The hum was a physical presence, a drill bit working its way through the concrete floor and into the soles of his shoes. It was the sound of the Echo Protocol, the low, malevolent song of fifty souls being held in a state of perpetual, screaming torment. The air in the service tunnel was cold enough to see his breath, but it tasted of hot copper and the faint, electric tang of ozone. It tasted like static.
Sineus moved forward, his pistol a cold, solid weight in his hand. Anja Petrova was a half-step behind him, the heavy case containing the Aegis Conduit slung over her shoulder. Her face was a pale, determined mask in the dim, caged light of the corridor. They had come this far on a plan forged in a frozen ravine, a two-pronged key of her knowledge and his power. One chance to unmake the world Kestrel was building.
Ahead, the corridor ended at a heavy, circular steel door, the kind they used to seal bank vaults. The hum was loudest here, a vibration that made his teeth ache and the bones behind his eyes throb in sympathy. This was the antechamber. The final barrier. He gave Petrova a sharp nod, his grip tightening on his pistol. She shifted the weight of the Conduit, her knuckles white where she gripped the strap, and nodded back. The time for words was over.
He reached for the manual release wheel on the door, but it never moved. A section of the wall to their left slid open with a pneumatic hiss that was too quiet, too smooth. It wasn't a door he had seen on her schematics. It was a trap.
Viktor Morozov stepped out. The KGB enforcer was a block of granite poured into a general’s uniform, his face impassive, his eyes as cold and dead as a winter sky. He wasn't surprised to see them. He wasn't hunting. He had been waiting. Two more men in the same severe uniforms flanked him, their sidearms already drawn. The use of the stolen keycard had been a dinner bell, ringing all the way from Zurich.
— The state requires its property, Doctor, — Morozov said. His voice was a low, flat baritone, devoid of any emotion. It was the voice of a man filing a report.
His men didn't go for Sineus. They moved with a brutal, practiced efficiency, their movements economical and final. They went for Petrova. One grabbed her arm, twisting it behind her back with a sharp crack of bone and cartilage. The other ripped the Aegis Conduit from her shoulder, the case clattering to the concrete floor. She didn't cry out. A sharp, choked gasp was the only sound she made.
She didn't fight them. Her body went rigid, but her eyes found Sineus. They were dark, furious, and perfectly clear. There was no fear in them. There was no plea for help. There was only a silent, desperate, furious command. Continue. Finish it. It was the final piece of their plan, the one they had never spoken aloud. The part where one of them might not make it to the end. Her sacrifice, made in a split second, to keep the mission alive.
Sineus’s hand tightened on his pistol, the checkered grip biting into his palm. His mind was a cold, fast machine, running the numbers. Three of them. All armed. Morozov was a known quantity, a brute, but a professional one. The other two were shadows. He had seven rounds in his magazine. He could start the fight. He might even finish it. But it would cost time. Seconds he didn't have. Their plan depended on a four-second window of vulnerability she had to create. A firefight here would burn that window to ash.
He saw the choice laid out before him on the cold concrete floor. The mission, or the woman who had made the mission possible. His partner. The price was her life, traded for a chance at the world’s. For a bare 0.8 seconds, he hesitated, the weight of that choice a physical pressure in his chest.
Then he honored hers.
He turned and ran. He sprinted down the short corridor toward the circular steel door of the core chamber, leaving her behind. He didn't look back. He couldn't. The sound of her muffled struggle, the solid, meaty thud of a fist hitting flesh, the scrape of her boots as they dragged her away—he sealed it all out. He cut it from his mind, a quick, dirty severing that left a raw, bleeding edge.
The side panel slid shut with another soft hiss, cutting off the sounds of the struggle. The corridor was silent again, save for the oppressive, soul-grinding hum of the machine. The static that had been a faint shimmer in the air now felt like a shroud, thick and heavy, clinging to his skin. It was the sound of his own isolation. The plan was broken. The two-pronged key was gone. He was alone.
He reached the vault door, his breath tearing at his lungs, his heart hammering against his ribs. He slammed his palm against the emergency access panel beside it. The light flashed from red to green. The heavy steel door began to retract into the wall with a low groan of tortured metal.
Beyond it lay the core chamber. Beyond it lay Kestrel. He had seven rounds, a lifetime of bad memories, and a promise to a woman he had just left to die.
It would have to be enough.
He stepped through the doorway, into the heart of the machine, his pistol held steady in a two-handed grip. The air inside was thick and viscous, charged with an energy that made the hairs on his arms stand up. He was no longer a partner in a desperate plan. He was a ghost, come to haunt the man who had made him one.
The hunt was over. The execution had begun.
