joint dented and a hiss of escaping gasses puffed white spray into the air. The third hit dislodged the nozzle and suddenly the canister was a fountain of cold, smothering vapor. Saxon hurled it down the corridor and heard Hardesty cry out in surprise as the makeshift gas bomb filled the enclosed space with choking mist.

  Saxon vaulted toward the stairwell under cover of the distraction, even as Hardesty fired blindly, fluid-filled shells splattering all around him.

  He mistimed the jump and stumbled on the metal staircase, almost tumbling headlong. Recovering, he broke into a run back down the length of the jet, kicking open the door to the main cargo bay; beyond it was the rearmost compartment and the stowed helo. There were weapons on board the flyer. If he could reach them Something caught his ankle; for a second he thought the aircraft was banking, but then he was spinning around and the deck came up to slam him in the face. Saxon scrambled to get up.

  "Watch your step." Barrett emerged from behind a cargo pod, pausing to bring down a heavy boot on the stun gun, lying where it had fallen from Saxon's pocket. He crushed the plastic-ceramic weapon with a grunt and eyed him. "Namir?" he said to the air. "I got him. Cargo deck, toward the tail section." Saxon never heard the reply, but the grin that blossomed on Barrett's scarred face made it clear what was said. "Got it.

  Be a pleasure."

  The big man came forward, and like a complex mechanical toy, his right arm unfolded to allow a tri-barreled minigun to emerge.

  "Go ahead, arsehole," Saxon taunted. "One shot from that cannon and you'll rip the hull open."

  Barrett gave a thoughtful nod. "Good point, Benny-boy. In all the excitement, I kinda forgot myself there." He laid his Missouri accent on thick, drawing out the moment as the weapon retracted; it was something Saxon had learned early on about the mercenary. Barrett liked to play up his brutish image, but he was more than just a thug. He liked people to underestimate him. "Guess I'll just rip you limb from limb, then," he added, striding forward. "Shame. I kinda liked you…"

  Saxon backed off, eyes darting around for a weapon. Barrett had come ready for anything, wearing the heavy anti-blast vest that was his signature operations kit. Nothing short of an armor-piercing round would cut through it.

  Barrett made a mock-sad face. "Aw, what's wrong? You don't wanna dance?" He stalked forward, grabbing a metal spacer rod from atop one of the cargo racks. The big man made a couple of lazy practice swings. "We'll try somethin' else, then. Batter up!"

  Saxon dodged as Barrett attacked, sweeping the rod though the air; he was running out of room, his opponent backing him into the curved wall of the fuselage. "Namir's lying to you!" he shouted. "He killed my last crew just to get me here! You can't trust him!"

  "Gee, you're right. Maybe we should team up, kick his ass. How about that?" Barrett snorted, nostrils flaring around the bull-ring through his nose. His expression became cold and hard. "You don't get it. We're on the winning side here. Anyone else… You're just little people." He snarled and attacked again, this time bringing down the steel rod in a falling overhead blow.

  Saxon threw up his augmented arm and blocked the strike, the impact singing through the metal right down to the meat interface at his shoulder joint, fragments of carbon-plastic cracking under the force of the blow. He followed through with a hard punch to the chest, but the strike might have been a love tap for all the effect it had. Barrett hit him with the near end of the rod and Saxon staggered; first the fight with

  Hermann and now this. The pain was dragging on him. He couldn't keep this up for too long; even his iron stamina had its limits.

  Barrett discarded his makeshift weapon and grabbed Saxon with both hands, snatching at fistfuls of his jacket. He picked up the other man and roared with effort as he slammed him to one side, into a cargo rack and then back again. Barrett had maybe Saxon's body mass and half as much again, and most of it was cybernetics. The man was a tank.

  Dizzy, his vision blurring, it was all Saxon could do to keep conscious. Barrett's arms drew tight and dragged him into a bear hug. The breath left his lungs in a wheeze and he tasted blood in his mouth. He was going to black out; it was only a matter of seconds.

  "My daddy was a mean son-of-a-bitch, but he was right about one thing," Barrett laughed. "He used to tell me, Mess with the bull, son, and you get the horns-"

  Saxon channeled the last of his effort into resisting the crushing embrace. "Shut the fuck up!" He snapped, jerking his head forward and down, butting the other man on the bridge of the nose. Barrett cried out in pain and for a fraction of a moment, his grip loosened.

