2026-10-26 17:01:27The freighter was older than it looked from a distance, and from a distance it had not looked new. Its hull carried the particular discoloration of a vessel that had spent many years in warm water, the paint peeling in long strips below the waterline, the deck fittings worn smooth and salt-bleached. Forty-odd people had gathered on the dock beside it, most of them from the Frontier Republic, most of them carrying more luggage than was practical and wearing the expression of people who had mad
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Chapter 063
The second floor of Briarwood Clinic, 263 Drake Street, London.Mason worked without rushing. He swabbed the forceps with antiseptic, laid out the gauze and bandage roll within easy reach, and glanced over at Soren, who had taken off his shirt and was lying flat on the narrow cot with the particular stillness of someone managing serious pain."If it hurts," Mason said, "keep it down. Neighbors on both sides, and they don't need the excitement.""I'll manage," Soren said."Sure you will." Mason pulled the stool close and bent over the wound. "Don't see many people take a bullet and still move around like that. I'll give you that much."He inserted the forceps. The entry channel was shallow, which told him something, and a few seconds of careful probing confirmed it. The slug came out misshapen, its nose flattened and its jacket partially stripped, the kind of deformation that happened when a round hit something solid before it hit flesh.Mason held it up
Chapter 062
The sound of crumpling metal faded behind him as Soren kept driving.He did the math without taking his eyes off the road. Twelve rounds fired total. Five left in the chamber. No spare magazine, which meant those five bullets had to do two jobs at once: keep him alive long enough to find more ammunition, and ideally secure a better weapon while he was at it. Neither task was going to be straightforward.He came out onto the approach to Sable Plaza and immediately saw that it was finished. The police had beaten him there. A cordon of marked vehicles blocked the intersection, and a spike strip had been laid across the full width of the road, its teeth glinting under the streetlights. Beyond it, more than a dozen armed officers had taken up positions along the barrier and were already raising their weapons toward the Beetle.Soren cut the wheel hard and turned southeast.The wrong direction. Every meter he covered now was a meter further from the SIS building, and h
Chapter 061
The smoke was still thick when the shooting started.White haze rolled through the aisles of the warehouse, clinging to the shelves in pale drifts, and somewhere inside it, a second figure moved. Soren caught the muzzle flash before he caught anything else, two bursts of orange light cutting through the murk, and he was already moving, dropping low and shifting his position as the rounds punched through cardboard boxes and sent splinters of wood spinning into the air.He returned fire. Controlled, deliberate, sweeping the barrel toward the sound of the shots. The bullets chewed through shelving and packaging, and neither of them hit anything that mattered.Then both guns ran dry at the same moment.The double click of empty chambers rang out in the sudden silence, two hollow sounds nearly identical, nearly simultaneous. Soren ejected his spent magazine without thinking, his hand already moving to the fresh one at his hip. He seated it, reached for the slide relea
Chapter 060
The fourth-floor corridor of Briarcrest Medical Center had gone quiet in the way that only happens after gunfire stops.Soren was on his knees, chest heaving, both arms locked around the last operative's head. The man had stopped struggling. With a sharp, wrenching motion, Soren twisted hard.The crack of vertebrae was loud in the stillness.He held the position for a moment, making sure, then let the body drop and pushed the dead weight off his legs. Around him, three other operatives were already on the floor, each one down for good. Soren pressed a hand against his ribs and pulled in two slow, deliberate breaths. Something in his chest ached with the particular sharpness of a bruise that hadn't decided yet how serious it wanted to be.He'd burned through every round in the Glock 17 taking down the first three. The fourth had closed the distance before he could reload, and the pistol had ended up leaving his hand at high velocity aimed at the man's face. It had
Chapter 059
"So you've already located Asset X-017?"Soren kept his voice level, watching Nora's face for the flicker that would confirm what he already suspected. It wasn't a difficult calculation. If she had been embedded beside Nighthawk long enough to earn his trust, she could have moved against him at any point. She hadn't. Which meant the mission had only become urgent now, and there was only one reason for that."That's right." Nora didn't bother hiding it. She met his eyes with the calm steadiness of someone who believed the game was already over. "Asset X-017 is nearly at MI6 headquarters as we speak. Nighthawk, it's finished. All of it."A brief silence settled between them."Perhaps," Soren said.He let the word sit there, quiet and noncommittal. But behind it, the math was already done. If he wanted the full completion bonus on this Career Instance, the intelligence couldn't reach MI6. It absolutely could not reach Dax Carter. That left him exactly one optio
Chapter 058
Nora was looking at him with the same expression she always wore at this moment: careful, warm, professionally concerned. It was a good performance. If he hadn't watched her put a suppressor-fitted Glock 17 against his head twice already, he might have found it genuinely disarming.He rubbed the bridge of his nose and let exhaustion settle into his face, which wasn't entirely an act."Sorry," he said. "Just tired. Bad dreams.""Bad dreams?" A small, curious tilt of her head. "Did you sleep poorly last night? Let me get you some water.""Thank you, Nora."She turned toward the water cooler. In the same motion, unhurried and quiet, Soren closed his fingers around the scalpel he'd palmed from the instrument tray behind him. He held it loosely at his side, blade inward, and waited.She came back with the paper cup held out in both hands, the picture of attentive care. He took it from her with a smile and set it on the counter beside him without drinking.
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