he might have regretted. As much as he was a braggart, Hardesty wasn't foolish enough to cross swords with Jaron Namir. Instead, he allowed himself a belligerent smile. 'Balance, huh?' He glanced up at the scarred hull of the jet. 'Look what that got you,' he said, walking away.
Aerial Transit Corridor-Maury Sea Channel-North Atlantic
It was cold inside the airship's cavernous cargo bay. Faint layers of frost gathered on the sides of the container pods filling the length of the compartment. Breath emerged from Saxon's mouth in streams of white vapor as he walked the length of the companionway; the Caidin replacements for his lower legs were starting to bed in at last, and he'd used the downtime to get himself back into fighting condition. He didn't want a repeat of what happened when they boarded.
Powell and his men kept close to the aft service bay, where noisy electric motors fed the airships rotors and kept the area a little warmer than the rest of the cargo spaces. Without comment, he crossed into the group and helped himself to a couple of cheap YouLike self-heating coffee cans and power bars.
He found Kelso on her own, huddled inside a solar foil blanket. She was miles away, her gaze fixed on a brass coin as she turned it over and over in her fingers. She looked up as he approached and palmed the coin, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. He held out a can and she took it, striking the base on the deck to get the thermal tab working.
Saxon dropped into a lotus settle and did the same, tossing her one of the bars. She unwrapped it with her teeth, waiting for him to speak; he tried to frame the question the right way, then finally gave up.
He nodded at her hand, where she had the coin. 'How long have you been clean?' When she didn't answer straight away, he went on. 'S'okay. I know what the chip is for…' He drifted off, frowning at himself.
Kelso studied him. 'You were in the program?'
He shook his head. 'Not me. My old man.' He made a drinking motion with the can. 'He didn't do that well with it.'
'Stims. For a while.' Her eyes narrowed; she was taking this as a challenge. 'It doesn't make me weak,' she told him.
'Of course not' he replied. 'If anything, they give you the chip, it means you're stronger, yeah?'
'Yeah.' She didn't sound convinced by her reply.
He swigged at the coffee and made a face. It tasted like someone had stubbed a cigarette out in it; but it was hot, and that was what counted.
Saxon leaned forward. 'You don't think you can trust me.' He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'Like Powell and the rest. You think I'm marked.'
'After everything that's happened to me over the past few months, I'd question my own family.' She grimaced as she took a pull from the can, then shot him a look. 'Why'd you lie to Powell?'
'About what?'
'When I said I wanted to come. You told him I'd seen the faces of the Tyrants. That's stretching the truth.'
'You saw Federova and lived to talk about it. Trust me, love, there's not a lot of folks can say that.'
Her eyes narrowed. 'Her and one other.' Kelso's lips thinned. 'I need you to tell me something. Washington, D.C., the hit on Skyler. Were you one of them?'
The question came out of nowhere and he took a second to follow it through. 'When?' Kelso told him the date and he shook his head, his gut tightening as an old, hateful memory made itself known. 'No. I was halfway around the world that day, trying not to die. Namir recruited me afterward. He was a man down, he said.' He eyed her. 'Were you responsible for that?' He thought about Wexler, the man he had replaced, and the lines of invisible influence that had brought him to this place at this moment.
She ignored the question. 'Why did you lie?' she repeated.
He gestured at his eyes. 'You got the same look I see in the mirror. You're like me. You're looking for someone to pay a butcher's bill.'
'They killed a man who saved my life,' she said, her gaze becoming distant. 'Did it right in front of me. And I couldn't do a damn thing. Then the Illuminati's proxies covered it up and buried him under the lies.' Kelso shook her head. 'I couldn't let that stand.'
'Illuminati' Saxon turned the word over, sounding it out, connecting it with what he knew. 'Namir called them 'the group,' like he was afraid to say any more. They're the ones pulling the strings, signing the death warrants, fronting the cash…' He sneered. 'I've heard the name. Some bullshit secret society, something outta trashy thrillers… only not.' The soldier considered it. 'Makes a cold kinda sense, when you think about it. Ghost orders and missions that never were… men and women sacrificed for the sake of keeping the shadows long.'
'If what Janus says is true, these people are positioning themselves to manipulate… everything. The future of humanity. The creation of a new world order.'
'Maybe so.' Saxon looked back at her. 'But you want to know something?'
'Go on.' Kelso clasped the heated coffee can, drinking in the scant warmth from it.
'I don't give a fuck about all that shit.' He shook his head. 'I'm a blunt instrument, me, I'm not a clever bastard like the kid or Lebedev.' Saxon nodded toward the others. 'I've got a very simple need, and it's the same as yours. I want some bloody payback.'
She looked away. 'I… I'll tell you what I need, what I want. I want my life back. I want to go home. I don't want to have to know any of this!'
Her voice rose suddenly. 'Because now I can't walk away!'
'Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?' said another voice. Saxon looked up as D-Bar approached. He looked pale and sweaty.
'Anyone ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop?' Saxon retorted.
'Please,' said the young hacker, 'I spend my life finding out other people's secrets.' But almost as soon as he said the words, his bravado disintegrated; and suddenly Saxon remembered that he was looking at a boy still in his teens, just a scared, cocky kid who was only now waking up to the fact that he was in way over his head. 'Makes you wish you could just erase the data in your brain, right?' he was saying. 'Search and replace 'Illuminati.' Go back to being one of the happy cattle.'
'You really mean that?' asked the woman.
The more he watched D-Bar, the more Saxon saw how shaken he was. 'I… I've been going through the files we got, the fragments we could salvage. You wouldn't believe the stuff in there. Hints about the things they got planned. The things they've already done. We're not just talking
JFK and Roswell here, I mean this is big…' His eyes lost focus and his voice dropped to a whisper. 'Majestic 12, the United Nations, the WTO…
They're so big. Every time you think you've seen the top, but it's all just layers and other layers!' D-Bar caught himself and blinked. 'I mean, how can we fight that?'
'We break up their game.' Saxon's reply was iron hard. 'They think they got a clear hit on Taggart? Not today.' He got to his feet. 'Today we got the edge.'
'How's that?' asked Kelso.
He smiled wolfishly. 'They think you're hiding in fear. They think I'm a dead man. So they'll be looking the other way when we stick a knife in them.'
The countryside was dark and shrouded by heavy storm clouds, masking the approach of the airship. The transfer was swift, the massive craft moving low with all running lights extinguished, drifting along the center of the river to match pace with a long cargo barge steaming north toward the Swiss capital. On descenders, Powell and his men led the group to the deck of the vessel, and Anna looked up as her feet touched the rain-slick metal. In the night's gloom, it seemed an impossible sight; the airship a featureless black cloud among gray companions, rising in silence amid the wind. In a few moments it merged with the overcast skies and was gone as if it had never been there. The rain came harder, and she pulled her hood tight over her head, hurrying below.
Inside the barge were five more men; they all had the same aura as the New Sons, the same wound-tight aggression simmering just beneath the surface, the same eternally alert manner of the career renegade. All of them were armed and showed off augmentations to a greater or lesser degree. Powell shook hands with their leader, a rail-thin man with unkempt, greasy hair and a ragged beard. He had implants covering his eyes, like frameless glasses. They were dark and reflected no color.
He extended a hand to Kelso and she shook it. 'Welcome to Switzerland,' he said. The accent was French,
