Breece eased back behind the crypt, slowly, no sudden moves. Then he went Inside, launched a bootleg app.

[remote_driver -boot -silent]

The app reached through the net connection of his phone, connected to the Lexus’s sleeping auto computer, and booted the car up in silent mode, no lights, no sound, all electric. A window came alive in his mind’s eye, and he pushed it full screen, complete immersion. He could see out of the car’s cameras now. Status panels showed battery charge, GPS, engine temperature down the side of his vision. Front and center, through the car’s cameras, he could see the man standing against the SUV. The plates were Texas, standard civilian, no government endorsement of any sort. He couldn’t be sure, but inside the tinted windows the vehicle looked empty.

The man by the SUV was looking the other way, up towards the cemetery and his colleagues. The man held onto the bundle over his shoulder like a rifle. Breece used his mental finger to click on the screen, drag it to one side. Down below, the Lexus panned its cameras slowly. Through its eyes he watched the two others ascending the hill. They were almost to his discarded phone.

He’d only get one shot at this. He tapped commands into the app running on his Nexus OS for a moment. Then he reached down with his right hand and pulled the ceramic blade from his calf holster. He peered one last time around the crypt wall, then back into his inner eye and the feed from the Lexus’s cameras again.

Now.

Breece closed his eyes and tapped a mental button. The Lexus surged forward at the man by the SUV. Breece opened his eyes immediately, bringing them back to the two men here on the hill with him.

He heard the crash of metal on metal, saw a flash of something across the window in his mind. The men turned, startled, and then Breece was up and the ceramic blade was whistling through the air between them, thrown with superhuman force. The knife turned end over end, then lodged itself in the neck of the closest one with a meaty thunk. By then Breece was hot on its trail, sprinting at breakneck speed.

The one he’d hit staggered and fell into his colleague. The second man struggled to shake off the body and pull the gun from his pocket. Then Breece was on him. He grabbed the assassin’s wrist, stepped inside the man’s reach, and punched him in the solar plexus. The man dropped and Breece wrenched the gun from his hand.

Something bit into his arm and he dropped to one knee on instinct, thinking he’d been hit. An instant later the sound registered – a bullet shattering stone. It came again and again. Someone was shooting in his direction, hitting gravestones, sending stone chips flying.