James Swallow - Deus Ex - Icarus Effect

Anna heard him talking but she registered what he was saying only peripherally. “I’ll take the van,” she said. “Get me close and I’ll take him.”

Saxon’s brow furrowed as he heard the raw fury bubbling up inside her words. “Kelso, what is it?”

She pointed at the screen. “You know him?” On the monitor, the blurry image of a man’s face had been captured by one of the traffic cameras. He wore a bandage over one eye and a cap.

Saxon gave a wary nod. “He’s German, former GSG-9. Gunther Hermann.”

The name echoed in her mind. Hate, cold and hard like black diamond, grew solid in Anna’s chest. It was the same man from that horrific day in Georgetown. The killer who had left her for dead, who shot Byrne and Dansky… and Matt Ryan.

Geneva International Airport—Grand-Saconnex—Switzerland

“There,” said Saxon, pointing into the gloom. “Hangar four.”

Beside him, Powell squinted down the eyepiece of a monocular. “That’s a Belltower aircraft.”

“It’s them” Saxon insisted, studying the shape of the parked jet. “I’m not seeing any movement, though. They have to be inside.”

Powell spoke over the general comm channel. “All right, listen up. Two entrances, one gangway at the forward hatch, another drop-ramp at the aft. You know the drill. Move in, neutralize any threats. Fast and efficient.” He glanced at Saxon. “Stay where I can see you. Croix may want to give you the benefit of the doubt, but he’s not me.”

Saxon shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“All units,” Powell said to the air, “take the plane. Go, go!”

They covered the distance to the far hangar in a few seconds, veering from shadow to shadow, avoiding the footprints of security cameras. Saxon had to admit, for a group of irregulars, the New Sons had the makings of a good spec ops team; but he wasn’t convinced they’d be enough to deal with the Tyrants.

Not that survivability was foremost in his mind at this very second. All he cared about was finding Jaron Namir, and ending his life.

There were active boxguard robots scanning from the corners of the hangar interior, and Powell’s men went after them with Pulsar grenades, shutting them down with flashes of electromagnetic discharge. Saxon hesitated at the foot of the gangway, glancing back down the line of the plane to where the cargo bay doors were wide open. He toggled his mastoid comm. “Any unit at the rear: is the helo in place, over?”

He got a reply immediately. “ What helo, over?”

“There should be a small veetol flyer stowed back there—”

“Saxon!” Powell snarled, coming up behind him. “Stay off the channel unless it’s important!”

He frowned and climbed up the staircase, staying low.

The highway traffic coming into the city across the Rhone from Lancy was mostly commercial at this hour, and there was a moment of uncomfortable recollection when Anna watched a massive automated truck thunder past them. She’d insisted on taking the shotgun seat, kneading the grip of the Zenith automatic Croix had given her while the Frenchman sat behind the wheel of their black sedan. He had a connector running from one of his augmented arms into the dashboard, and he scanned the road ahead, his face set in concentration.

The interior of the car was dark, but in the backseat, D-Bar was lit by the glow of the laptop computer; the screen’s pale light gave his face a corpselike pallor.

“I see him,” said Croix. “Five hundred meters ahead. Confirm?” He threw the question over his shoulder.

When D-Bar didn’t reply, Anna turned in her seat. The hacker blinked and looked at her. There was a mix of emotions on his face that she couldn’t read. “Oh. Yeah,” he managed. “Confirm.”

“He’s turning off the motorway,” Croix noted as the van slipped into a feed lane. “Heading into the city. We need to know where he’s going.”

Anna listened, but she was watching the glow of the taillights from the target vehicle with almost feral intensity. In her mind’s eye she could see only the face of Gunther Hermann, that and the moment of Matt Ryan’s murder, over and over.

Geneva International Airport—Grand-Saconnex—Switzerland

“We’re in,” said the other team leader. “ Tail section clear. Moving to secure lower deck.”

“ Copy,” whispered Powell. “We’re moving aft.”

Saxon pressed himself into the wall and strained to listen. They had found no one in the cockpit, nothing but the jet’s controls set in standby mode. It rang a wrong note in his mind, and he hesitated, frowning.

“Something’s not right,” he said as Powell came to his side.

“What, that we got the drop on your Tyrant buddies?” he husked. “Keep moving.” He gestured with the silenced FR-27 in his grip.

With Powell and another two of his men following on behind him, Saxon moved down past the galley to the doors of the ops room. He felt an unpleasant chill on his skin. Walking the halls of the jet so soon after having nearly died there did not sit well with him.

On a three-count, he tore open the door and fell into the room, looking for a target.

The ops center was empty, the consoles working quietly, screens showing a steady train of data as it scrolled past. He moved carefully into the middle of the room, a cold sweat forming between his shoulder blades.

“Clear,” said Powell, a note of disbelief in his voice. He tapped his comm. “Unit two. Move to the cabins. They could be sleeping. Execute whoever you find.”

“They’re not sleeping,” Saxon muttered. Something caught his eye and he moved to one of the control panels. It was part of the jet’s encrypted communications suite. The screen showed a series of active broadcast nodes. The first was highlighted on a map, moving through the Geneva suburbs. Hermann in the van , he thought.

Over the radio, he heard the voice from before report in. “ Sir, got something here in the cargo bay… Looks like chemical drums. Commercial-grade ammonium nitrate. Accelerants. Everything youd need to build a backyard IED.”

Powell’s brow furrowed. “Why the hell would they need that crap? We know the Tyrants have access to military-grade explosives…” He turned to the soldier with him. “Cooper, check everything in this room. We don’t want any surprises…”

Saxon’s attention was still on the comm system. He found a second node display; this one was a stream of encryption, shifting and moving. The location was static. He realized he was looking at a virtual icon for the jet and the ops room.

“Sir” said the operative on the lower deck, “ whatever they were making here, they built it already. All we got is leftovers.”

The color drained from Powell’s face. “A truck bomb…” He tapped his comm bead again. “Patch me in to Croix, right now!”

Saxon distantly registered the conversation, hearing Powell shouting an urgent warning to the L’Ombre field commander. He didn’t hear the words, instead tracing the line of the signals between the first and second Tyrant communication nodes; and beneath them both, he found a third.

It was isolated, away from either of the others. Saxon frowned, trying to interpret the complex web of signal and encoding; and then with a sudden, cold clarity, he understood what he was seeing.

None of the communications to Hermann had originated from the jet. All of them were coming from the third, concealed comm node, the identity and location displayed only as a single codeword— Icarus.

Wherever Namir and the Tyrants were, it wasn’t here. They were broadcasting to the jet, then letting the automated systems on the aircraft relay the signal to the van. Namir had to know that the Tyrants were being monitored.