Tag: fiction

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms. The team is faced with Alexander Scott and Rebecca Kim in ” . . . I Would’ve Backed a Cake,” but an agreement is reached. That makes everyone happy, until all the prisoners—and Dyck—are cut down in a hail of gunfire. By the end of “Thicker Than Water,” it looked like Dyck might make it out alive, but that was by no means assured. It also certainly seems like Scott knows something about Mads and the reasons for putting him on the team.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better. Later, Gurung pays a visit to Digs, who is trying to pick up the pieces after a visit by Boyle and Rudi left Flick dead on the floor. As “There’s A Mole, and Then There’s A Mole” suggests, Gurung reveals he isn’t exactly above board, but another set of visitors disturbs the discussion.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent. Rudi the Russian gets sent to Kathmandu to kill the Bedouin, but Boyle and “Cascade” emerge to save Rudi from “the Cat’s Reward.” Boyle, “Cascade,” and Rudi make an unannounced visit on the special ops team sent to hunt down Boyle’s team in “Switch of a Flick.” The visit was not entirely cordial, and left one team member, whom Boyle asserts is a mole, dead.

Now, Becca tries to save Dyck, Heather tries to save her relationship with Mads, and Walker is just trying to save the remains of the team.

________________________________

Fifteen: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner!

The safehouse turned out to be a studio on the top floor of a three storey walk-up. The walk-up in question was an exterior staircase that defied any attempt at stealth. Occupants of the flat would know when company came to call.

Comfort did not seem to be a strong consideration when furnishing the flat. Four folding cots sat unfolded against one wall. Two couches were against two other walls. A table was in the centre of the room and a chair that may once have been plush and comfortable, but was now threadbare and worn, was beside the door.

Heather watched Lt. Kim work. Dyck occupied one of the cots, and appeared stable. Somewhere between boarding and leaving the van, he had passed out. His eyes remained closed. The bleeding, at least, seemed under control.

“Should we have given him morphine after so much bleeding?” Mads stood beside her, leaning against the table, and he spoke quietly into her ear. “Doesn’t it lower the blood pressure or something?”

“Something, yeah.” Heather glanced up at Walker, sitting by the door, his MP5K in his hand. “But I’ve seen a lot worse than Dyck. I’d say he’s in good hands, and if Scott really can get a doctor, he’ll be fine.”

“Sounds like you don’t think Scott is coming back with a doc.” Mads had an annoying habit of reading Heather’s tone too well.

“Let’s just say I’m still not convinced it’s all peace and love, okay?” Heather tried to fix Mads with a gaze she would consider withering.

It didn’t work. Mads made a kind of half-grimace, half-sneer. “You think he’s got Walker fooled? That’d really surprise me.” He looked away and scratched the three day’s growth on his jaw. “Listen, what Scott and Becca were saying, about why I was put on the team: do you know anything about that?”

Heather held his eyes. She knew he would read the hesitation, and she knew he would understand it. She could answer his question. If anyone there should tell him, it likely should be her. “Your parapsychic profile turned up something.”

His brow furrowed. “My profile was clean. Totally clean. Exceptional resistance, but that’s it.”

“Here’s the thing, it was too clean.” She cleared her throat. She had known about this for two years now and had never told him. He had always trusted her, always accepted her statements as gospel. What would happen now? “Part of the testing is to have a parapsych root around in your brain. They’re supposed to be pretty discrete about it, but it’s uncovered more than one . . . issue. With you, they couldn’t. Not only were you completely closed, you shut the parapsych down. You project some kind of ESPer null zone.”

Mad’s mouth hung open. His furrowed brow had smoothed out as his eyes widened. He stared at Heather for a few silent heartbeats. He closed his mouth and swallowed loudly. “No one thought to mention this?”

“It was classified, compartmentalized.” The words sounded as hollow in Heather’s ears as they must have in Mads’. “No one really knew what it all meant. No one had ever seen anything like it. You were at a desk; no one ever thought you’d get into the field. It was still being studied.”

Did his eyes go watery, only a bit, before he looked away? “Shit, Heather, I thought you’d have my back if no one else did.”

“You know how this kind of stuff goes down.” She couldn’t think of anything better to say. He was right.

“Yeah, I know.” He pushed himself off the table and went over the empty couch, dropping into it, not meeting her eyes.

