Tag: Dark Horizons

Continued from Thirty-four: the Testimony of Madison Sinclair

Thirty-five: Samarkand

Hansen wasn’t high up in the Chamber, but he was high enough to know what had happened in Kathmandu. He had heard about the success of Blackout, then the removal of all parties by Tangible Stream. He had been part of the recovery team, and now he was part of the section created to learn the truth.

And in Samarkand he was going to find it. Or at least some small part of it.
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Continued from Thirty-three: Station

Thirty-four: the Testimony of Madison Sinclair

Boyle, Rudi, Cody and Kane were all there, looking like they were ready to go hard, but they weren’t moving at all. The Bedouin, he turned to me—and I have to say he looked pretty freaked out—and he said: “We have a problem, Mr. Sinclair.”

And it was the guy who was standing there who was the problem. I would have known that no matter what the Bedouin said. This guy, he was in a short-sleeve hospital gown, bed sheets wrapped around his waist like a bare ass embarrassed him or something. He had no hair—no hair that I could see—and the IV tubes were still taped to his arms, but they’re hanging down and dragging along the ground. It’s weird, you know, that he pulled them loose from their bags or bottles or whatever, but not from his arms. That must have been some fucking good tape.
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Continued from Thirty-two: En Route

Thirty-three: Station

Mads holstered his SIG. He couldn’t believe the action had ended. Everything had passed in a blur, like fast-forwarding through a DVD. Heather leaned against the SUV blocker she had driven, breathing hard, C8 carbine held loose. Mads slid over the hood of the wrecked sedan, mimicking Boyle’s slick move a moment earlier.

Then the Bedouin’s voice came over the comm. “Incoming trouble. Contact imminent.”

“Bundle up the package.” Boyle handed Mads a pair of flex-cuffs. “It seems this is all far from over.”

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Continued from Thirty-one: Cascade Effect

Thirty-two: En Route

Heather gripped the wheel of the SUV. Hastily acquired by Gurung and his network of contacts, it had only minimal upgrading and no armour. She felt vulnerable.

With the engine off, she waited on a small side-street. The target, so far, had revealed relatively good security instincts. He varied his schedules, he varied his routes, and he maintained bodyguards—unobtrusively. He did all the right things. It wouldn’t help him. They knew where he spent much of his day.

And that evening, they would get their target.
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Continued from Thirty: No Delilah

Thirty-one: Cascade Effect

“Stop coddling me.” Cascade’s eyes narrowed to a sharp point, her anger and her frustration all there for those that could read it.

Scott could. That’s what he did. And he could understand both emotions.

“We’re not even sure what they were pumping into you or if you’ve been altered in any way.” Boyle leaned against the wall opposite to Cascade’s bed, beside the door. He had on his mask. No one would read anything through that, probably not even Cascade.

“And we’re not going to know until I get my hands on the prisoner.” Cascade sat in her bed, legs over the side, still hooked up to all the monitoring equipment Gurung had scammed from every source he knew.
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Continued from Twenty-nine: House Call

Thirty: No Delilah

The wall surrounding the estate did not matter. The many electronic baffles set to inhibit eavesdropping did not matter. The psychic shield so strong it gave pedestrians that passed the structure slight headaches or nausea—not even that mattered. Inside the white delivery van, two men watched and heard everything that happened in the house and on the grounds. Inside the van that looked like a hundred, maybe even a thousand other white delivery vans in Cairo, men had watched the happenings in that place and recorded it.

Nothing moved in the building or on the grounds.
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Continued from Twenty-eight: Kitting Up

Twenty-nine: House Call

Willow watched the front of the building over the telescopic sight on her Knight’s Armaments SR-25 sniper rifle. She crouched in an alleyway while Rudi stood behind her. Rudi’s VSS—a Vintorez special sniper rifle—hung at his chest on his tactical rig. A suppressed sniper weapon using heavy, sub-sonic ammunition, the VSS had an automatic fire mode. If he needed to enter the clinic and engage in close quarters battle, he felt confident with the VSS. He had used one in a tight situation previous.

A single-story structure, the target location had double glass doors and two, large windows at the front. Heavy shades covered them. Dark and silent, the building offered Rudi no clues as to its purpose. He knew it held occupants. He had seen five men, dropped off by a non-descript van—not unlike the ones Gurung had acquired—enter the building. How many would they face when the assault came, as it must?
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Continued from Twenty-seven: Hitting the Fan

Twenty-eight: Kitting Up

She hadn’t had a cigarette in almost ten years. How come she remembered it so vividly? Heather imagined the feel of it in her mouth, imagined lighting it, inhaling. The calm would spread. It would take her, relax her, get her down.

Heather really wanted a cigarette.

Mads’ chuckle caught her attention. “What the fuck is going through your head?”
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Continued from Twenty-six: Overt Sly

Twenty-seven: Hitting the Fan

Walker watched the exchange through binoculars. He crouched on a rooftop across the street from the alley mouth. He wasn’t happy with the location, but they couldn’t have gotten much closer without alerting the contact.

That contact apparently expected some kind of trouble. That, or he was compensating. Short and squat, with a patchy beard, he spoke with a cigarette held between his teeth like Walker had seen in Hong Kong movies from the 80s. He wore a leather car coat, which spoke to some level of resolve. It had hit 32 degrees, and that didn’t factor in the humidity.
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