“
“She’s too dangerous.”
The helicopter slowed into a hover, began to stoop towards the landing pad. Lisa squinted, ready to fire, ready to kill everyone there.
I didn’t even think about what I did next. The thought process that caused me to leap at Lisa, tackle her, and pull her away from the launcher lived somewhere far below consciousness.
I couldn’t tell exactly what happened after that. Something sharp, maybe an elbow, rammed into my gut, and as my breath whoofed out my arm wound up coiling painfully around my own torso instead of hers. Then I tripped on something, possibly her deftly deployed foot, and fell against the elevator wall. My head hit metal. I saw stars, and fell disjointedly to the ground, my limbs temporarily unavailable for command.
Lisa bounced back up to the launcher, ready to fire, to do her duty.
Instead she said, “Holy shit.”
I pulled myself up to one knee in time to see Jesse racing back across the roof, this time towards the launching pad and the descending helicopter, carrying the drone over his shoulder. A panel was open in its side. The payload.
“No,” I breathed.
They were paying attention to us, not him, and the howl of the descending helicopter drowned out his footsteps. He got to within about fifty feet before they finally noticed him, and the Russian thugs started to shoot.
This time they didn’t miss. His whole body convulsed with the kinetic energy of the bullet, and he fell hard. I groaned involuntarily, as if I had been shot myself.
Then I saw Jesse reach out clumsily to the fallen drone beside him. Saw his hands move. Saw him bring two wires together. And saw the patch of roof where he lay blossom instantaneously into red and gold.
The shockwave rattled our freight elevator, knocked the five figures by the landing pad off their feet, and sent the helicopter tumbling. One moment it was airborne, and two seconds later it had disappeared behind the lip of the roof. It caterwauled down to the ground with stunning speed. I heard its crash only dimly through the aural fog left by the explosion.
The smoke began to clear from where Jesse had been. I stared at it disbelievingly. There was nothing left but a ragged crater in the factory roof. It didn’t seem possible that I had just witnessed my best friend’s death.
“James.
As she spoke, the five figures near the helipad began to stir.
Chapter 84
“You said you’ve got access to their phones?” Lisa demanded.
I stared at her, confused, stunned, still in pain from when she had casually overpowered me. It took me a second to realize she was speaking to LoTek, not me.
“Jesse.” His voice sounded hoarse. “Did he – on the cameras it looked like -“
“He’s dead,” Lisa said brutally. “And you both need to focus now, or it was for nothing. Their phones. You said you had access. Do you or not?”
“Their phones.” He took a rattling breath. “They who?”
“Dmitri and Anya. The Russians on the roof.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Then conference them in,” Lisa said. “It’s time we talked.”
It took thirty seconds for LoTek to remotely activate Dmitri and Anya’s phones and patch them into our ongoing call. Lisa used the time to mount a new drone on the launcher. I didn’t use it for anything at all. I was still in shock. Jesse was dead. I was suddenly living in a world in which my best friend no longer existed. I would never banter with him again in our own private dialect, never open a door and find him unexpectedly on the other side, never call him up despondent and find myself full of cheer within seconds. It didn’t seem possible that such a world could exist. I wanted a rewind button, an escape clause, an ejector switch.
My ears filled with terse Russian in familiar voices.
“Anya,” Lisa said loudly. “Dmitri. Listen up.”
We saw them both twitch with surprise, then reach for their phones.
“Who is that?” Anya asked. Her voice was hoarse.
“It’s us,” I said harshly.
“James? Where are you?”
I had forgotten that they hadn’t yet identified us. “Let me put it this way. I can see you from here.”
They took a second to absorb that, and then Anya began to laugh hollowly, in a way that expressed no mirth whatsoever.
“You’re joking,” Dmitri sounded angry at himself. “We’ve been running from
He made it sound like they had been treed by a teddy bear. I almost wanted to thank him. His scorn helped transform my grief into fury, and I liked fury a lot better. Fury was eruptive. Fury could be directed outwards. “That’s right, motherfucker,” I snarled, “and you’re all out of places to run.”
Lisa said, “Let’s make a deal.”
“What deal?” Anya asked.
“You intended to get Sophie out of here, aren’t you? To Russia? You need to accept that’s not going to happen. If we don’t cut a deal, then sooner or later the real police come and we all get arrested. And you know what, that’s fine by us. But if you let her go, then we let you go, and we all go back to our corners for the next round. Better for everyone. What do you say?”
“Next round?” I didn’t like the I-know-something-you-don’t in Anya’s voice. “There is no next round. The game is over. You lost.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded.
“We’ve reprogrammed our Axons to filter out your override command. You can’t stop us now. The order has been given.”
I felt like my spine had turned to ice. Lisa and I exchanged a quick look. On one hand it was the worst possible news. On the other, they didn’t know about the master control signal, didn’t know that their Sophie could maybe still stop their attack.
“What do you think happens next, James?” Dmitri asked rhetorically. “I think the world will turn to what stability it can find. I think the voice of the Kremlin will become very persuasive. I think Dubai will be happy to extradite all of us back to Moscow.”
“Is that so,” Lisa said tautly.
“Who knows? We shall see.”
“No, we won’t, fucker, because you’ve just convinced me that the best thing to do right now is go back to plan A and blow up all five of you where you stand.”
An awkward silence followed.
“She’s right,” LoTek contributed. “We can’t let them have her.”
“No,” I said. “No, Lisa, no, you can’t -“
“Sorry,” Lisa said. “But she doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Wait!” Dmitri sounded scared now. “Wait. James. Let us discuss this.”
“They’re bluffing,” Anya said. “They wouldn’t -“
“I don’t bluff,” Lisa said, and it was impossible not to believe her. “There’s nothing to discuss. Sophie, I’m sorry, but I’m sure you understand, it’s necessary. The rest of you, see you in hell.”
“No,” I pleaded, “no, Lisa, don’t -“
“Sorry.”
“Wait!” Anya said desperately.
