CHAPTER FIFTEEN

M V Icarus—Lake Geneva—Switzerland

Namir froze, the weapon resting at the base of his skull; even with the nonlethal rounds loaded in the shotgun, a blast from point-blank range would still be enough to put him down.

“Benjamin…” He let out a sigh. “I take it Scott won’t be making the rendezvous, then? ”

“You’ll see him soon enough. ” Saxon’s finger tightened on the trigger. Adrenaline and pain coursed through him, and he had to work to keep himself in check; all he wanted was to kill the man in front of him. But he had come this far, and across the sky deck he saw Barrett hoist Kelso off her feet, holding her in front of him like a human shield.

“Do you really want to do this now? ” Namir asked him, his tone almost reasonable. “You can’t win this. ”

Saxon’s eyes narrowed. “Your wife. Your kids. Do they know what kind of man you are, Namir? ” he snarled. “Do they know how much blood there is on your hands? ”

Namir’s voice was ice cold. “If you were a smarter man, you would understand. Every life I’ve taken has been to make theirs better. You and the woman? That’s a cost I’ll pay without even a moment of doubt. ”

The stink of smoke was everywhere. Belowdecks, the fire was taking hold, overwhelming the automatic suppression systems—but no one was leaving the Icarus until Saxon had what he came for.

“Ben” Kelso cried out a warning. “Federova—! ” Barrett silenced her with a jerk of his wrist.

Crouched behind the helo, Saxon hadn’t seen the Russian assassin. She did her ghost trick again, shifting visibility as the EM aura of her cloak hazed the air around her. In a split second, he sensed the prickle of the stealth augmentation’s field as she came at him. He shoved Namir away and turned the shotgun before Federova could plunge a fractal-edged combat blade into his chest. The weapon boomed twice and glutinous plugs of tangler-gel hit the assassin in the gut and sternum. The impact force was enough to blow her back off her feet and send the woman skidding over the polished deck.

Spitting like an angry cat, Federova tore at the sticky mess, downed and for the moment out of the fight.

Namir didn’t hesitate to use the assassin’s distraction and whirled on Saxon, the crimson musculature of his augmented arms bunching as he threw a blow at the other man. The joints pivoted in unnatural ways and he swept down two high-low arcs, the first fist clipping Saxon’s temple, the second knocking the police-issue shotgun from his grip. The weapon rattled away and vanished over the side.

Saxon recoiled, trying to fall back before Namir forced him off balance. He heard the snap and click of machined parts and saw Barrett’s face set in a feral grin as his cyberarm reconfigured, growing a length of cannon barrel, rising up to aim at him.

“No, ” Namir ordered. “I’ll finish this. ” The Tyrant commander’s face turned to fix Saxon with a cold, determined glare. “The responsibility is mine. As it always was. ”

Namir snarled and surged forward.

Anna struggled in Barrett’s grip, but he was inflexible, inescapable. She strained to breathe, watching Namir lead into his attack on the soldier. The mercenary moved with unnatural speed, his limbs twisting on hydraulic shocks that made him more agile than anyone she had ever seen; Saxon seemed lumbering and slow by comparison.

Namir went low and threw out his legs in a blur, sweeping around in a swift spin-kick that almost took Saxon off his feet, but the soldier did not allow the attack to put him on the reactive. Instead, Saxon launched himself at his opponent as Namir regained his balance, charging into him.

Legs pounding, Saxon gathered up Namir and shunted him bodily across the sky deck in a fast tackle, driving him into a support stanchion with a heavy crash.

Anna heard the grind of fracturing bone and the dense thuds of metal fists on human flesh as Namir struck at Saxon’s neck and torso, his hands blurring as the apparatus in his arms went into machine-fast retaliation. He punched at the bloody patch on Saxon’s belly, drawing a howl from his opponent.

Fluid spattered from the soldier’s mouth as he let the mercenary commander drop, and Saxon engaged him with a flurry of punches and kicks. Strikes went back and forth between the two men, some blocked and parried, others hitting home.

The two opponents seemed evenly matched—at least at first sight. But Jaron Namir had come fresh to this fight and possessed some of the most advanced combat augmentations in the world; Ben Saxon was already on his reserves, his stamina running raw, fatigue poisons turning his bloodstream into acid, the knife wound in his gut weeping red.

