Police Line-Do Not Cross across the threshold.
Anna's luck was holding; she recognized the security sensor as a model the Secret Service also used. She frowned as she thought of Matt Ryan.
He had been the one who showed her how to spoof them. From her pocket, Anna pulled a piece of foil paper taken from a discarded cigarette packet and a vu-phone she had picked from the pocket of a man at the metro station. She gently plastered the foil over the sensor's antenna and worked at the phone, cycling its on-off function. After a few moments, the sensor went dark; Ryan had explained to her that the devices could be put into a reset mode if they were swamped with microwave signals, like those from a cellular telephone-it was a hit- and-miss hack, though. She unlocked the door and had it shut behind her just as the sensor reactivated. Moving slowly so as not to disturb it, Anna advanced into her apartment.
The lights came on automatically, dim enough for her to see her way around but not so much they would be seen from the street; the television chirped as it activated, casting a blue glow across the open-plan apartment.
Anna's gut tightened. The place had been turned over, likely by the agency, and while they hadn't wrecked it, it was still in great disarray. It seemed as if they had opened every cabinet, every drawer and box, searching for… what? Some evidence to back up the accusation that she was colluding with terrorists?
The light from the screen illuminated the open door to her bedroom. Even from here, she could see they had got into the wardrobe and found the safe. Her files were gone, just as she had known they would be. Anna thought about the flash drive in her pocket, the one Temple had pressed into her hands. That was all she had now, every other piece of her painstaking secret investigation now lost. She hoped it would be enough, if only she could find someone to entrust it to.
A part of her wanted to fall into her bed and give herself over to sleep. She was exhausted, and the shock and fatigue from the day's events were threatening to overwhelm her. Anna's gaze was drawn to the dark rectangle of the open bathroom door. For a long moment, she fought to ignore the thoughts of what was inside the mirrored cabinet over the sink. She tasted earth in the back of her throat and swallowed hard.
It took a lot of effort to go straight to the bedroom. From the closet, she took a sturdy daypack and circled the bed, gathering up items of clothing from where they had been piled, filling the bag with everything she would need to leave and not look back. Returning to the living room, she finally allowed herself a look into the bathroom. In the reflection of the mirrored cabinet she saw the frosted glass window over the bath, the light from the street shining through it.
Anna turned away and went to the desk until she found what she was looking for. The brass disc was right there where she had left it, and with hesitation, she picked it up, turning it over in her fingers. Suddenly she realized that the sobriety coin had been what really brought her back here. Everything else, the clothes and the bag, all that she could have found elsewhere. The coin she could not have surrendered; it was the last link to the person she used to be, to the person Matt Ryan had always believed in. She swallowed a sob and allowed herself a moment to give in to the emotion inside her, just a brief instant before she forced it away.
Then Anna realized she was looking at something she didn't recognize. She didn't get a lot of paper correspondence, maybe the odd circular or item of junk mail, but there on the desk was a pile of items, doubtless placed there by one of the investigators Temple had sent to search the apartment. The largest was a plastic box, postmarked from the city that day, but with no return address details. She shook it gingerly, and then, with care, used her thumbnail to peel back the wrapping. Inside was a courier case with simple print lock. Anna tapped it with her index finger and it opened with a click; the noise seemed like a gunshot in the quiet of the apartment, and it made her flinch.
Inside there was a commercial data card, coded with a one-way rail ticket from Washington, D.C., across the border to Quebec. She found a
Canadian passport with it, a high-grade fake using her face and a name she'd never heard before. The rest of the box was taken up with a flat, slab-sided device that resembled a rifle magazine; a Pulsar electromagnetic pulse grenade. She drew out the weapon and weighed it in her hand. It was a military-grade item, and possession of it alone was a felony… but that was hardly a concern for her now. Who had left her this gift, she wondered? Was it some contingency plan by D-Bar and his Juggernaut comrades, or a clever trap left behind by the Tyrants? She put the grenade back down and sighed.
For a moment, she thought the fatigue was playing tricks on her, but when it happened a second time, Kelso was certain she had heard someone say her name. She gave a start when she realized it was Eliza Cassan, the Picus network's ever-present anchorwoman, voicing a breaking report on the Nightly World News. Anna fumbled for the television's remote and turned up the volume. She saw her own face there on the thinscreen, a still from the agency's press file. A line of text ticked past at the bottom of the image, the words talking about a multiple murder in Grand Falls, a manhunt getting under way…
'… at this hour. The Picus News Network had learned from sources within the Department of Justice that Agent Kelso was on suspension pending an investigation relating to an incident several months ago, when Senator Jane Skyler of Southern California was injured during an assassination attempt by members of the ruthless Red Arrow triad.' The picture was replaced with quick clips of Skyler, then FBI agents raiding the home of the senator's maid. Cassan's face reappeared, growing concerned. 'Some viewers may find the following footage disturbing. We have just obtained security recordings of the events at the Temple house that appear to incriminate Agent Anna Kelso in the brutal attack that took place earlier this evening'
Anna felt the blood drain from her face as grainy white-and-green images unfolded before her. She saw herself stalking through the halls of
Temple's home, a heavy weapon cradled in her arms. She gasped as the figure on the screen entered a room full of people and gunned them down with quick, callous motions. The image froze and zoomed in; the face looking back was very much her own.
'No…' she muttered. 'That's not me… They faked it…' She trailed off as the weight of her own words bore down. It made terrible, perfect sense. All the way back to the apartment, she had wondered why the Tyrant soldier who saw her hadn't opened fire and gunned her down. She couldn't understand why he had let her flee, but now she understood. It had to be part of this! They let her go so she could be framed for the killings, and she had played the part for them perfectly. Anna reeled with the sense of it; no one would believe her claims of conspiracy now. To the rest of the world, she would be seen as a violent criminal. A murderer and a traitor.
The screen showed the file photo of her face once more, this time captioned with the words Anna Kelso- Wanted Fugitive.
Panic boiled at the edge of her thoughts as she snatched up the daypack, the ticket, and the passport. She grabbed the EMP grenade and thrust it into the bag. Anna took two steps toward the front door and froze. A sense, an impression that years of training and expertise had instilled in her, pushed through the web of fear clouding her thoughts. A cool breath of air brushed her bare neck, and she turned slowly to look through into the dimly lit bathroom. Reflected in the mirror, she saw that the frosted window in there was open. It was closed, she told herself, trying to be sure of her own thoughts. I know it. I'm sure of it. When I came in here, it was closed Static prickled the hairs on her arms and Anna had the sudden, immediate knowledge that she was no longer alone. She spun, pulling the bag off her shoulder to swing it like a weapon, in time to see a lithe figure emerge from thin air, sketched in by ripples of silvery light, like oil on water.
A woman, made of glass, becoming real.
Anna saw her face, the dark doll's eyes and the predator's smile on her lips; then she was coming at her, a wicked blade flashing though the air.
Romeo Airport-Michigan-United States of America
Saxon crossed underneath the fuselage of the jet, looking back and forth across the open space of the hangar. He should have known that
Hardesty wouldn't let the incident at the house pass without trying to turn it to his advantage; if the sniper had decided to use Saxon's apparent insolence against him, there was no knowing how Namir might react to the situation.
As he reached the pools of shadow at the far edge of the hangar, he heard someone say his name, very clearly; the voice was unmistakably
Hardesty's. A moment later, Namir's low tones reached him; the two men were outside on the apron. Saxon caught the familiar scent of