She didn’t intend it, but her gaze moved to Walker. Did she see some accusation there? Walker hadn’t known about Mads. Very few people did. So did she just imagine the look? He rose and approached her, taking the space Mads had recently occupied, his eyes fixed on the door, his MP5K held loose, but ready.

“You knew the whole time, eh?” He spoke quietly, almost too quiet for her to hear.

“Yeah, I knew.” She didn’t say what. Everyone in that alley had heard Scott. Everyone would have their own conclusions.

“And he’s pissed you didn’t tell him?”

“Yeah, he’s pissed.”

“You had your orders, right?”

“I had my orders.”

Walker drew out an exhalation, almost a sigh. “That’s the shit we live with. That’s how it goes down. It sucks, but there it is. He’s not used to it. He didn’t need to deal with it in the field, on mission. He’s still thinking of you as a friend on and off the clock. We don’t get to have friends on the clock. We have teammates, we have allegiances, but we don’t get to have friends.”

Heather allowed herself a wry chuckle, a way to emphasis and telegraph her reply. “Maybe you need to tell him.”

“No point,” said Walker. “It wouldn’t register. In a bit, when he’s over the sulk, maybe I will. Right now, it’s the guilt that’s got to go. You can’t regret doing the right thing. It isn’t about being a friend or watching someone’s six. You get an order, you follow it, or you hand in your resignation and take the consequences.”

“Are you my life coach?”

“If necessary. I don’t need you second guessing the right choices. Stay with your gut. There’s more shit coming down the pipe, I can feel it. I need you sharp. You make decisions fast, and you make good decisions. Right now it looks like I’m in command of whatever we have here, so I need you and I need you at peak.”

What could she say to that? It made sense, and it didn’t sound rote. She had known Walker for a few years now, ever since she left the military to take a position in the Vault. He was as trustworthy as an operator working in the black could be.

She checked her watch. “When is Scott due?”

“Five minutes ago.” He spoke at regular volume, for general consumption.

“He’ll be back, and he’ll have a doctor.” Lt. Kim rose and turned from the cot on which Dyck lay.

“Listen, I don’t have time to worry about hurt feelings, so here it is.” Walker paused and glanced at each of the three conscious occupants of the room in turn. “I knew Scott and I’ve worked with him, pretty recently in fact. Someone asks for a character reference, I’ll give it. Right now, this very moment, I’m not in a good frame of mind. Things are not adding up. Scott ain’t here with Drift.”

“He’s here with me.” Kim’s voice had steel and granite in it. No anger though, no aggression. “He’s here to get Boyle out.”

“Ah, Boyle.” Walker rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He’s still a problem. Thing is, we know that our CIA briefer was bogus, but we were all ordered to get Boyle anyway, so we know our target, regardless of anything else. That means that we seem to be working at cross-purposes. I don’t like opposition on my team. Scott comes back with the doc, we’ll get Dyck patched up. That’s cool. That done, you guys are either on board with the mission or you’re out. We’ll figure a way to medevac Dyck out of here, and that’s all the lead time I can get you.”

“We can’t join up if you plan to put the cuffs on Boyle,” Kim said. “Whatever the CIA is feeding you, it’s bullshit. He’s worked for them in the past, and they have a thing with covering their trail that leaves a lot of people unhealthy. Whatever you think you know, Boyle is a white hat if such a thing even exists.”

Walker nodded. “You’ve said your piece. That’s good. I appreciate the honesty. Here’s my piece; we have a mission. We have our orders. We are going to carry those orders out. We do not work for the CIA. The people I do work for have ordered me to grab him, so that’s what I’m going to do. I never said I would hand him over to the spooks.”

Mads shifted on the couch, putting his feet on a crate that acted as a coffee table. “But if ordered to, you will.”

“If ordered to, I will,” Walker said.

“Then I don’t see how we can work together.” Kim’s posture changed only slightly, as though she had dug in to face an oncoming storm.

“We work together until the situation forces us apart,” Walker said. “I’m not saying I’m showing you the door. Scott thinks you’re the real deal, and I’ll accept that until proved otherwise. We can still support each other until . . .”

Walker’s eyes went to the door. Heather registered the sound of someone ascending the staircase. Walker moved to the side, against the wall with the door in it. He had his MP5K ready. Mads took the cue, as did Kim. Heather drew her SIG Sauer P226. They all went to ready, weapons trained on the door.

