'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.