Momentarily dazed by a snap-punch, Saxon shook it off and threw a heavy blow that knocked Namir back. The Tyrant turned with the strike and pivoted on one leg, whipping up the other limb to plant a heavy combat boot in Saxon’s jaw.

Anna saw the blow flash home, but at the last possible second, Saxon snagged his former commander’s leg and twisted it, arresting the momentum. He pulled Namir in with all his might and dragged the other man off-kilter.

Namir stumbled and Saxon snatched at him, arms curving up around his shoulders to lock behind his neck. In a heartbeat, he had the Tyrant in a breaker hold, and he squeezed, drawing a howl of pain from the other man. “I never should have trusted you, ” Saxon grunted, applying lethal pressure.

“I was about… to say the same thing…” managed Namir.

Saxon felt the other man’s augmented arms squirming in his grip, and it was all he could do to hold on. Just a few more seconds, and he could end this—

Namir’s arms went rigid and turned forward. Before Saxon could recognize what was happening, the limbs shifted and moved against the balls of their joints, twisting opposite the true and folding back against the lines of flexion. Dislocating the cybernetic arms, Namir swiftly inverted the chokehold and tore himself free, snapping his head back to crack Saxon across the bridge of the nose.

He felt a hard shock of pain and blood gushed from his nostrils. Namir snaked away and snapped his arms back to a more human mode, lashing out with a cross-handed blow. Saxon tried to block him, but Namir pushed in and caught his left arm—his human arm—in a steely vise.

Saxon cried out as the humerus bone snapped with a wet crunch, agony tearing up his nerves in a burning wave. With a savage wrench, Namir pulled him aside and threw Saxon at the fuselage of the flyer. Unable to arrest his motion, the soldier slammed into the blunt prow of the black helo and collapsed to the deck near the body of the dead pilot. The pain was blinding, and the impacts from the storm of punches had cast scatters of static across the vision field of Saxon’s optic implants. He dug deep, reaching for a last reserve of strength even as he knew he had little left to give.

The attack at the airport, the fight with Hardesty, and now this… Saxon was tapped out, running on vapors.

He heard Namir coming up behind him. “Time to end this, ” said the Tyrant commander. “No more distractions. ”

And then he saw his last chance, lying there before him. He reached for it.

Anna choked back a gasp as Saxon struggled to his knees, trying to bring himself back up from the deck. Namir stood over him, and cast a quick, frosty glare toward her and the other Tyrants. “We fix our own mistakes, ” he told them.

He turned back to meet Saxon as the soldier came up on one knee, releasing a roar of pain and effort. Something metallic glittered in his hand and he cracked it across Namir’s face with brutal intent; a pistol, torn from the holster of the dead pilot.

The mercenary was knocked away, blood streaming across his face. Saxon rose, the gun in his machine arm, and he fired three bullets into Namir’s chest from close range. The shots would have killed a normal man, but the Tyrant commander wore a tac vest lined with armor inserts, and beneath that he carried dermal shell implants capable of stopping any low-caliber rounds that made it through; still, Anna felt a ripple of pain-memory as she recalled a bullet from a similar gun that had cut into her.

Barrett was shouting as Saxon raised the pistol’s muzzle a degree higher and laid his aim on Jaron Namir’s head.

The big man’s grip on her neck tightened again, enough to draw a strangled scream from her lips.

“Saxon! ” bellowed Barrett. “You kill him and the woman dies next! ”

Namir lay in a heap on the deck, scarred and wheezing. He looked up, one eye gummed shut, the other the bright lens of an augmented optic. “Go on, then, ” he panted. “That was a very clever recovery, Ben… It’s one of your best skills… The ability to evaluate and exploit a tactical opportunity. You’re quick that way. ” He coughed up a string of bloody spittle. “So do it. Kill shot. ” He tapped at his cheekbone, under the undamaged eye. “Right here. I’ll die, and you’ll have what you want. Your payback. ” On the lower tiers of the yacht, glass portholes shattered as the fire continued to spread, waves of heat radiating up through the floor of the sky deck. “Icarus burns, ” said Namir, chuckling painfully at his own joke. “And so will all of us, one way or another.

What’s it to be? ”

“Drop the gun! ” Barrett shouted. Pushing Federova aside, he dragged Kelso to the front of the upper deck and shoved the woman until she was half over the guide rail. “You test me and I swear to you, I’ll drop her into the fire! ”

The muzzle of the pistol wavered. He thought of Sam and his men, the ghosts he had seen in the gloom of the field hospital. He owed them this, this last bullet. This measure of justice.

