What were the assassins doing here? What was the plan? Kade could see doors back behind the people in line, darkened glass, a gleam of sunshine beyond. He could make a run for it, get away from these people, get outdoors.

A voice came from behind him. “Sir, keep moving, and put your bag down on the scanner.”

Bag. There was a backpack over one shoulder. He swung it around, tossed it onto the scanner. It landed with a hard thud. Heavy. Very heavy.

Kade looked up and around himself. So many people. He had to warn them. “I think I have a bomb!” he yelled. “A bomb!”

Shock registered from all around him. People jerked back. A security man reached for his gun. Kade moved this body’s hands, ripped open the zipper of the backpack. He caught a glimpse of wires, of something blinking red inside.

Then pure chaos overwhelmed his senses.

[CONNECTION LOST]

Kade gasped in shock as he snapped back to himself. What? What?

The jeep was stopped, he saw. Feng had pulled to the side of the road, was grimly watching over Kade.

Kade turned to look at Feng, numb, disoriented. His mouth opened, but no words came out.

But Feng understood. “You’ll catch them,” he said, putting a hand on Kade’s shoulder. “I know you will.”

Breece stayed outwardly calm as he surfed sports scores on the battered slate. Inside, he was roiling.

Someone got in there. Someone grabbed control of the mule and almost stopped us. Who? How?

He drank coffee, played at the pathetic human sport of “spectating” on true competitors, and stayed in character. It was three minutes later that the waitress gasped and turned up the sound on the diner’s screen.

“…Again, we have unconfirmed reports of an explosion just minutes ago at the Homeland Security building in Chicago. Witnesses are reporting scores of dead and injured. As we learn more…”

Breece turned, played as shocked at the rest of them.

“…statement from the Posthuman Liberation Front,” the newscaster on the screen went on, “…stating that this was a, quote, targeted assassination against Homeland Security Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Bradley Meyers for his complicity in the murders three years ago of…”

Only fifteen minutes later, after the details had started to trickle in and video of the explosion had been played again and again and again did he drop the enzymatic cleanser into what was left of his coffee to erase his tracks, pay his check, and then make his way out to the battered Hyundai in the parking lot.

He was ten miles down the road when the encrypted phone rang. A phone that only one person in the world would call. Zarathustra.

“I told you to stand down.” Even through the electronic distortion, the voice was hard, controlled, anger held in check.

“I gave you three months. Then I stood back up.”

“You’re out of line.”