Germ

happen again . . .'

The free Atropos took a step for Allen and Julia. Stephen released the neck he had been gripping and seized the collar of the assassin now interested in Allen and Julia, yanking him back. When the man spun to break the grip, Stephen yelled, 'You wimp! Just like your punk dead brother!'

Atropos rammed a fist into Stephen's face. The struggling escalated: the movements came faster, the blows harder.

Backing away, Julia saw the Atroposes as something other than individual killers. Though encased in their own skins, they moved in unison, as one creature: one pulling back as another stepped in . . . gripping and releasing like the tentacles of a violently malicious monster. And she realized another thing: they all wanted a piece of Stephen; they all wanted to be part of the kill. In the destruction of their enemies, they were of one mind, one body. They would descend on each of them with a unified, incomprehensible wrath.

She pulled at Allen, aware that she was leaving Stephen to die. They would all perish if they tried to rescue him. And he would die for nothing.

No, she thought. She couldn't leave so easily. She dived for her gun, dodging the kicks, the stomps. Her uninjured hand reached out, grabbed the barrel. She rolled back, back, then up, turning the gun in her hand. She pointed, focused. All three Atroposes stood behind Stephen—a gauntleted arm circling his neck, gloved hands pulling his arms back at horrendous angles, another hand coming from between his legs to grip a thigh. Julia recalled Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction, and Stephen was caught in its many arms. Its necklace of skulls were the faces of the Atroposes, peering wickedly over Stephen's shoulders and around his body. They jostled, shielding themselves.

'Go,' Stephen pleaded again, his voice weak and raspy, and her heart ached at the realization that she must obey. It would be crueler not to.

Her fingers, bent grotesquely backward, throbbed and spewed blood. Her forearm felt as though a truck had parked on it, but she pushed the pain down into a black well, where its screams for attention echoed flatly and carried no weight.

She could not get another clear shot. She recognized determination in Stephen's eyes. He wanted everything they'd gone through to matter. Allen's trauma; her efforts and grief; Donnelley's death; the deaths of so many others, ones they knew about and more they didn't; Stephen's own . . . offering now—he wanted it all to make a difference, if not to bring good, then to stop evil. She understood. And she knew hesitating would ruin it all, would make futile the blood and tears. She lowered the pistol and gave him a soft nod. She was biting her lip, reopening the wound, tasting the blood. She felt like a small child trying to be brave.

He attempted a smile, but his quivering lips could not hold it. So he held her eyes a moment longer and nodded back, firm, sure.

Again she pulled at Allen. He stood on shaky legs and let her take some of his weight. Then she started backing away.

'No, wait,' Allen pleaded.

'We have to stop Litt,' she whispered without taking her eyes off Stephen and his captors. The Atroposes stared, knowing they had won.

'I can't leave him,' Allen said. 'Not like this.'

'It's what he wants, Allen. If we don't go now, we won't stop Litt and Stephen will have—' She restructured the thought. 'All of this will be in vain.'

'Stephen! I love you!' he cried.

And Stephen did smile, a big ain't-everything-just-dandy grin. It was ecstasy to witness, a cool shower on sweat-soaked skin. Julia thanked him silently for that. Then she tugged again at Allen. He yielded and took a few steps backward with her. He turned away then, apparently wanting to remember the smile, not the aftermath.

One of the Atroposes aimed his pistol at them. Stephen noticed and knocked his forehead into the weapon. He head-slammed the Atropos directly behind him, managed to pull an arm free, then a leg. He grabbed, punched, kicked, and berated the three Atroposes into leaving the other two alone for now. She had the idea. This, after all, was not for pay; this was personal. No one cared whether this 'hit' was clean and quick. They cared that it was messy and drawn out. And their arrogance, borne of a skill that could do nothing but breed arrogance, would convince them they could take their prey at their leisure. Never mind the air strike; they were here for revenge.

'He's getting away,' Allen said, his voice flat.

She turned and saw Litt crossing in front of a hangar. She squeezed off three rapid shots. Small explosions erupted in the dirt around him. He jerked to a stop, turned, and fell. He scooped the case up and disappeared into the space between two hangars.

'Slowed him down,' Allen rasped.

'We have to move faster.'

'Go on ahead of me. I'll catch up.'

But before she could stop herself, she glanced back. Her blood congealed. Stephen was on his knees. An Atropos was holding each of his arms straight out from his body, crosslike. Another Atropos stood behind him, raising a gauntleted fist, focused on the back of Stephen's head. Her heart kicked against her breastbone. She swung the pistol around, but too late. The gauntlet came down, firm and straight as a piston.

Stephen crumbled. The two holding him let go, and he fell: no resistance, no spasms, no life.

Julia let loose an animal roar that rubbed her throat raw and rose to the pitch of the siren so that it seemed to go on and on long after she closed her mouth. The Atroposes, standing around their downed foe, rotated their heads to peer at her. It was one thing to accept death, quite another to see it. She tried to steady the heavy weapon it held and pulled the trigger. Again. And again. After five wild shots, she forced her finger to stop. Her shots had not stirred the Atroposes at all; they stood like wax figures, staring.

She spun away from them. She caught up with Allen, who was stumbling and falling, loping across the field. She was nearly panting, afraid she'd never draw enough air again.

'Is he—?' he asked.

'Don't look back.' She hitched in a breath. Ten rounds, she thought, her mind flailing for something sturdy. No, eleven. The first took out the light above Atropos's head. Then two as she ran from Atropos, three at Litt, and five more at Stephen's killers. Eleven. The Sig held thirteen rounds, plus one in the chamber. She had three left. Enough to turn Litt inside out.

She bolted for the gap between the hangars.

ninety-seven

Karl Litt loped behind the hangars. Off in the jungle, not far from the last hangar, was a shed that housed his Hummer. He could feel the heat of the burning hangars and smell the smoke. Flecks of ash fluttered in his eyes, and he brushed them away. The perimeter fence was a mere thirty yards to his right, and just beyond he could see trees ablaze like pillars of fire. If he had gauged the air strikes correctly, Kendrick's screaming war machine had completed phase two, the tomography bombs. Somewhere overhead, a plane's radar was reading the results and constructing a map of the underground complex. It wouldn't be long before the last and most destructive attack would begin.

He felt the sting before he heard the shot. Then the fire—his ear was on fire! He dropped his briefcase and grabbed his ear. Felt blood and the ragged, tingling edge where the top of his ear was gone.

I shot his ear off, she thought.

Julia stood watching Litt over the sights of her pistol. Delicate tendrils of smoke seeped from the barrel and the notch of the ejection port. He was touching the wound and probably had no idea what had just happened. She had aimed for the center of his back, and he was only forty yards away; she'd won an Academy tournament on a range ten yards longer. But she was using her injured hand. Extending out the broken middle and ring fingers instead of wrapping them around the grip made for shaky shooting. She bent her elbows and drew the pistol closer to her face. With her left hand supporting her shooting hand, she centered her sights between his shoulder blades.

He turned and raised his hands in surrender.