“Shoot me, ” Namir demanded, “or save Anna. ” He shifted, dragging himself to his feet with slow, agonized motions. Blood was streaming from the wounds in his chest, but he never broke eye contact with Saxon. “You’re aggrieved. You’ve been lied to and used. But that’s the world we fight in. That’s who we are. ”

“Not me, ” Saxon bit out. “I’m not like you. I never was. ”

“Then you have to decide. ” Namir gave a shrug. “Is your need for revenge worth another innocent life? ”

He would never be this close again. Saxon knew it with ironclad certainty—if he did not pull the trigger, Namir would slip away, the Tyrants would vanish into the shadows cast by the Illuminati, and all the deeds they had done would go unpunished…

And the cost would be only one innocent life. Just one single person. Another name on the endless roll of sacrifices laid down for the ideal of the Illuminati’s draconian one world order. Anna Kelso’s death in exchange for Jaron Namir’s, a man whose soul had to be black with all the horrors he was responsible for.

He could not let him live. It wasn’t right that such a man should have a life, a family, a purpose, while all Ben Saxon had turned to ashes around him.

It is not right!

With a sudden snarl of fury, he flung the pistol away into the waters of the lake, turning to Barrett. “Let her go, you son-of-a-bitch. ”

Barrett grinned through bloodstained teeth. “Sure, whatever you say. ” He opened his hand and Kelso screamed as she went over the edge of the sky deck and into the churning black smoke.

Saxon heard him laughing as he exploded into a full-tilt run, racing toward the far side of the boat. Barrett brought up his gun-arm and let rip with a screaming hail of rounds that chopped up the decking all around him, shredding wood and plastic.

Without halting, Saxon reached the lip of the rail and threw himself over it, Barrett’s shots hissing through the air around him.

One moment, her world was a fog of pain, consciousness hanging by a thin thread, and the next—

Anna was falling into the mouth of hell, gasping as black smoke filled her lungs, the heat of an inferno beating at her. She landed badly on the slant of the hull, a glass-and-steel slope that ranged away down to the main deck. Anna flipped over and tumbled. She threw out her hands to arrest her plunge, but she couldn’t find anything to grab on to. The smooth, polished glass resisted all attempts to grip it. She slid inexorably toward the flames gathering below.

Above, gunfire rattled, and through the smoke she saw another figure vault over the edge and come down toward her. Fear lanced through Anna; someone was coming down to finish the job. But then she saw Saxon’s blood-streaked face.

He punched his machine-fist into the hull and found a moment’s purchase. Anna grabbed for his outstretched arm and heard him cry out in agony as she pulled on the broken limb. Her shoes scraping over the hull, she shoved herself up, feeling plumes of heat from the fires searing her back.

A shape hazed into view through the smoke. Barrett leaned over the edge of the sky deck and sneered, pointing his gun-arm toward the two of them. The tri-barrel cannon spun up to firing speed and spat a line of stark, yellow-white tracer, shredding the paneling.

“Hold on! ” shouted Saxon, as the glass window beneath them shattered under the salvo, opening up into a void of hot vapors. The two of them tumbled into the interior of the burning yacht, vanishing from sight.

Barrett spat over the rail and turned away in disgust, cordite vapor coiling from the maw of his gun. He kicked away the spent brass casings at his feet and moved toward the idling helo. Federova, her ice-cool glower now sullen and silent in its fury, shot him a hard look. She’d managed to extricate herself from most of the tangler rounds, but she was angry that none of Saxon’s blood had ended up on her blade.

Namir ordered her into the flyer with a sharp gesture, and he climbed into the empty pilot’s chair. “Is it done? ” he asked.

“Lost them in the smoke—” Barrett’s explanation was interrupted by a dull concussion from deep inside the Icarus s engine room. The yacht shuddered and listed alarmingly, tilting so far to port that the lake waters broke over the main deck and swamped it.

“Get in, ” Namir told him. “The police launches are a few minutes away. We’re not going to be here when they arrive. ”

Barrett threw one last look over his shoulder, listening to the death-throes of the boat as the Icarus was consumed by fire and water. “See you in hell, Saxon, ” he muttered, pulling himself into the flyer.

The rotors became shrill, spinning the smoke into twisting columns; then the aircraft lifted off and rose vertically, pivoting to survey the burning boat as a raptor would hover over the corpse of a fresh kill.