Scott would have a code, a way of knocking, including pauses. Crude, but they had little time and no resources. Based on the sounds on the landing and stairs, Heather figured two people. Scott and the doctor, she hoped.

Someone tried the doorknob.

Not Scott.

She noted Walker switch the selector on his MP5K to fully automatic.

Her safety came off.

________________________________

Followed by Sixteen: A “Quiet” Chat

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms. The team is faced with Alexander Scott and Rebecca Kim in ” . . . I Would’ve Backed a Cake,” but an agreement is reached. That makes everyone happy, until all the prisoners—and Dyck—are cut down in a hail of gunfire. By the end of “Thicker Than Water,” it looked like Dyck might make it out alive, but that was by no means assured. It also certainly seems like Scott knows something about Mads and the reasons for putting him on the team.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent. Rudi the Russian gets sent to Kathmandu to kill the Bedouin, but Boyle and “Cascade” emerge to save Rudi from “the Cat’s Reward.” Boyle, “Cascade,” and Rudi make an unannounced visit on the special ops team sent to hunt down Boyle’s team in “Switch of a Flick.” The visit was not entirely cordial, and left one team member, whom Boyle asserts is a mole, dead.

Now, Digs is left to pick up the pieces after a visit by Boyle and Rudi left Flick dead on the floor. A few unexpected guests don’t help Digs’ calm.

________________________________

Fourteen: There’s A Mole, and Then There’s A Mole.

Digs had been in the shit before. He knew how to handle himself. He gathered up his gear, everything he needed, anything that could finger him or the team. He did it fast. Most of it was ready to go. Digs didn’t squat and he didn’t take up roots, he was always ready to move.

The body of the guy he had called Flick still lay where it had fallen. The blood kept coming. Digs did his best to avoid it, but that wasn’t so easy. Funny how he had taken Boyle at face value. Funny how easily he questioned Flick’s identity. But things were falling into place.

Not even an hour ago, Mads had made the call, had talked to someone in India through a very old and very clunky telephone scrambler. Apparently, he had found one back in Canada and had packed it with his kit. From what Mads had said after the call, their CIA briefer in India–Hitch–had been bogus. The whole mission could be bogus. It made what Boyle said resonate.

As much as he hated to admit it, Digs believed him. He hated to think that of the dead comrade on the floor, of the guy who had been on the team, but he had a gut feeling. Boyle had spoke true.

Digs had the scrambler in his hand and wondered about one more phone call. He had a number for a guy who could clear up the Flick dilemma–who might be able to set him straight on the others as well. Was this the time for that? Digs stowed the scrambler.

For a moment, Digs had the impulse to torch the body. Don’t leave anything. No clues meant a colder trail, and that suited Digs fine. Problem was, torching the body would torch the room. Torch the room, and you pretty much torch the building, maybe the neighbourhood. And fuck the trail. The opposition knew exactly where they were. The trail ended there.

Movement outside the door made Digs draw his Browning Hi-Power, the one he had retrieved from the hallway after a ten count. He had already fixed a suppressor on it, and now Digs crouched and moved to his left. That would be the right side of the first person through the door and might give him time to get that Mozambique Drill done.

After the four tap code Digs had set up with his contact, he heard Gurung’s voice. “Digs, we need to talk.”

“Come on in.” Digs remained ready, waiting for an assault through the door, ready for another betrayal.

The door opened slowly, carefully. Gurung poked his head in. The ex-Brigade of the Gurkhas, ex-private military contract, and present fixer didn’t seem fazed by the weapon trained on him. He smoothly slid into the room and closed the door behind him. His eyes moved to Flick’s body.

“Well, that’s unpleasant,” he said. “Are you ready to move?”

Digs didn’t lower his weapon. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I heard there was a mole.” Gurung stood near the door, his gaze now on Digs. “I had my suspicions.” Gurung shook his head.  “You didn’t do that.”

“I didn’t do that.” Digs lowered his weapon. He listened to his gut, listened to his instinct. He was doing that a lot. “But you know who did.”

Gurung didn’t smile, but Digs thought he could hear relief in his voice. “Yes, I do. I told them where to find Flick.”

Digs gestured to the body with his weapon. “Apparently, that’s not Flick.”

Gurung nodded. “Apparently.”

“And he wasn’t the only mole.” The venom laced the words without a conscious decision by Digs.

