The smell of jet fuel hung thick in the cold rain, burning the back of my raw throat. My breath rattled in my chest with every inhale. My right shoulder throbbed where the falling concrete in the bunker had clipped me, and my burned neck stung under the freezing downpour. I gripped the aluminum handrail of the mobile airstair with my blistered hand, leaning heavily on it to keep my trembling legs from folding under me. Julian backed away toward the rear of the cabin, cradling his broken arm against his ribs like a beaten dog.Victor Cross, however, did not flinch. He stood on the top platform of the airstair, looking down at me with cold, calculating detachment. He didn't look angry. He looked like an engineer studying a stubborn valve."You look terrible, Leo," Victor said, his voice flat and perfectly composed over the dying whine of the jet engines. "You are bleeding from your neck. You are coughing up soot. You look like a laborer who just crawled out of a boiler explosion.""I