Anna crouched close to the carpeted decking and did her best to draw what little untainted air remained into her chest. She cast around, finding Saxon in a heap on top of a broken table. They had crashed through the roof into the forward gallery of the yacht, a richly appointed dining room. Small fires had taken hold here, crawling slowly along the support stanchions. The floor was gritty with a layer of extinguisher powder that had proven ineffectual. She moved to him, staying low, her breathing ragged and painful.

Above, a rent in the glass ceiling looked out into a blackened sky. The smoke filled it like a chimney, the hot haze billowing around her. She blinked, her eyes stinging. “Saxon? ” She could hardly speak; the call came out like the bark of an animal.

He stirred and rolled off the table, hissing with pain. Shards of shattered glass were buried in the meat of his damaged arm, and Saxon pulled at them, tossing the bloodstained fragments away. “We… We have to get off this deathtrap. ”

Toward the bow, the Icarus was already a quarter submerged, a wide slick of burning oil spread out across it. Water lapped in through breaks in the forward doors, but a fallen stanchion blocked any hope of getting them open. They couldn’t go back the way they had come in, and the metal staircase leading to the deck above was searing hot to the touch. Anna chanced a look up the stairwell and saw nothing but flames.

She turned back to Saxon. “Down, ” she told him, a plan forming in her thoughts. “We’ve got to go down. There’s no other escape route. ” The risk of what she was suggesting made her blood run cold; but at the same time she knew there was no other option open to them.

“This boat’s sinking, or hadn’t you noticed? ” he retorted. “Those decks will be full of water. ”

“I don’t plan on burning or drowning, ” Anna snapped back. “Saxon, you have to trust me. I know a way out! Come on! ”

He nodded, with effort. “Go, then, ” he said, and limped after her, deeper into the dying vessel.

The corridor to the aft canted at a forty-five-degree angle and the cold water of the lake was at Saxon’s waist. All around them, the Icarus was dying, electrical systems firing blasts of sparks over their heads, the hull moaning as it buckled.

At the door to the tender garage, Saxon and Kelso had to put their full weight behind the hatchway to swing it open against the pressure of the water. The pain in his arm and his belly were numbing fires.

The small bay was a mess, debris scattered across the room floating in drifts and the yacht’s launch already overturned and knotted in its own guide ropes. Water was pouring in from the port side, and what space they had to breathe was thick with suffocating smoke.

“This is your way off? ” Saxon asked.

Anna didn’t answer him; instead she dropped beneath the surface and vanished into a cloud of bubbles. A moment later, she broke through again and pulled at his arm. “You can swim, right? ”

“Of course I can bloody swim. ”

“There’s a dive hatch set in the deck. We get it open, we can get out into open water. ”

He shook his head. “This wreck is on fire! We’re surrounded by burning fuel, we try to surface out there and we’ll die! ”

Anna shook her head. “That’s not what I said. I told you to trust me, so trust me! ” She grabbed his other arm and pulled him.

A crash of fire and heat rippled down the corridor behind them, ending any more argument from him. Taking as deep a breath as he could, Saxon followed her into the water. His hands brushed the deck beneath them and found the edges of the hatch.

Together, they pulled at the latches as the water around them churned and boiled.

Namir turned the helo in a tight orbit over the Icarus, but it was difficult to make out anything. Thermals from the raging fires buffeted the flyer, and he didn’t dare venture too low, as gas tanks in the midsection began to combust one by one, lashes of orange flame jetting into the air as the heat broke them open.

The yacht’s bow crumpled and fractured down the length of it. The craft was taking on water as fast as it was burning, and it would be a race to see which would claim it first.

He looked over his shoulder at Federova, who scanned the blazing wreck down the sights of a heavy battle rifle.

“Anything? ”

She gave a curt shake of her head, and Namir knew she was itching to rake the craft with a hail of 5. 56 mm rounds, just to make certain that the Icarus was Ben Saxon’s grave.

“Company! ” Barrett called out to him and pointed across the lake.

Namir glanced back and saw the blue-and-white hulls of the police patrol boats cutting through the wave tops toward them. “Time to go, ” he said, and grabbed the helo’s throttle, pushing it forward to maximum. The flyer’s nose dipped down and Namir guided it through the clouds of fire smoke, and away toward the far coastline.

Under cover of destruction, the Tyrants vanished.

