Hardesty dashed from his cover, changing position, seeking a better angle. The long sniper rifle wavered at his hip, a spear made of black iron.
It was exactly the move Saxon knew he would make; the man wasn't one to take a fight on the terms that were offered to him, that was his weakness. Hardesty always wanted an engagement his way, and sometimes that wasn't how things worked out. Saxon, by contrast, had learned through hard experience how to play the hand he was dealt.
He gave a book cart a savage kick and it spun across the floor, cutting off Hardesty's escape route; then he mantled a desk and came diving down on the man, leading with his augmented arm.
Hardesty brought up the sniper rifle to block him and Saxon punched the gun in the breech, hearing a satisfying crunch as the mechanism inside broke under the impact. He followed through and brought the other man to the ground, sweeping in with a punch that knocked
Hardesty's sunglasses from his narrow, hairless face.
Saxon forced the weight of his forearm across Hardesty's throat and pressed down with all the power he could muster. He heard a strangled yelp die in the other man's mouth, and the sniper flailed, bringing up his hands in what for a second looked like a gesture of surrender, palms open, fingers spread.
Then the shape of Hardesty's right hand bifurcated and reassembled itself, little finger and thumb sliding back, middle fingers opening in a fan until the hand resembled some kind of strange insect; at the same moment, a slot across the palm of Hardesty's left hand grew a wide, flat dagger-tip of sharpened steel.
He slammed the palm-blade into Saxon's gut, but the jacket protecting him deflected the first few stabs, the tip skipping off the articulated panels of armor embedded in it. Hardesty snapped the spider-hand around Saxon's throat and contracted it. He stabbed again, and this time the blade plunged through into the flesh of Saxon's belly.
Pain shot through the soldier in a hot, burning surge, and he let it drive him. Saxon's free hand scrambled for purchase and caught Hardesty as he tried to twist the blade. The sniper pushed back and the men shifted, staggering, caught in a lethal embrace.
Saxon's fingers slipped on the palm-blade, his own blood preventing him from getting a solid grip; at the same time, Hardesty was inexorably tightening his own hold on the soldier. Warning icons flicked into view at the corner of his cone of vision, projected directly onto his retina by his implanted health monitor. Oxygen levels were dropping; he was getting dizzy. Had he still had organic eyes, Saxon would have been on the verge of a gray-out.
"You won't win," spat his opponent. "I will fucking gut you!"
Holding on to Hardesty was like trying to keep his hands on a snake, the other man writhing and shifting, doing everything he could to break free of the soldier's grip. Saxon had the strength but not the agility to match him; and if the sniper disengaged, he wouldn't be able to close to combat range again.
Finish it now, he told himself, before it's too late.
With a roar of effort, Saxon dropped his cyberarm and snagged Hardesty's wrist. Twisting his grip violently, he bent the other man back and yanked the hand with the palm-blade against the direction of the joint. The ball socket squealed and snapped back, forcing the dagger-tip up and away.
Hardesty's dead eyes widened as he suddenly understood what Saxon was going to do. For a moment, they pressed against each other, strength against strength; but it was a fight that the American was never going to win. Saxon had the weight, the power, the stamina.
Ignoring the pain singing from his knife wound, Saxon locked his gaze with the other man and slowly, relentlessly, forced the blade into the base of Hardesty's jaw, jamming it up though the roof of his mouth in a spatter of blood. The spider-hand juddered and snapped open, and a flood of air filled Saxon's starved lungs.
Hardesty tried to speak, but all he could do was emit a froth of pink fluid from his lips. With a last grunt of exertion, Saxon shoved him away and the sniper spun backward, clipping the edge of the balcony. His body tumbled over the rail and fell to the marble below, landing in a heap.
At the far end of the library, the main doors slammed open and smoke grenades entered the space, trailing mist behind them. Figures in combat armor moved behind the smokescreen, the thin red threads of targeting lasers sweeping ahead of them. Saxon heard voices calling out commands in French.
He grimaced at the pain from the cut and ran for the window; beyond were the grounds and a mission as yet incomplete.
Location Unknown
When the cell door opened again, Anna vowed she would be ready; but to her horror it wasn't Jaron Namir who slid open the metal hatch. She found herself staring at the bigger man she'd seen in the corridor before, the one with the buzz cut and the thuggish swagger. He surveyed the small chamber with a predatory eye; Anna saw that the scarring down one side of his face was the puckered tracery of burn damage. His jawline seemed off somehow-until she realized that his jaw was actually a prosthetic of plastic pseudoflesh. She wondered what could have damaged a man so brutally; but he carried his ugliness like a badge of honor. The mercenary wanted people to see the mutilation, as if it were an act of defiance.
His nostrils flared around the brass bull-ring through his nose, and he grinned, ducking slightly as he entered the room. "Lawrence Barrett, at your service," he said in a mocking tone, spinning out his drawl in parody of a Southern gentleman. "Pardon me if I'm the bearer of some bad news."
It was all Anna could do not to back away as he approached. She still felt woozy and unsteady on her feet. Her hands gathered behind her back and she watched him come closer, waiting for the right moment, fighting down her panic.
Barrett cocked his head. "Your value has taken a dive. Seems your pal Saxon didn't hold up his end of the deal." He grunted in amusement. "He gave you up. How about that?"
Despite herself, Anna felt a sudden, sharp jolt of emotion. She tried to ignore it. She was on her own here; she'd been on her own all along, from the very start…
"I know you," Barrett said, studying her. "Yeah. Washington. The Dansky kill. You were there, right?"
Anna's blood ran cold, her thoughts snapping back through the reports she'd read and reread about the incident in Georgetown, the data on the faceless figures who had ambushed the limo. He was one of the killers, part of the same team as Hermann.
Barrett kept talking. "Couldn't let it go, could you? Why'd you women always do that, huh? Never leave well enough alone?" He was looming over her now, close enough that she could smell his breath.
"What… do you want?" she managed.
He showed her a cruel smile. "Namir reckons you know some things. You wouldn't talk to him." Anna swallowed, her throat tight with the pain where the other Tyrant had held her as he questioned her about Janus. "I'll bet you're gonna talk to me, though," Barrett went on. "Once we get better acquainted, 'course."
She knew what would come next. Barrett bent down slightly, reaching up with the heavy, thick digits of his cyberarm, closing the distance between their faces; and that was when she hit him.
Anna put every ounce of force she could muster into the swing from her balled fist, bringing it around in a fast haymaker. Even as she threw the punch, she was stepping into him, snatching at the bull-head belt buckle at his waist. She had only once chance to strike; with Barrett's heavily muscled, augmented frame, if he landed any kind of return blow on her she would be done.