Barrett made a mock-sad face. 'Aw, what's wrong? You don't wanna dance?' He stalked forward, grabbing a metal spacer rod from atop one of the cargo racks. The big man made a couple of lazy practice swings. 'We'll try somethin' else, then. Batter up!'
Saxon dodged as Barrett attacked, sweeping the rod though the air; he was running out of room, his opponent backing him into the curved wall of the fuselage. 'Namir's lying to you!' he shouted. 'He killed my last crew just to get me here! You can't trust him!'
'Gee, you're right. Maybe we should team up, kick his ass. How about that?' Barrett snorted, nostrils flaring around the bull-ring through his nose. His expression became cold and hard. 'You don't get it. We're on the winning side here. Anyone else… You're just little people.' He snarled and attacked again, this time bringing down the steel rod in a falling overhead blow.
Saxon threw up his augmented arm and blocked the strike, the impact singing through the metal right down to the meat interface at his shoulder joint, fragments of carbon-plastic cracking under the force of the blow. He followed through with a hard punch to the chest, but the strike might have been a love tap for all the effect it had. Barrett hit him with the near end of the rod and Saxon staggered; first the fight with
Hermann and now this. The pain was dragging on him. He couldn't keep this up for too long; even his iron stamina had its limits.
Barrett discarded his makeshift weapon and grabbed Saxon with both hands, snatching at fistfuls of his jacket. He picked up the other man and roared with effort as he slammed him to one side, into a cargo rack and then back again. Barrett had maybe Saxon's body mass and half as much again, and most of it was cybernetics. The man was a tank.
Dizzy, his vision blurring, it was all Saxon could do to keep conscious. Barrett's arms drew tight and dragged him into a bear hug. The breath left his lungs in a wheeze and he tasted blood in his mouth. He was going to black out; it was only a matter of seconds.
'My daddy was a mean son-of-a-bitch, but he was right about one thing,' Barrett laughed. 'He used to tell me, Mess with the bull, son, and you get the horns-'
Saxon channeled the last of his effort into resisting the crushing embrace. 'Shut the fuck up!' He snapped, jerking his head forward and down, butting the other man on the bridge of the nose. Barrett cried out in pain and for a fraction of a moment, his grip loosened.
That was all Saxon needed. He got his hands free and snatched at the twin bandoliers over Barrett's shoulders. His fingers found the pull-rings on the yellow-and-black Shok-Tac concussion grenades hanging there, and he yanked hard.
'You stupid…' Barrett immediately released him and staggered backward, clawing at the live grenades. Saxon let himself fall and rolled toward one of the cargo racks.
A massive, earsplitting blast of light and noise tore through the confined space, deadening Saxon's hearing into a painful, humming whine.
Barrett was on his back, blown into a collapsed pile of storage panniers, coughing up blood. Trails of red oozed from his ears, nostrils, and the corners of his eyes.
Saxon forced himself to stagger away, breathing hard, lurching toward the tail section. It was hard to focus. He had to reach the helo. The weapons locker. And then… And then what? His plan was sand, crumbling, falling though his fingers. There was nowhere he could go.
A shadow shifted in front of him, caught by the light cast from the glow strips on the low ceiling. Saxon half turned; the endless shriek in his ears stopped him hearing the approach of a new attack.
Half-blind and enraged, Barrett came at him, grabbing Saxon from behind and locking his hands behind his head. He applied agonizing force, pressing into the bones of Saxon's neck. The American shouted, and Saxon heard the words more than he felt them. 'You think that'll stop me?
You think you can stop me?'
Saxon hit back with elbow strikes, but the viselike pressure was unceasing. He cast around, knowing that death was close. Not here. Not like this. Not yet.
Fitted into the curve of the wall was a cargo hatch, used for loading when the jet was on the ground. It was just within his reach. Ignoring his better instincts, Saxon kicked out and broke open the control cover with the heel of his combat boot. Barrett saw what he was doing and pressed tighter, but Saxon was committed now. This was how it would end.
He kicked again and struck the hatch release panel. Immediately, red strobes and a warning Klaxon activated as the door's mechanism stirred into life; but in the next second all sound was lost as a screaming thunder of air tore across the cargo bay. The hatch began a slow march open, revealing a growing sliver of fathomless black sky beyond.
The jet shivered and the nose dropped abruptly; up in the cockpit, the aircraft's autoflight system would have detected the loss of cabin pressure and immediately attempted to compensate by descending to a lower altitude. Barrett lost his grip and flailed, colliding with a support pillar. Saxon fell against a stowed cargo net and grabbed on to it, the polar cold through the hatch ripping at the skin of his face. Across the threshold, a dash of moonlight glittered off the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
How high are we? How far from land? It was impossible to know.
'Ben' Namir s voice hummed through his skull. 'You can't escape. I'm not going to let that happen.' As he said the words, the hatch juddered to a halt, half open, and then reversed, sliding toward closure.
If he stayed here, he would die. Saxon knew it with utter certainty, the same pure clarity of thinking that had come to him in the Australian wilderness. He would die, this would end, and there would be no justice for Sam and Kano and the others.
Saxon threw himself at the gap and leapt into the darkness.
Dundalk-Maryland-United States of America
When Lebedev returned to the communications tent, the videoscreen was still active, the same display of smoky digital mist hazing a vaguely human shape. Not for the first time, he wondered what Janus really looked like-if he or she was someone he knew out in the real world. Part of him was always disappointed that the shady hacker could not trust the New Sons enough to drop the mask; but then, these were difficult times, and not everyone had millions of dollars at hand to ensure their own security.
'How is our new recruit?' asked the nonvoice.
Lebedev sighed. 'We shouldn't have pushed her so hard, so fast. She's having trouble assimilating it all.'
'Anna will come around ',' said Janus. 'She's resilient. She just needs to see it for herself. Let her process.'
'We need her.' He ran a hand through his hair. 'God knows, we need every ally we can get.'
A moment passed before Janus replied. 'Her skills will be of great use to the cause, Juan…'
He frowned. The hacker sounded distracted. 'Is something wrong?'
There was another pause. 'Forgive me. I'm monitoring another… situation at the moment. Go on.'
'We're running out of time,' Lebedev went on. 'If we're going to disrupt this thing, it needs to be soon.'
'Agreed. I'm working on another approach to access the Killing Floor as we speak. But it's risky.'
Lebedev smiled ruefully. 'We have to try, my friend. And we can't fail. If we do, the future will never forgive us.'
'You re wrong,' Janus replied. 'If we fail, our enemies will make sure no one will ever know we existed.'
Thirteen Kilometers East of Newfoundland-North Atlantic
He never felt the impact when he hit the rolling surface of the sea. It was the only mercy he had; perhaps it was the shock of the fall, perhaps his battered body shutting down for a brief moment in some attempt to protect him from greater trauma.
At first, Saxon saw only flashes. The silver of the moon on the wave tops below him. A flicker of light from the jet as he spiraled away from it, the navigation lights in the dark.
Then he was in the cradle of the shouting winds, snared by gravity. He couldn't see the ocean rushing up to meet him, and for long moments
Saxon felt himself disconnect from the real. He could have been floating in the roaring darkness, lost in the