The Icarus perished with a final, spasming explosion as the diesel fuel reached combustion point and flashed into fire. The blast took the yacht apart and rained fragments down in a cascade of shards and flaming debris. Anyone caught on board would have been killed instantly, ripped apart or burned to ashes.

Beneath the surface of the lake, the concussion resonated through the water and beat at Saxon and Kelso, a heavy hammer of force battering them down into the depths.

Saxon lost control and tumbled; blue-water ops had never been his thing, and now the pain and the hurt and the fatigue all combined with the blast to rob him of his last breaths, the oxygen in his lungs streaming from his mouth in a gush of bubbles. He was going to drown, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Then Anna was there, her arms snaking around his back, pulling herself close to him, fighting the undertow to draw them together into an almost intimate embrace.

Through his clouded vision he saw her face, milk-pale like some ghost come to claim him. Over her shoulder he saw other shadows, other men. The dead and the gone, the true ghosts beckoning him to join them. He reached out, and tried to speak. I’m sorry, he wanted to say, I let you down.

Anna’s face closed in and she pressed her lips to his, cupping the back of his skull, pushing them together.

The kiss was like an electric shock; and then from it new breath flooded into his mouth and his lungs, trickles of bubbles escaping as Kelso gave up her air for him.

Pressed to him, he felt something flutter against his chest, something beneath the flesh of Anna’s breast; a rebreather implant. She turned her head away, peering through the murk as they drifted there, gently exhaling, breathing without breathing before she turned back and gave him another moment of life. The implant could act like a small reservoir of air if needed, increasing lung capacity against gas effect, suffocation… and drowning. He had trusted her, and now in turn she saved him.

Saxon saw her face, saw the pain hiding beneath the surface, the scars that didn’t see the light of day. They were alike, the two of them. Both damaged by the same lies, both survivors of it. Both haunted.

Beneath the shroud of flame across the surface of the water, between the shafts of light and the fall of the wreckage, they held on to life, and to each other.

Eiffel Tower—Paris—France

The private elevator took him to the second tier of the tower, which, as he had expected, was closed to the public for the duration. The restaurant Jules Verne was equally empty, the only figures moving between the tables a discreet pair of young waiters who doubtless had been thoroughly vetted for their reliability.

DeBeers dismissed his men with a glance and they found themselves somewhere to stand, out of his sight line. He crossed to the table where his colleague was waiting. Morgan Everett got up, extending a hand and warm smile, framed against the windows and the view of the Champs de Mars beyond.

“Lucius, ” he began. “It’s good of you to come. It’s been a while. ”

“Since we were face-to-face? Indeed. ” DeBeers took his hand and shook it. “You look well, Morgan. Paris agrees with you. ”

That got him a smile in return. “This city has always been important to the group. And the truth is, a lot of things here agree with me. ” Everett gestured to the chair across from his and they sat.

DeBeers found the glass of Les Forts de Latour waiting for him and considered it. “How is Elizabeth, by the way? ”

“She sends her best, ” said the other man. “She has other obligations. ” He nodded toward the waiters. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of ordering for you. ”

“I trust your judgment, ” he replied. “So, this is just the two of us, then? ”

Everett sipped his wine and leaned forward. “You’re not going to pretend you thought it would be anything else? ”

“I suppose not, ” DeBeers allowed. “I’m concerned that the council might be dismayed at the thought of us meeting in secret. ”

“To conspire? ” Everett chuckled. “Lucius, you’ve been an excellent teacher all these years, and one lesson I learned very early on was that there is an elite within the elite. ”

“Some believe that, ” he agreed. “Page and Dowd. ”

“Bob Page has enough to do with the biochip initiative and his projects at Majestic 12. ” DeBeers detected a note of irritation in his old friend’s voice, but chose not to comment on it. “And dear old Stanton won’t leave New York for anyone. ”

“True enough. Still, it’s a rare occurrence for any of us to meet in the flesh. It’s simply not done. ”

Everett laughed again. “I know, it’s almost reckless, isn’t it? I quite enjoy the thrill. ” He sobered. “But the Illuminati own Paris. We have nothing to fear here. ” He took another taste of his wine. “Speaking of which. The events in Geneva—”

DeBeers waved him into silence. “I have a considerable amount of influence in that city. I’ve made sure the blame was laid firmly at the feet of L’Ombre. The explosions at the airport and the bridge, the assassination attempt, the sinking of the yacht…”