Gurung took a deep, slow breath before answering. “There’s a mole, and then there’s a mole.”

“You’d be the former?”

“If you didn’t think so, I’d already have a bullet in the head.”

Digs holstered the Browning. “I was planning to put two in the chest, one in the head.”

“Best to be sure, yeah.” Gurung didn’t move from his place near the door. “I don’t want to push my luck, but you’ve got to go.”

“I’m packed.”

“I know a place.” Gurung had a hand on the door knob. “That is, if you want it. If you don’t, then believe me, I’m gone and you won’t see me again.”

Digs had only a moment to think about it before the phone rang. It startled him. Of all the sounds he expected to hear, the ringing of the old rotary-dial phone hadn’t been anywhere on the list. He stared at it as it rang again.

“Answer it,” Gurung said.

Digs glanced at him then back at the phone. It rang. He picked it up.

“Sergeant Everson, I’ve got eyes on.” The voice on the other end was female, and sounded British. “You’ve got opposition coming up the stairs. I’d say less than a minute to contact. Don’t go out into the hallway.”

Digs met Gurung’s eyes. “Ambush.”

“Looks like it.” Whoever she was, she sounded confident and competent. “Out through the window. I haven’t spotted any opposition in the alley. Anyone materializes, I’ll put them down.”

“You’re our overwatch?” Digs asked.

The sound of a soft chuckle came over the line. “You got it.”

Gurung walked to the table and held his hand out for the phone. He had a Browning in his hand. It looked older and better used than Digs’ weapon. Digs gave him the receiver.

“Willow?” Gurung asked of the voice on the phone. Digs, of course, could not hear the reply. Gurung gestured to the window with his Browning, then hung up the phone.

Digs had his gear ready. He nodded to the phone. “How’d she call us?”

“Same device Flick used with the laptop,” Gurung said. “The bad guys have something that can cut through the silence.”

Sliding the window up, Digs glanced out at the alley. Nothing. Totally clear. A two story fall in full kit? He had done worse. The sound of rushing feet in the hallway motivated him to make the jump. He hit the ground and rolled, as though landing from a parachute jump. He got out of the way, as he expected Gurung to follow him.

He heard gunfire. A lot of it. The window blew in, shards of glass falling.

The window blew in. Fire from outside the room. Willow?

Gurung made it out. He had a torn sleeve and blood on his left bicep. It didn’t slow him down. He broke into a run. Digs followed suit. They rushed to the back of the tenement, then stopped. Gurung checked both directions, and then back the way they had come.

“Willow will keep their heads down, but not for too long.” Gurung holstered his weapon. “I have a place.”

“Go.” Digs adjusted his ruck, watching the window they had exited. Any moment now, someone was going to stick their head out and eyeball them.

They didn’t run. Too many faces, too many people. They already stood out. Even with all the foreigners filling up the Kat, the back alleys and bad neighbourhoods remained the domain of the locals. The poor locals. Digs didn’t exactly blend.

“You get tagged?” Digs asked.

“Grazed.” Gurung didn’t seem bothered.

“Where we going?” Digs studiously ignored the people around him, the people watching him.

“I have friends who should already be talking to your friends,” Gurung said. “We’ve got a safe house that is actually safe.”

“Yeah, let’s not put too much faith in that right now, right?”

Gurung nodded grimly. “Right enough.”

“These friends of yours, they play nice, right?”

“Very nice.” Gurung gestured to a beat-up Japanese sedan that even from a distance. “She may not look like much, but she’s got it where it counts.”

Digs raised an eyebrow. “I think you and Madman will get along quite well.”

Gurung grinned, getting behind the wheel of the sedan. “You recognized the quote.”

“I should have shot you.”

________________________________

Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner!”

Thirteen: Thicker Than Water

Mads emptied his magazine. He had fired again and again at the gunman on the roof, the one targeting Dyck. Thirteen rounds in the air and at least two had hit the gunman. Mads had seen the plumes of blood mist, one at the shoulder and one dead centre of the head. Two out of thirteen was nothing to be proud of.

Should’ve spent more time on the fuckin’ range.

Grabbing Dyck’s arm, Mads tried to drag him off the street. There were more gunmen, had to be. All three prisoners had gone down. Mads tugged. Dyck growled something about his gut. Blood. A lot of blood. Blood on Dyck and on the prisoner. Blood all over the street. Dyck was slick with it.

