Her voice was cold. Her fingers kept working at the high tech splint molding itself to Kade’s joint.

Then she shook her head. “Like I told you, some people deserve to die. Those guys? Wrong time, wrong place. But it needed doing. I’d do it again.”

She pulled hard on an adjustment strap, tightening the splint further.

“I’m sorry you had to,” Kade said quietly. “I know it sucks.”

“Yeah,” she looked up at him. “Sucks to be them. Sucks to be their wives. Sucks to be their kids.”

Then she stood up and looked down at him. “Just make it worth it, Kade.” She sounded tired. “For everybody.”

“Twelve kilometers,” Feng said. “That’s how far it is to target.”

Kade closed his eyes. Seven and a half miles. With the streets flooded with people, soldiers, tanks. And his knee banged up.

It would take hours.

Hours they didn’t have.

Feng projected a map onto their visors.

“Here,” he said. A red arrow appeared, two kilometers from the flag icon of Jiao Tong. “Rendezvous point. It’s a risk, but we can send a message via satellite to the rest of the team. Meet up when we get there. Enter Jiao Tong together. In case we need them.”

Kade could feel the tension in Feng’s mind. The uncertainty. He was headed to confront a program left behind by the woman who’d been his hero, his savior. To stop her from coming back into the world insane. He didn’t know what they’d be up against. But he feared the worst.

He feared his brothers.

Sam nodded. “OK.”

Kade put a hand on Feng’s shoulder. “Sounds good,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

113
Contact Established

Monday 2041

Prime Minister Ayesha Dani waited for the arrival of Wu Qiang, Chinese Ambassador to India.

The demand for an urgent meeting, “vital to future friendship between the two great nations” had come in the late afternoon, just an hour ago.

She suspected her office had surprised the Chinese Ambassador by their near immediate acceptance.

The door opened. One of her bodyguards entered. Behind him came the dark suited, slender, formal Wu Qiang, a briefcase in his hand, his customary affectation of spectacles on his face.

Ayesha Dani rose slowly from her comfortable chair.

At her age, after three assassination attempts, with all that remained of her left hip, she considered standing for someone a great show of respect.

“Ambassador Wu,” she said. She waved at her bodyguards, and they stepped out. This man wasn’t an idiot.

“Prime Minister Dani,” Wu began.

The Prime Minister sat back down. Wu remained standing.

“I’m here to lodge my nation’s strongest possible protest at India’s electronic attack on our domestic communications systems, and to inform you that…”

“It wasn’t us,” the PM interrupted quietly.

Wu took a deep breath and pushed on. “President Bao Zhuang has expressly instructed me to convey to you his…”