“Yes, such a pity about the Icarus. ”

“I have others. The vessel was a liability, anyway. It might have been connected to me eventually. ”

“Of course. ” The appetizers arrived and they ate for a moment before Everett spoke again. “I asked you here, Lucius, because I wanted to discuss the juncture we find ourselves at, without the… the distraction of other voices. We’ve recruited so many people to the group recently and I miss the clarity of our more direct discussions. ” He gestured airily. “It’s not just Page and all his ambitions. Our lady friend from China, the scientist…”

“I concur, ” said DeBeers. “We have so many endeavors. Sometimes it is difficult to juggle them all. ”

Everett nodded. “Exactly. Some of the group forget that the current undertaking is only one of many lines of influence in development. Let’s not forget the work on the HIV cure, the D-project, and the fault-line venture in California…”

“All equally important, I grant you, ” he replied. “But the biochip is where our focus should be. ”

“And we are on course? ”

DeBeers nodded. “Obviously, there was a need for some compartmentalization of events from certain subordinate members of the council. But you can rest assured that the pattern of influence fell more or less exactly where we wanted it to. As always. ”

“The United Nations have agreed on the need for a referendum, then? ”

He nodded again. “I was informed of that fact just before I left Switzerland. The attempted murder of Taggart was enough to push them over the edge. That, along with our other vectors of influence and the recent decision by Senator Skyler to come around to our way of thinking, brought us the desired result. ”

Everett cocked his head. “What happened at the Palais… Did you really intend that to succeed? ”

DeBeers allowed himself a smile. “Either way, it would have been win-win, Morgan. ”

“I see. That explains your, shall I say, prudence? ”

He went on, paraphrasing the report that Jaron Namir had given him in the weeks after the incident in Geneva; although the Tyrants had lost half their agents, they had still been able to complete their mission objectives. The mistake of recruiting Saxon had been erased and Hardesty, while useful, was not irreplaceable. Remarkably, Gunther Hermann had been recovered alive—although severely injured—from the waters of the Rhone by MJ12 operatives. It was a testament to the German’s strength of will that he had survived a bomb blast, but the detonation had rendered him physically crippled and heavily burned. DeBeers was aware that Page had already co-opted Hermann, for extensive reconstructive surgery and induction into a cybernetic mech-augmentation program. Perhaps, in time, he would be ready to be redeployed.

“The fact is, ” DeBeers concluded, “the question of the global regulation of human augmentation technology is now unavoidable, and we have positioned ourselves to take full advantage of the situation. The result will be a forgone conclusion. ”

“The best kind, ” said Everett, saluting him with his glass. “And our larger plans move on with only minor alterations. Excellent. ” He paused. “Still. There are issues yet to be resolved. Those children in the Juggernaut Collective, for example. ”

DeBeers shook his head. “We’ve dismantled that little gang of data thugs. Those who aren’t dead are on our payroll. And as for their friends in that separatist rabble… We’ll keep them around. Use them for our own purposes. ”

“The operative with the attack of conscience, Saxon? And the Kelso woman? ”

“They haven’t resurfaced, both figuratively and literally. But then, Lake Geneva is quite deep. ”

Everett accepted this and studied his mentor for a long moment. “You’ve yet to mention the hacker. What does he call himself—Janus? ”

DeBeers frowned. “Gone. Silent. None of our concern, for the moment. ” He drew himself up, dropping the mannerisms of a friend in conversation with his best student, and his behavior became more authoritative. “There are other matters of more importance to attend to. Like the work of Reed and the team from Sarif Industries. ”

“Of course, Lucius, ” said the other man. “I appreciate the opportunity for… clarity. ” He looked up as the waiters returned with the main course, and with a nod he had the server pour a fresh measure of wine into each of their glasses. Everett raised his and smiled. “To the future, then? ”

“The future, ” said DeBeers, savoring the moment.

Santa Lucia—Guanacaste Province—Costa Rica

The hamlet was a small place a few miles past the outskirts of the main township, little more than a collection of homes and buildings clustered around the road in the lee of greenery and the encroaching edges of the jungle. Aside from the gray discs of satellite antennas and snarls of telephone cables webbing the redbrick buildings together, the scene was as it would have been twenty, maybe even forty years ago. It was basic and unhurried, and a long way off the grid.

