‘Silly girl,’ the woman said.
She moved for Aviary.
Jay broke into a sprint, but he knew as he ran that he wasn’t going to make it in time. Aviary didn’t retreat. She didn’t evade. She didn’t do anything. Her body was frozen in place. She clutched the knife over her chest. Her limbs were locked, her gaze transfixed on the woman with the engraved sword.
Jay ran toward the ramp.
The engraved sword drew back, ready to skewer her.
Aviary was still.
The blade drove in. Aviary stopped breathing.
Jay screamed.
Something shimmered behind Crazy Jamaican Woman.
Someone was standing behind her. The engraved sword thrust forward, but wide. It missed Aviary. As Jay drew closer, he saw someone remove a knife from inside the woman’s collarbone and sweep it across the side of her neck. Blood pulsed from below her neck. The operative stepped back from the woman, let her slump to the floor. With her subclavian artery severed under the collarbone, she would bleed out inside ten seconds. Severing the carotid arteries in her neck was just a failsafe measure.
Jay knew the technique because it was part of the sentry removal module in Project GATE.
Operative, he thought, drawing to a careful halt twenty feet away.
The operative glared at him. This one wasn’t Sophia’s friend. This operative wore a mask like the Blue Berets. Jay stood maybe ten feet from the discarded pistol. The operative didn’t appear to be carrying anything other than the knife. And if he did, he didn’t move for it.
Jay lowered his sword and watched the operative shimmer out of visible wavelength. Jay adjusted to infrared and watched the operative move past Aviary and up the ramp without so much as glancing at the redhead.
Nasira moved past Jay. ‘Check on DC!’
Jay turned on his heel and ran back to DC. He was still lying face down. Jay reached him and checked his pulse.
DC’s heart was still going strong.
He rolled DC onto his side to find him blinking. His chest rose and fell with each breath.
‘You lucky son of a bitch,’ Jay said. He slapped DC on the chest.
DC coughed, his hands reaching for the shattered ceramic plate under his vest.
‘Oh right, sorry,’ Jay said.
Chapter 57
Sophia stood at the perimeter of the haze. She couldn’t see or hear Denton, but she could smell his anger and desperation. He was close by, that she was sure of.
She heard his footsteps crunching on debris before she saw him through the haze. He held the transmitter in one hand.
‘Which platform is the meteorite on?’ Denton said.
Before Sophia could even think of an answer, he’d already taken it from her.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Take me to it. Or I kill all your friends.’
‘If you do that, you lose the meteorite forever,’ she said. ‘How many years have you been—?’
‘If I hit the transmit switch,’ Denton said, ‘that’s a two for one. Jay and Nasira, last I checked.’
His finger hovered over the transmit switch. He emerged from the haze, his white buttoned shirt streaked in blood and dirt, torn to reveal a pale gray covert vest underneath.
‘You’ve already lost Damien,’ Denton said. ‘His blood’s on your hands now. Tell me exactly where the meteorite is.’
She was about to respond but he roared, screamed, at her. He’d heard her answer before she had a chance to speak and hadn’t taken it too kindly. He gripped the transmitter tightly. She thought he was going to press the button but he relented.
‘You don’t know where it is!’ he yelled. ‘How about we go find out?’
Sophia thought of DC. She tried to undo the thought but it was too late. Denton had seen it. His face twisted into a close approximation of a smile.
‘There’s a start,’ he said. ‘Take me to your guard dog. Take me to DC.’
‘No,’ she said.
His finger wavered over the button.
You won’t press it, she thought.
‘Maybe I will,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll just destroy it all. The meteorite. Everyone you care about. Most importantly, you.’
I don’t need to read your mind to know you’re lying.
Denton stepped closer.
The meteorite is worth more to you than me.
‘Care to find out?’ he said.
You’re scared.
Denton’s thumb ran the edge of the transmit button.
‘So are you,’ he said.
Sophia tried not to think of any of her friends in particular, tried not to divulge any details Denton might find useful. She focused on him. On what he was doing now. She couldn’t consider a strategy because he’d see it coming.
His hand trembled. He discarded the transmitter, started toward her. He wasn’t armed, but he didn’t seem to care. He ripped off the last of his shirt, leaving only his suit pants and gray ballistic vest — shoulders and triceps shiny with perspiration. His body gave off fresh waves of fury. Fury with little beyond.
Under normal circumstances, Sophia would have welcomed the opportunity. And she wouldn’t stop. She would do what she should have done in Denver. She would kill him.
But now it was different. He had an edge.
Denton reached striking range. Sophia sidestepped. He was already there. His fists worked in rapid succession. She deflected, moved, kept the blows off her body. But he came in with precisely the right movement. The right timing. Faster. Quicker. Every time he got better. She was running out of reaction time. The blows glanced off her body.
She thought of Damien, possibly dead. She thought of Czarina, dead. All because of him. She wanted to tear him apart. Her arms weaved between his. A blow glanced off her cheek. She absorbed the blow, moved along its trajectory. Drove her knee into his sternum.
Denton avoided it, drove his foot hard into the side of her knee. She buckled, fell to her other knee. His elbow glanced her forehead. She moved barely in time, right into the path of an open palm. She felt her nose crunch under the pressure of his strike. She fell to her back.
She used her legs to entrap him, knock him off balance — but he moved around them effortlessly. Came in from her side. One hand bore down on her forehead, twisting her head to one side. The other closed over her neck.
‘I’m going to take your life,’ he breathed. ‘And then I’m going to take my rock.’
The pressure on her skull was incredible. But it wasn’t what worried her. His fingers crushed her neck.
She couldn’t breathe.
Her vision frayed.
Her thoughts faded.
She brushed her hand down his arm. He seemed confused by the motion. She focused. With the same hand, she pushed his hand off. The grip broke. Denton stared at it.
She grabbed a piece of debris nearly. It was thin, disc-like. She didn’t think, just brought the object around. It slammed into the side of his neck. He almost lost consciousness from the blow. Sophia looked down to see she had struck him in the neck with an iPad. She was lying in a pile of rubble of Apple products from the store above.
With both hands, she smashed the back of the iPad on Denton’s head. He reeled backward. He managed to stay on both feet, faltered, shook his head.
‘How—?’
Sophia smiled. ‘Electromagnetic disturbance,’ she said. ‘Disrupts the signals in your brain, for a change.’
She could feel blood run warmly down her lips, down her chin. It was her blood.
‘I didn’t see those blows,’ he said.
‘Because you were choking me,’ she said. ‘And I couldn’t …’
Think.
It was how she’d been trained to fight in Belize. It was fast because there was no conscious thought to slow it down. And it worked because Denton didn’t have a sneak preview.