James Swallow - Icarus Effect

Saxon snatched the shotgun and used the gel-round to put him down; the fat plug of bright pink resin frothed and foamed, expanding into a gooey, stringy mass that only a tailored solvent could dissolve. The lawman swore in a torrent of violent, gutter French to Saxon's back as he made for the stuttering ATV, where it lay upended on the lawns.

The quad bike was still operational, and Saxon flipped it, gunning the motor. As he set off down the slope, the vu-phone in his tac vest buzzed.

He slapped at the device, opening the channel. "What have you got, Janus?"

The reply was relayed to the mastoid comm. "A possibility. You must understand\ the situation is fluid and there's a lot of virtual traffic in this quadrant-"

"Save it," he snapped, leaning into the handlebars, fighting to control the pain from the wound in his gut. "The Swiss cops are throwing a net over this city and I don't have long before they take me down. I need answers now!" "I understand'," said the hacker. "Cross-referencing the code name 'Icarus' with known Illuminati holdings and surrogates yielded a large number of returnsbut only one of consequence. Statistically, it's your best shot at locating Anna Kelso, if she's still alive."

Saxon took the ATV across a service road and out across the railroad running parallel with the parkland. "Go on." In the distance, he could heard the rattle of approaching police helicopters.

"A vessel, registered to the DeBeers Foundation, a private yacht owned by a corporate interest Juggernaut has long suspected to be an

Illuminati front."

"Icarus is a boat? Namir must be using it as a secondary command post…"

"Exactly. And it's currently five miles from your present location, heading northeast at four knots. I'm sending you an image now."

Saxon toggled the brake and the quad bike skidded to a halt. "How the hell am I going to get out there?"

When Janus spoke again, there was a hard edge under the hacker's words. "Listen to me. I can't help you with this anymore. I've already gone well beyond my own… limits in order to assist you. There's a marina on the far side of the botanical gardens, close to your location. I suggest you appropriate some waterborne transport there and attempt to intercept the Icarus."

"What limits?" Saxon demanded, with a wince. "You know who these people are, Janus. You know what they are capable of. You can't back off now. You're in too deep. We all are."

The line was silent for a long moment, and Saxon began to wonder if the hacker had cut the connection and gone dark for the last time; but then the response came again. "I have done questionable things." The strange non-voice wavered, static lacing the tones, pushing them back and forth between male and female, high and low. "It's disturbing."

"I know what you mean," said Saxon with feeling.

"I'm trying to make amends. I don't know if I can do any more…"

"You can. Help me," he insisted. "Help Kelso. Help me save at least one life today."

The reply was firm. "This will be the last time. I'm tapping into the civil police network. I'm going to flag the Icarus with an Interpol stop and-search warrant, alert the Swiss. But I can't do any more to disrupt whatever plans the Tyrants have. That's up to you."

"Thanks." He hesitated. "Look, Janus…"

"No," said the hacker, anticipating the question forming in his mind. "You're never going to know me. I'm not ready to reveal myself yet.

Good luck, Ben."

Saxon frowned. "Yeah. You too," he replied; but the line had already been severed.

M V Icarus- Lake Geneva-Switzerland

The yacht's name was emblazoned on a brass plaque near the sundeck, between a spray of crystal ornaments and antique loungers. She frowned and kept moving aft, shouldering open a slatted door that led into the boat's tender garage.

The small bay extended across the width of the Icarus's hull; scuba gear, water skis, and a compact motor-launch hung from a complex set of lifting gears and equipment racks over her head, while a curved staircase led to the passenger decks above. One wall was a retractable gate for deploying the smaller craft, and inset in the wooden decking there was a circular dive hatch made of heavy-gauge polyglass, looking down a drop tube to the frothy waters of the lake. She hesitated over it. The rebreather implant in her chest was capable of keeping a human being going for several minutes without the need to take air, but could she risk exiting the boat this way? Through the glass she saw a churning chop of dark blue and white foam. The dive hatch was never designed to be used while the yacht was in motion-the second she hit the water, Anna would be exposed to the riptide from the powerful hydrojet motors propelling the Icarus. She had to find another escape route.

Skirting the patches of seawater on the slatted wooden deck, Anna scanned the space for anything she could use. With her elbow, she broke open the emergency case on the dash of the motor-launch, and greedily snatched up the flare launcher inside. The device was shaped like a pistol grip with no barrel; it was hardly a weapon, but she was in no position to be choosy.

Anna stuffed the flare gun into her pocket and pulled at a heavy duffel that lay discarded along the launch's keel, hoping that the contents might be something more useful. She pulled at the rope ties and the bag opened up to her.

Inside, D-Bar stared blankly into nothing, his face ashen. A purple-black contusion discolored the flesh around his throat where his neck had been twisted and broken.

She swore and jerked back. Dive weights clattered out of the duffel and onto the deck. For an instant, Anna's anger at the young hacker boiled over and she allowed herself to hate him for his betrayal; but then the emotion bled away and all she could see before her was the corpse of a frightened youth who had got in over his head.

He was not long dead, she guessed, examining the body. Only a matter of hours had passed since the double cross on the Mont Blanc bridge, and while Anna had been left to ride out her dreamless chemical sleep, Namir and the others had doubtless put D-Bar to the harshest of questions. Looking him over, she found more bruising and contusions; she tried to imagine what he had gone through, perhaps believing himself the equal of the Tyrants for the dispatch of Croix and the gift of her as his prisoner, believing that right up until the moment they decided to torture him.

The hacker would not have lasted long, and for all that he told Namir, all the secrets he gave up, the killer would have hurt him all the same, just to be certain he had not lied. What did he tell them? she wondered. The names of his Juggernaut cohorts? The locations of the New Sons of Freedom? It was troubling to think what could be done with such information.

"Patrick" she said, gently closing his eyes, "you stupid kid."

The words left her mouth as a ripple shimmered on one of the puddles across the deck, in the corner of her sight; and a coldly familiar sense of no longer being alone raced through her. Anna reached into the launch and her hand tightened around the shaft of a boathook.

Without warning, she spun in place and swung the wooden rod out in a fast arc. It swept through the air and collided with something invisible, splintering. In the next second, a ghost formed out of nothing and Federova batted the boathook away, sneering as she came in to attack the other woman.

Federova was so fast; in the apartment, the EMP charge had leveled the ground between the two of them, but here and now Anna Kelso was totally outclassed.

Out of blind fury and raw fear, Anna grabbed the gear rack above her head and hauled herself up. She kicked out to meet Federova as the other woman came in, and her heel connected with the assassin's face, knocking her aside. Before Federova could recover, Anna was running for the stairs, crashing up toward the main deck.