That push again. That sense of the air congealing around Mads. Something he could almost touch. As he yanked on Dyck, a body fell from the roof above him. The figure landed not two metres from Mads.

It was a guy. He looked Caucasian. He had one of those earpieces they had found on the guys in the coffee shop. He shuddered and writhed, there on the ground. Mads didn’t see any wounds on him. He couldn’t see any bullet holes. What had brought the guy down? It looked like some kind of seizure. Like what he had seen back in the coffee shop.

The gunfire around him intensified and then fell silent. Another body impacted about five metres into the alley from where Mads stood. Dyck had got to his knees, holding his gut with his free hand, his weapon lying on the ground. Blood coloured his entire torso.

“This is fucking bad,” Dyck said. “This is way fucking bad.”

“You’ll be okay.” Mads searched his memory for what Harvey Keitel had said in that movie. “It takes a long time to die from a gut wound. Hurts like hell, but you’ve got lots of time. We’ll get you patched up. It’ll be good.”

Dyck managed a smile. “You some kind of medic now, Madman?”

Walker reached them, Scott at his side, scanning the rooftops with his Browning Hi-Power. Walker took Dyck from Mads, helped him to the side of the alley, and sat him down against the wall.

“Shit, man, you didn’t hear me say duck?” Walker spoke lightly, all cheerful good humour.

“I heard you say goose.” Dyck chuckled grimly at his own weak joke.

“Five shooters.” Scott still scanned for targets. “Two others with those earpieces. One’s alive, on the ground. Looks like he broke some stuff, but he didn’t get tagged.”

Heather had her SIG in hand, but she held it loose. “How could they be waiting for us? How were they waiting for us in both places?”

Becca pushed her way to Dyck, a first aid kit in hand. Walker gave her room to go to work. He took Dyck’s hand in his own.

“You’ve got a mole,” Scott said.

Heather turned to Scott, frowning. “Is that how you found us?”

Scott glanced at Heather. “Different mole, but yes. My guy’s still working on your side. There’s someone else. Someone working for the opposition.”

“Who is the fucking opposition?” Mads frustration came through unconsciously. He took a deep breath and tried to pull it together. “Who’s the mole?”

“I can’t answer either of those questions, Mr. Madison.” Scott gestured to Dyck. “We have to move him. We have to do it now.”

“He isn’t going far,” said Walker.

Becca had cut away Dyck’s shirt and wrapped the bullet hole to the left of his belly. “We have a vehicle, about ten metres down the alley. We can carry you all. Do you have a medic on your team?”

Dyck chuckled again, this time with less mirth than the last. “No room for that.”

Becca tied off the dressing, tight, then jammed a morphine autoinjector into his neck. “We’ve got equipment at our place. I can stabilize you until Scott gets you a doctor.”

Walker had his MP5K at the ready. “Right, we move to the vehicle. Scott, you’re with me. We take the prisoner. Mads, Help the lieutenant with Dyck. Heather, you’ve got the six.”

No one questioned it. Dyck could kind of stumble with Becca under one arm and Mads under the other. Dyck grimaced with almost every move, but never a sound, never a falter. What the fuck is this guy made of?

Scott shot a quick glance back toward Mads. “Stay close, Mr. Madison, in case our guest wakes.”

“What’s that?” Mads wanted to hurry, but he didn’t want to jostle Dyck any worse. “Why should that matter?”

“You don’t know?” asked Becca.

Mads’ brow furrowed. The fist of anxiety had a really tight grip on his stomach . . . or possibly his upper intestine, Mads wasn’t really great at anatomy. “You guys are really scaring me.”

Scott’s voice drifted back. “We’ll discuss it later, Mr. Madison. Too many possible ears.”

Mads caught Becca’s eyes, hoping maybe she’d have pity on him or something, give him some clue. She went somewhere else entirely.

“We should have expected back up, but I swear we didn’t see them when we arrived.” She was looking right at Mads, but it was like she wasn’t talking to him, more like she spoke to herself, trying to get things clear.

“Maybe they weren’t there,” Mads said. “Or maybe the ESPers clouded everything. Those earpiece things let them project through the silence.”

Becca looked away, her eyes on their path, but she nodded. “Yeah, maybe, but taking out their own guys first. That’s cold.”

