He slowly belly-crawled away from the phone. At the end of the row was a small family crypt. He got there and lay still against it, his body hidden from the cemetery entrance, at least. He searched the sky. Were there invisible drones up there? Did they have a lock on him already? Had a cordon been pulled around him? His eyes saw nothing.

Breece carefully peeked his head around the crypt. In the twilight he could still clearly make out the Lexus in the parking lot, maybe three hundred yards away. He could make a run for it, leave the phone in the grass, get in the vehicle and get out of here before DHS closed the noose.

His other phone buzzed again. Hiroshi, calling in real time. Good friends, the Japanese. Loyal. Good transhumans, too. Always thinking ahead.

“Breece here,” he replied.

“Breece,” Hiroshi replied. “What’s your status?”

“Nominal,” Breece answered. “No sign of DHS.”

Then he saw the other car inbound. Black SUV. Tinted windows. No insignia of any sort. He couldn’t make out the plates from here. The SUV pulled into the parking lot slowly and came to a stop just by the entrance gate. The doors opened and three men in dark clothing stepped out. They wore light jackets that were totally unnecessary in the warm evening air. Perfect for concealing weapons.

Breece’s own gun was carefully hidden inside the Lexus, a conscious choice that the risk posed by carrying the weapon was greater than the risk of being caught without it.

“Scratch that,” he said into the phone. “Someone’s here.”

Two of the men were coming up the hill now, heading in the direction Breece had thrown the phone. Unremarkable faces. Dark hair. Athletic figures held calm and erect. Eyes calmly scanning to and fro.

Professionals.

Both men coming up the hill had hands in their jacket pockets. Breece imagined their fingers curled around the grips of pistols. The third man stood at alert by the SUV in the parking lot at the foot of the hill, a bundle over his shoulder. A rifle, perhaps.

“We’re inbound to you,” Hiroshi said. “Forty minutes out.”

“Don’t think I have forty, Hiroshi. Gotta go now. Call you back.” He cut the connection.

Who were these men? No uniforms. Unmarked vehicle. Hidden weapons. Where was the SWAT team? Where were the snipers? The drones and choppers? This didn’t smell like the law.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that these men were here for him. To capture him or kill him. And that wasn’t going to happen.

He was sweating now. The active camo he’d turned on was trapping his body heat, not letting it escape into the air around him where an infrared scope could pick it up. Without a thermal capacitor to suck that heat up, he was going to get warmer and warmer until he cooked.