“Our boy Kuga has developed the most powerful suicide vest in the history of global terrorism. If a Fixer walks into any environment, he can either fire with impunity or kill as many people as he wants. Not because of the armor’s toughness—and remember it’s really tough—but because anyone firing in self-defense who gets lucky and pops the guy will trigger a blast that will kill every single living thing inside of fifty yards.”

She paused, letting that sink in.

“Now imagine a team of them going into North Korea’s Rungrado First of May Stadium, which has a capacity of 140,000. Or Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. That’s 114,000 people dead in a flash.”

Church said, “Dear god.”

“Where are they planning on using these … these … things?” asked Nikki.

“That, sweet cheeks,” said Doc, “is what we don’t know. And I pray to whichever deity is taking our calls that this is what our boy Joe Ledger is trying to find out.”

CHAPTER 103

DAS VERARBEITUNGSZENTRUM

The young blond woman with the brace on her left knee stood in the gaping hole of what had been the main entrance to the processing plant. Now it was a cavern of rubble, torn bodies, and shattered glass. A chemical stink of high explosives hung in the air, pushed around by sluggish clouds of brick dust. Twisted sheets of metal stood up like broken ribs from some gigantic corpse.

Eve grinned at it. Explosions always made her happy, and she’d been told that a big one was needed to breach these walls because they were concrete reinforced with steel. That intel had been correct, and she’d made sure that the first try was enough to do the trick. The blast had been so big that it destroyed the entrance to the building. It tore a line of hedges from the ground and threw them burning into the decorative trees. Those trees now burned like a row of tiki torches.

Nothing of the original doorway remained, and although the blast hadn’t damaged the inner air lock, it had completely obliterated the walls into which it was set, so the air lock lay atop the rubble.

“Awesome,” she gushed. “That was so rad.”

A pair of heavily armored killers stood nearby. Cain and Abel.

“The team’s located the cell, Miss Eve,” Abel told her, his fingers still touching his coms unit.

“About time,” said Eve. She looked at her watch, which was set to mission time. It was three minutes since the breach. Standard response time for police at this time of night was five minutes, twenty seconds. Way off in the distance, she could hear a siren.

“The team’s encountering some resistance inside,” added Abel. “We’ve lost signals on two … no, wait, four. Losing feeds on Ephraim and Asher.”