  That was all Saxon needed. He got his hands free and snatched at the twin bandoliers over Barrett's shoulders. His fingers found the pull-rings on the yellow-and-black Shok-Tac concussion grenades hanging there, and he yanked hard.

  "You stupid…" Barrett immediately released him and staggered backward, clawing at the live grenades. Saxon let himself fall and rolled toward one of the cargo racks.

  A massive, earsplitting blast of light and noise tore through the confined space, deadening Saxon's hearing into a painful, humming whine.

  Barrett was on his back, blown into a collapsed pile of storage panniers, coughing up blood. Trails of red oozed from his ears, nostrils, and the corners of his eyes.

  Saxon forced himself to stagger away, breathing hard, lurching toward the tail section. It was hard to focus. He had to reach the helo. The weapons locker. And then… And then what? His plan was sand, crumbling, falling though his fingers. There was nowhere he could go.

  A shadow shifted in front of him, caught by the light cast from the glow strips on the low ceiling. Saxon half turned; the endless shriek in his ears stopped him hearing the approach of a new attack.

  Half-blind and enraged, Barrett came at him, grabbing Saxon from behind and locking his hands behind his head. He applied agonizing force, pressing into the bones of Saxon's neck. The American shouted, and Saxon heard the words more than he felt them. "You think that'll stop me?

  You think you can stop me?"

  Saxon hit back with elbow strikes, but the viselike pressure was unceasing. He cast around, knowing that death was close. Not here. Not like this. Not yet.

  Fitted into the curve of the wall was a cargo hatch, used for loading when the jet was on the ground. It was just within his reach. Ignoring his better instincts, Saxon kicked out and broke open the control cover with the heel of his combat boot. Barrett saw what he was doing and pressed tighter, but Saxon was committed now. This was how it would end.

  He kicked again and struck the hatch release panel. Immediately, red strobes and a warning Klaxon activated as the door's mechanism stirred into life; but in the next second all sound was lost as a screaming thunder of air tore across the cargo bay. The hatch began a slow march open, revealing a growing sliver of fathomless black sky beyond.

  The jet shivered and the nose dropped abruptly; up in the cockpit, the aircraft's autoflight system would have detected the loss of cabin pressure and immediately attempted to compensate by descending to a lower altitude. Barrett lost his grip and flailed, colliding with a support pillar. Saxon fell against a stowed cargo net and grabbed on to it, the polar cold through the hatch ripping at the skin of his face. Across the threshold, a dash of moonlight glittered off the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.

  How high are we? How far from land? It was impossible to know.

  "Ben" Namir s voice hummed through his skull. "You can't escape. I'm not going to let that happen." As he said the words, the hatch juddered to a halt, half open, and then reversed, sliding toward closure.

  If he stayed here, he would die. Saxon knew it with utter certainty, the same pure clarity of thinking that had come to him in the Australian wildern
ess. He would die, this would end, and there would be no justice for Sam and Kano and the others.

  Saxon threw himself at the gap and leapt into the darkness.

  Dundalk-Maryland-United States of America

  When Lebedev returned to the communications tent, the videoscreen was still active, the same display of smoky digital mist hazing a vaguely human shape. Not for the first time, he wondered what Janus really looked like-if he or she was someone he knew out in the real world. Part of him was always disappointed that the shady hacker could not trust the New Sons enough to drop the mask; but then, these were difficult times, and not everyone had millions of dollars at hand to ensure their own security.

  "How is our new recruit?" asked the nonvoice.

  Lebedev sighed. "We shouldn't have pushed her so hard, so fast. She's having trouble assimilating it all."

  "Anna will come around '," said Janus. "She's resilient. She just needs to see it for herself. Let her process."

  "We need her." He ran a hand through his hair. "God knows, we need every ally we can get."

  A moment passed before Janus replied. "Her skills will be of great use to the cause, Juan…"

  He frowned. The hacker sounded distracted. "Is something wrong?"

  There was another pause. "Forgive me. I'm monitoring another… situation at the moment. Go on."

  "We're running out of time," Lebedev went on. "If we're going to disrupt this thing, it needs to be soon."

  "Agreed. I'm working on another approach to access the Killing Floor as we speak. But it's risky."

  Lebedev smiled ruefully. "We have to try, my friend. And we can't fail. If we do, the future will never forgive us."

  "You re wrong," Janus replied. "If we fail, our enemies will make sure no one will ever know we existed."