The man and the woman who arrived were not locals, and some of the children who played in the street took it upon themselves to follow the pair of them, measuring these blancos and wondering who they were. The big man was an hombre de la maquina like they saw in the action vids, and they were wary of coming too close. The braver of the boys told the others that they heard men like him had chips in their heads that could read your thoughts and arms that could rip apart a car. The woman, she was different, her blond hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, the color turning back to brunette at the roots where the dye job was fading. She wore mirrored sunglasses and a wide-brimmed bush hat that did its best to hide her face from the world.

At the Duarte house, the two new arrivals were greeted with a strange mixture of emotions. The big man was welcomed like a cousin, with a tearful hug from the mother and a sad, knowing nod from the father. Samuel Duarte’s parents both wept a little, but they thanked the big man and brought him inside, the woman following a few steps behind.

The children who asked questions about the couple in the earshot of adults were told to be quiet and speak no more of them. These people were friends, and that was all that mattered. They had come here to be away from the questions of others, and everyone in the village understood that.

Anna sat on the balcony as the sun set and stared out into the green; in the distance the color bled away to a gray-brown haze where the jungle ended in the maws of the mammoth logging camps, in the shadow of the mountainside. One hand she kept balled in a fist, resting on her lap. It was as if she couldn’t remember how to unclench it.

She looked away and found Saxon, offering her a brown bottle of some nondescript local beer.

“Thanks. ” She took a long pull. “Are we good? ”

He sat next to her, making a face as he pulled on the sutures in his belly. “We’re good. This place is not on anybody’s radar, you can be sure of that. It’s…” He smiled ruefully. “It’s just a barrio rattrap. No one knows who you are down here. ” The smile faded. “We’re outta their reach. That’s what you wanted, yeah? ”

She nodded. Fleeing from Europe, there had been many places they could have gone to ground, but something dark and potent inside Anna Kelso had driven her to seek sanctuary as far away as she could go. Somewhere off the map, far from cities and the threats of what she saw when she dreamed.

He was watching her. “You’ll be okay here. ”

Anna put down the bottle. Something in his tone rang a wrong note. “I will? And what about you? ” When he didn’t answer she glared at him. “You’re not going to stay? ”

He shook his head. “Job’s not done, Anna. Namir and those bastards he works for are still out there, still playing their games… I can’t look Sam’s family in the eye and know that I let Namir keep breathing after I let their son down. ”

She moved closer to him. “Redemption, that’s what you want, isn’t it? ” Anna sighed. “So do I, for Matt. But I want it for myself as well…”

“Yeah…” He drained the beer. “Haven’t found it yet. ”

“You’re wrong. ” She took his hand. “You saved my life, Ben. You came to save me when you could have just gone on with the fight. Then I did the same thing. I saved you. We… we redeemed each other. ” At last, she opened her hand and showed him the brass coin, its surface blackened and scratched.

“It’s not enough…” he muttered, looking away. “After all we’ve seen, it’s not enough. ” He went to the balcony. “They won, Anna. After everything we did to burn those bastards, they still won! ”

She shook her head. “Not yet. Not until they silence us. This game isn’t over. ” Anna followed him to the veranda. “Stay here, ” she said. “Please tell me you will stay here. ”

“You don’t need me, ” said Saxon.

“It’s not about need, ” she replied. “It’s about what’s going to happen. I don’t want you to die out there…” Anna heard the fear and pain in her own words, rising up from deep inside.

“What do you mean? ”

Anna told him about what Janus had shown her, the torrent of images and sights the hacker had pulled from the depths of the Illuminati’s dark schemes; things she couldn’t comprehend, half-formed pictures that lurked in her subconscious and tainted the patterns of her dreams. She hadn’t slept well since that day; the specter of what Janus had revealed was always there when she closed her eyes.

“There’s one thing I remember very clearly, ” she said. “It’s burned in my memories like a brand. An image, an impression, of every city in the world. ” Anna shivered as she spoke, despite the heat of the fading day. “All of them engulfed in fire and fury. That’s what they’re planning. ”

Saxon watched her carefully, struck by the strength of her certainty, and her fear. “What are you saying? There’s gonna be a war? ”

She looked up at him. “A change is coming, Ben. And we can’t fight it. We can’t stop it. The wheels are already in motion. The only thing we can do is ride it out, and wait. ”

“For what? ”

“For a new future. ” Anna took his hand again and looked up as the day passed into darkness. Out across the sky, night fell on the world they knew.

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