1
When the gunshot’s muffled sound reached him, he was already dead. The man’s head snapped back, and he toppled softly onto the snow-covered ground. Quick steps approached, then dragged away the lifeless body. Swiftly, purposefully, a shadow slid past the spot where the guard had stood moments before when he’d been alive; the shadow studied the next obstacle.
Xi Liu stared at the heavy steel door in front of him, memorizing the details. He hadn’t had much time to plan the Novus attack, but given the resources available, he was sure the team would succeed.
Behind him, the muted roar of two hulking, dark vehicles grew stronger. Twelve seconds later, they sped past the entrance to the house the guard had been patrolling. The whirling snow whipped up by the cars drifted lazily around him. His black body armor and combat helmet—dark visor pulled shut—glittered.
Xi ignored the cold as it wrapped itself around his body. Two men, also wearing dark body armor, jumped out of the front car as it pulled to a stop. They ran past Xi and kneeled in front of the locked metal door. They performed their work silently and expertly, and when they were done; they quickly withdrew.
Another seven men stepped out of the vehicles and formed an attack formation behind Xi. He gave the sign, and five subdued explosions echoed through the darkness of the freezing Friday morning.
He loved this part of a job. The controlled chaos, the brutal violence. He signaled once more, and the men rushed past the broken, smoking door. A flight of stairs stood behind the door, bathed in red from the flashing warning lights. Sirens howled throughout the space, but Xi didn‘t care. It didn‘t matter; they had the element of surprise on their side.
Surefooted, he took the stairs two steps at a time, swinging deftly around the corner as he reached the second floor. A huge, bearded man stormed through the doorway in front of him, but the brute didn’t have time to say a word before Xi’s front man put a round in his skull. The man fell backward into the room he’d just exited, and voices screamed hysterically.
Xi smiled behind his dark visor and signaled for the others to push forward.
*
He froze when an explosion caused the entire building to shake. Plaster fell from the ceiling in chunks, and Felix Xavier jumped up. He rushed to the door, tore it open, and looked out into the hall. His corner office was the one furthest from the door that led to the stairwell. Flashing red lights and smoke rose from the stairs. This was clearly not a drill.
The dozens of men and women who populated this floor of the office landscape all stared at this mouth of a volcano that was the exit doorway. Everyone, that was, except Leo, who took three giant steps to meet the threat. Leo would do that—of course Leo would, the bastard. Always striving to do what needed to be done, even when it meant making a jackass move like this. The others looked at one another with barely concealed terror. Two seconds later, Leo’s body came flying back through the air, thudding hard against the hallway wall. He slumped over onto the floor, blood trickling from a gash in his temple. He was dead.
“Take shelter, now!” Felix shouted. But all the workers were screaming, and no one heard him. It was too late, anyway. Before anyone had time to react, the shadowy figures of doom arrived, spreading death and annihilation as they advanced with their weapons. Felix threw himself back into his office and slammed the door. He rushed over to the desk and retrieved his mobile phone.
His fingers were trembling so terribly that he had to press his thumb down with his left palm so the phone could read his fingerprint. The roar outside his door was closer now. A sudden gunshot smashed the window in his office door, and thousands of glass shards rained down onto the carpet. The jagged hole exposed the red, flashing chaos outside.
“Hugo! Can you hear me?” Felix stared wildly at the phone. Nothing. He called out for his brother again. “Hugo!”
“Felix?” came the voice at last. “What’s happening?”
“We’re under attack! Call the police! They’re killing everyone!”
A dark, heavy shape loomed in the smoking doorway, and Felix froze as the black visor turned in his direction and locked onto him. Felix raised his arms and dropped the phone.
“Please. I’m unarmed. Please. I have a wife and children.”
The dark figure raised his weapon and released a long burst of bullets, never hearing the voice that continued screaming from the phone on the floor long after Felix had fallen.
2
The light turned red, and he ran across the street into the park. The thin, crunchy layer of snow on the ground creaked under each footstep as Hugo Xavier continued along the edge of the pond. A flock of birds ascended as one from the ice cap and headed south.
Hugo’s hot breath rose in white puffs as he sprinted the last stretch around the pond and continued down toward the Margaret Pavilion. At this hour, the park was more or less abandoned; the sounds of the city were far away. An ambulance howled somewhere in the distance. He raced up the wide stairs toward the amphitheater, slipping and nearly falling. His leg muscles burned with lactic acid when he finally reached the top. He raised his arms in silent triumph.
He was alone—or that’s what he’d thought. Hugo turned his head slightly, listening. No, he wasn’t alone. His well-developed sense of danger had saved his life more than once, and now the alarm was going off. He looked around, studying his surroundings. A dark hedge to the left. Trees lining a steep hill to the right. His eyes were drawn to the left once more. Rotting, brown-black leaves hung down and obscured the view.
There was an opening in the hedge. Hugo moved toward it, his senses on full alert. Snow swirled through the opening, but he ignored it and continued through. Then he saw her.
A woman’s big, frightened eyes stared at him. A man wearing a dirty, tattered cap stood behind her, holding her in a tight grip with a hand over her mouth. Another man stood next to him, staring hatefully at Hugo, a knife in his hand. He sneered, showing off his crooked, yellow teeth, and croaked, “Walk away.”
Stepping closer, Hugo pointed at the knife. “Be careful not to hurt yourself,” he said.
A hiss came from the other thug: “Cut him!”
The woman’s eyes widened like watery globes. Hugo looked from her to the two men, then back again. The most pressing thing was to disarm the guy with the knife. After that, Hugo could help the woman escape the other one’s grip. He flexed his fingers inside his thin mittens to force blood into them.
“I’m only going to say this once. Drop the knife and walk away.” He paused. “Just go.”
The first man stuttered, “C . . . cut him!”
The yellow-teeth man glanced anxiously at his friend and then back at the stranger who had arrived from nowhere. His gaze flickered. It had been going so well. They could’ve easily robbed the woman and maybe had some fun with her. But then this idiot had come in and ruined things.
The man, gangly and scruffy, took a step forward and waved the knife in front of him menacingly.
“You damn— I’ll—” Before he could say anything else, Hugo slid toward him like mercury and grabbed his wrist with an iron grip. He pulled it down swiftly and then yanked upward. The man gasped as white-hot pain radiated up his arm. The knife dropped from his fingers, but before it could land in the snow, Hugo caught it with his left hand and thrust it upward through the man’s bicep.