“Fuck!” Rachel pulled her thumb into her mouth, then grimaced at the taste of blood and machine lubricant. She lay back and glared up at the Albatross drone, suspended between two chairs to facilitate easier access to its electronic circuitry. Like everything inside it, the
“Your secretary made me wait forty five minutes,” said the minister, his English heavily accented. His face, long and tired, sketched an aggrieved expression. Vikram knew he’d waited twenty minutes at most, and generously supposed that the minister’s prejudice was a result of being accustomed
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Three days from their departure, Ekaterina watched from the deck of her ship as the gagged and zip-tied captives were loaded out onto the angled bank. Between the narrow spurs of the mountain, sand had begun to build itself up. In a few weeks time,
More“I chose each of you for a reason. No one wants you to live and thrive as much as I do.”
Vikram was running out of space. The bridge was one of the airier, open spaces on the Walsh, but his reading list was infinite, and he had programmed a preset to allow even the visual material manifested at the edge of the room to refocus
Vikram took his time with the meal they brought him, puzzling over the source of the fresh arugula salad and the grated carrot that adorned it. The raw pecans were even more baffling, and he could tell by their texture they hadn’t been frozen or
Of the establishments in which he had stakes, Renoir Karzai most preferred the Cafe Perdu. It was a misnomer, since it had never served coffee, but the atmosphere was almost pleasant by end-of-the-world standards. It occupied a waterfront corner in the Market District, commanding a
More“You’re right. I don’t really give a fuck. I’m here about the girl.”
They cringed back as Sergei walked forward, singling out one of them, a girl with wide eyes and long, blood soaked hair. He touched the point of his bayonet to her cheek, and she turned her face away, quivering. “Mir, malen’kaya devochka,” he purred in
It was always something to watch Sergei commit himself to full physical combat. Vikram was aware that sparring partners had always been somewhat elusive for his companion. It wasn’t until the Vory had begun his formal training that he’d acquired some real experience against skilled
“You’ve got that look.” For a moment Delaware didn’t seem to hear her, so deep was his concentration. Julia Ortiz followed his gaze out to the western horizon, which was now no more than a strip of bright blue, left behind by a dull sunset.