Deus Ex - Icarus Effect (42 page)

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.

Her fist hit him on the cheekbone and slid up to strike Barrett in the eye. The brass sobriety coin, held between her index and forefinger, ripped

across his skin and dug into him, the blunt edge ripping at the scarred flesh. Pain ignited in a dull, burning shock through her knuckles, and the

force of the landed punch was so much that she felt her thumb dislocate behind the coin. Anna followed through by slamming her kneecap into

Barrett's crotch; she was rewarded by a concussive grunt from the big man.

He flailed, clawing at his face and the blood streaming from his eye. "Damn, bitch!" Barrett struck out blindly and she was almost felled by a

black metal hand that snatched at empty air near her head. Anna threw herself past the mercenary toward the still-open door to the cell, but Barrett was faster than she had anticipated, and he was

turning, reaching for her.

He grabbed the trailing hood of her top and snagged it, pulling hard. For a second, Anna was yanked off balance, but then she wriggled free and

slipped out of the hoodie, half running, half stumbling out of the cell.

Barrett made a wordless noise of anger and came after her, his face lit with fury. She caught a glimpse of his expression and knew that the man

would beat her to broken if he got hold of her.

Anna slammed the heel of her fist into the door control, and it slid shut—but not fast enough to prevent Barrett from getting his forearm

through after her. The cyberlimb thrashed right and left, bending in angles that would have been unnatural for a human arm. "I'm gonna make

you pay for that, you cop whore!" he shouted. The hatch jammed in place, and she could hear Barrett snarling as he tried to force it open. "You

got nowhere to go!"

She ignored him and broke into a run down the narrow, windowless corridor, frantically searching for anything that could tell her where she

was, and more important, how to get away. The corridor split, and one branch ended in a steep metal staircase. Anna took it, two steps at a

time, and felt a faint vibration through the frame, like humming engines.

Then she was emerging on the next level, a wider corridor lit by bright daylight through wide rectangular windows. Anna lurched toward the

windows, shaking her head to force herself to concentrate, fighting off the last dregs of the sedative in her system.

The floor shifted slightly beneath Anna's feet, and the abrupt understanding of exactly where she was hit her like a shock of cold water. Out the

windows, she could see the blue-green of Lake Geneva ranging away, on the far shore the Rue de Lausanne highway and the suburbs north of

the city. She was on a boat, racing away from Geneva at a steady rate of knots.

Anna glanced around, desperately trying to map this new information onto her current predicament. The vessel was a large one, an opulent

three-hundred-foot megayacht, one of the many that circled the lake in the employ of the wealthy who made the resorts between here and

Montreux their homes. The smoky-colored sandalwood paneling and elegant brass details all around conflicted sharply with the stark steel and

gray of the lower decks where the Tyrants had been holding her.

If she stayed here, they would kill her. Perhaps not at first, not until they had been able to wring every last morsel of information from her, no

matter how trivial; but her death was certain if she did not escape. With the boat, they could take her anywhere, north to some isolated location

in the Swiss mountains, south into France, or perhaps nowhere, adrift on the lake and isolated from any prying eyes until they decided to pitch

her overboard ...

Clutching her injured hand, Anna hurried toward the stern of the yacht, alert for any sign of danger. She still had the brass coin, gripped in her

clawed, bloody hand.

A sound from belowdeck reached her as she moved away; a howling snarl of effort and the shriek of a mechanism forced open against its

tolerances.

She broke into a run.

Ariana Park—Geneva—Switzerland

A four-wheel ATV veered off the pathway as Saxon reached the Space Memorial, the Swiss civil police officer in the saddle leaning into the turn

to bring the quad bike back toward his target. Riding in the jump seat behind him, a second lawman brought up a pump-action MAO shotgun

and fired twice at the fleeing mercenary.

Saxon heard the low hum of the thick tangler gel-rounds as they passed near him. The semifluid was a biodegradable hyperglue compound, a

nonlethal man-stopper that adhered to anything, and a single hit would be enough to arrest any plans of escape he might have.

He dove into a deliberate tumble, letting the curve of the shallow hill roll him down and away from the metal spar of the memorial sculpture.

The ATV came after him, the rider following Saxon over the blind rise.

The Swiss officer met a strike from nowhere as Saxon suddenly reversed his motion and came running back to meet them as they crested the

hill. His powerful cyberleg hit the rider in the chest and took him from the saddle. Uncontrolled, the quad bike spun out and pitched the cop

with the shotgun into the grass.

Saxon grabbed the rider and dragged him into a sleeper hold. Using his knee to pressure the man against his grip, in seconds his target had

blacked out and Saxon was running again.

The other policeman was on his feet, working the slide to pump a new round into the shotgun; Saxon heard him calling out over the police band,

requesting backup. He was on him before he could fire, the two men colliding in a crunch of impact that drew a howl of pain from the other man.

For a moment, they wrestled over command of the shotgun, but then Saxon got the angle and shoved hard, slamming the butt of the weapon

into the officer's faceplate. It shattered and he cried out again.

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.