Chapters (56)
- PROLOGUE
- PART 1
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- PART 2
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- PART 3
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- PART 4
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- PART 5
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- EPILOGUE
A pair of boots splashed past in the wet. Stopped and came back.
“He’s coming right back round,” someone said, and whistled. “Tough little motherfucker. Hey, Vidaura, did you say you trained this guy?”
No reply. I heaved up again and succeeded in rolling onto my side.
Blinked dazedly up at the form standing over me. Vlad Tepes looked down out of a clearing sky that had almost given up on rain. The look on his face was serious and admiring, and he stood absolutely still as he watched me.
No trace of his former meth-head twitchiness to be seen.
“Good performance,” I croaked at him.
“Liked it, huh?” He grinned. “Had you fooled, right?”
I ran my tongue around my teeth and spat out some blood mingled with vomit. “Yeah, I thought Murakami had to be fucking cracked to use you. So what happened to the original Vlad?”
“Ah, well.” He made a wry face. “You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I know. How many more of you are there? Apart from your gorgeous-breasted psychosurgical specialist, that is.”
He laughed easily. “Yeah, she said she caught you looking. Beautiful piece of meat, isn’t it. You know, the last thing Liebeck wore before that was a Limon cable athlete’s sleeve. Flat as a board. A year down the line and she still can’t make up her mind if she’s pleased or pissed off about the change.”
“Limon, huh? Limon, Latimer.”
“That’s right.”
“Home of cutting-edge deCom.”
He grinned. “All starting to make sense, is it?”
It isn’t easy to shrug when you’re cuffed behind your back and flat to the floor. I did my best. “I saw the Tseng gear in her cabin.”
“Damn, so you weren’t looking at her tits.”
“No, I was,” I admitted. “But you know how it is. Nothing peripheral is ever lost.”
“That is the racking truth.”
“Mallory.”
We both looked towards the shout. Todor Murakami was striding along the dock from the direction of the wet bunker. He was unarmed apart from the Kalashnikov at his hip and the knife on his chest. Soft rain fell around him with a sparkle in it from the brightening sky.
“Our renegade’s sitting up and spitting,” said Mallory, gesturing at me.