Taggart's hotel was across the Mont Blanc bridge, less then five minutes away.
Anna shouted 'Closer!' and dropped the passenger-side window. Her actions were dislocated somehow; it was as if she were watching herself from a long way away. She shrugged off her seat belt and dragged herself out the window as Croix brought the sedan alongside the van. Anna got a quick look at Hermann's incredulous expression in the wing-mirror before she raised the Zenith and unloaded four rounds into the vehicle, aiming for the engine block.
The van skidded and recovered, turning as the feed lane to the Pont du Mont Blanc opened up before it.
The next thing she did was a moment of pure instinct, without conscious thought; Anna kicked off and threw herself at the van as the two vehicles bumped. Her foot found the running board and her free hand snagged the mirror. She ignored the winds battering at her and fired blind, shooting out the glass and firing into the driver's side of the van.
Hermann shot back with a burst from a Hurricane machine pistol, spraying bullets into the air. His shots were wide; despite all his augmentations, driving the wounded vehicle, aiming, and firing at the same time were beyond him.
Her neurovestibular implant went hot and she felt the rush of new focus shiver through her; the feed- forward system augmentation tightened her aim to the point between the muzzle of the Zenith and her target. Anna let the ice-cold flood of her anger take over, let it ride the aim point.
Time slowed as the van hurtled across the bridge. Anna brought up the pistol and fired again. The shots struck Hermann in the head, carving across the front of his skull, ripping flesh and breaking bone. The impact trauma was massive, throwing him off the steering wheel.
The van skidded again and this time there was no one to stop it. Anna's grip was torn away by the hard pull of gravity and she instinctively fell into a roll as she struck the highway. The pain was breathtaking; Anna screamed as the road tore at her, her forward velocity shed in agonizing impacts as she tumbled.
The van veered into the guide rail and cut straight through it, bouncing over the pedestrian path to slice through the side barrier. Engine roaring, the vehicle plummeted toward the Rhone river and clipped the rear quarter of a barge passing below.
As the van hit the water, something in the makeshift bomb broke. Perhaps a connector damaged by Kelso's gunshots or a vital component short-circuited by the force of impact; the effect was the same.
The bomb went off in a howling, thunderous discharge of water and air, tearing the vehicle apart with the force of concussion.
Blood streaming down her face, Anna lurched to her feet as Croix came running. In the light from the streetlamps she saw the remains of the van spin into the froth of the river and vanish from sight.
Saxon heard Powell die as the last detonation took him off his feet and threw him across the hangar and out onto the runway. Powell's scream was torn away by the roar of the fire and then Saxon's world spun around him.
He landed hard, scraping his skin across the tarmac, pain lighting him up all over. The great ball of fire ejected a rain of steel fragments and burning debris, and Saxon dragged himself to his feet, trying to get clear. The heat rolled over him and he coughed, smoke and the stench of burning jet fuel searing his lungs.
He cast around, and his heart sank. Again… Not again…
No one else moved among the devastation and the flames; he cursed himself for being the survivor once more. Powell and his team were gone, the jet and any chance of finding Namir and the Tyrants obliterated… Saxon stumbled and collapsed on the grassy verge across the runway. In the distance he could see the flash of lights from approaching fire tenders and police vehicles. He had to run. He had to get away…
His legs refused to move. How? The question thundered in his head, robbing him of all motion, all power. How did they know we were coming?
Kelso's face blurred through his thoughts and he tensed. He had to warn her.
Saxon's blackened, pained fingers found the spot on his jaw that toggled his comm implant. 'Kelso…' His voice was a crackling, painful wheeze.
'Kelso, do you read me? This is Saxon! We've been set up!'
For a long moment there was nothing but static; and when the reply came it was like a knife between his ribs.
'Ah, Benjamin,' said Jaron Namir. 'I'm afraid it's worse than you think.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Pont du Mont Blanc-Geneva-Switzerland
Anna hobbled to the edge of the bridge and steadied herself with one hand on a piece of the broken guide rail. A layer of smoke and fumes hung over the Rhone, shrouding the damaged barge as it listed in the shallow swell. Small fires were burning where patches of oil on the surface had caught fire, and she saw indistinct shapes bobbing in a slick of wreckage. The damp air was cloying.
She glared at the river, willing it to give up what she wanted to see; but there was no sign of anything that looked like a human body. Her fingers dug into the palm of her hand. It had all happened so fast; the car catching up to the van, the gunshots, the crash.
She wanted Hermann to see her face, to know who she was. She wanted him to understand what she was feeling, the need, the hard, sharp darkness of her anger. It wasn't enough for him to just die. It wasn't enough.
Anna's rage boiled out of her in a cry. 'Bastard!' She snatched up the Zenith automatic from where it had fallen and emptied the rest of the clip into the water, firing rounds at random into the murk, as if that would force the German's corpse to rise from the swell; but the river gave her nothing. Part of her wanted to throw herself in after the crashed van, trigger the rebreather implant in her chest cavity, and go deep, until she found Hermann's body.
Then Croix was at her side, wrestling the gun away from her bloodied fingers. She shook him off and stumbled back a few steps, pain sharp in her legs. 'Get away from me…' she grated, swallowing a sob.
Croix peered over the split in the barrier. 'II est mort' he muttered. 'Come on. We can't stay here. Something is wrong. I've lost contact with
Powell and the others.' He grabbed at her arm, but Anna shrugged him off.
'I want to see his face,' she snarled, her voice rising into a scream. 'I want him to know what this was for!'
The Frenchman's expression shifted as understanding came to him. 'Ah. Vengeance, for someone close to you?' He saw the look in her eyes and nodded to himself. 'It does not follow the path you lay out for it, cherie'
'It's not enough,' Anna hissed.
'It never is,' agreed Croix. He took her arm and this time she let him. 'Come on.'
Limping painfully, she followed him back to where the black sedan was parked on the outside lane, the engine idling. She strained to listen for the sound of sirens, but heard nothing; Anna wondered what remnants of Hermann would be dragged from the river when the emergency services came to investigate. Was he really dead? The detonation of the improvised bomb had been attenuated by the river, but the ball of fire and the torrent of currents beneath the surface would have been enough to tear anyone to pieces.
She looked to the sedan and saw D-Bar getting out of the backseat. Croix called out to him, but the hacker's face was set in a dogged glower.
D-Bar's hand emerged from behind the car door with a small, slab-sided pistol in his grip. He fired twice, without hesitation; Anna heard the snap of the rounds cut the air.
The shots struck Croix in the chest and stomach. He let out a choking wail and stumbled backward, collapsing to the road. She saw the whites of his eyes and he gasped, flecks of foam gathering at the corners of his lips. 'What the hell?'
'Shut up, bitch!' D-Bar's retort was full of venom. 'Just fucking shut up!' He advanced. 'You stay right there