“I’m betting those aren’t their guys.” Mads tried to concentrate on not bobbing as he walked. He noted how smooth Walker and Scott moved. He tried to mimic that. “They tagged the guys who knew something, something that they didn’t want in the open. That must have been the deal. With their position, they could have made a credible rescue attempt.”

Becca grunted something that might have been assent. “Yeah, weird no matter what that they targeted the ESPers first.”

“Sucks bein’ in the line of fire, ladies.” Dyck said it with a smile, but Mads could hear the tension in his voice.

“Not far now, soldier,” Becca said.

Mads assumed Becca referred to the beat-up, brown and white cargo van that looked at least a decade old, and a hard decade at that. Something like that could certainly carry the crew and not attract too much notice. Too bad it made such a big target.

“It’s got a modified engine and drive train,” Becca said. “It’s up-armoured, so at least until the local opposition pulls out the RPG-7s, we’re good.”

Attracting only a few curious glances from the pedestrians near the alley mouth, the group piled into the van, careful when transferring Dyck. With no cushion or blankets available, Dyck had to lie on the van floor. Scott got behind the wheel.

“I’ll try to take it easy, but we need to get to a roost fast,” he said.

Dyck nodded and mumbled something Mads didn’t catch. Then the van roared to life, and Mads did his best to cushion Dyck as everyone in the back—everyone without seats or handholds—slid along the metal floor.

________________________________

Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “There’s A Mole and Then There’s a Mole.”

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms. The team is faced with Alexander Scott and Rebecca Kim in ” . . . I Would’ve Backed a Cake,” but an agreement is reached. That makes everyone happy, until all the prisoners—and Dyck—are cut down in a hail of gunfire.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent. Rudi the Russian gets sent to Kathmandu to kill the Bedouin, but Boyle and “Cascade” emerge to save Rudi from “the Cat’s Reward.”

Now, Mads finds himself in the middle of a very tense situation with lots of people and lots of guns.

________________________________

Twelve: Switch of a Flick

Rudi had his Yarygin Grach pistol in hand. He stood to the left of a door in a rough and rickety building that perfectly fit his definition of decrepit. Cascade wore her earpiece–that technology the men who had ambushed Rudi had worn, which allowed Cascade to use her parapsych. Boyle had his suppressed Heckler & Koch HK53 short assault rifle at his shoulder, ready.

Inside that door, they expected to find at least two of the special operations team sent into Kathmandu to snatch Boyle. They also expected to find one traitor. Someone on that hunter team worked for the opposition, though Rudi wasn’t yet clear on who exactly the opposition were.

“Our overwatch in position?” Boyle asked Cascade, but he glanced pointedly at Rudi.

Cascade did the same. They didn’t mention Willow, the third member of their team. Rudi imagined she would be overwatch, but these two gave nothing away. Nothing for free.

“Everything’s a go.” Cascade had her silenced Beretta 96 with its extended magazine held loosely in her hand. Maybe she didn’t expect to do the shooting.

With that HK53, Boyle had more than enough rounds for anyone in that room.

“Remember, shoot to wound.” This time, Boyle spoke directly to Rudi, as though Rudi couldn’t remember simple orders. “Not everyone in the room is a bad guy.”

“What about me?” Rudi intended the question to sting. He got no response from Boyle.

Cascade’s eyes widened only slightly, her mouth tightened, her nostrils flared. Rudi’s stomach rolled. This couldn’t be good.

“He knows we’re here.” She spoke in a tight, tense whisper.

“Who?” Rudi’s tone mimicked hers.

Boyle stood at the door, poised for a dynamic entry. “Give me a picture.”

Suddenly, Rudi saw with more than his eyes. Overlaid on the wall was the room beyond it. This overlaid image had none of the sharpness and colour he saw with his eyes. Did he really see this? What, exactly, was he registering? He could feel the pressure, that slight but incessant push he felt whenever he got touched by an ESPer. Cascade had a light touch, but it was there.

The image of the room beyond the wall was strange, almost translucent, like some kind of faint neon x-ray. The furnishings of the room–which consisted of little more than a table, a few chairs, a couple of cots, a desk and some kind of couch–seemed even more ghostly than the figures of the people. One such figure reached into a drawer on the desk and drew out a weapon. The figure reclining on the couch sprang up, head turning to the door. The image washed out facial features, but Rudi could imagine the wide eyes with their questions and maybe a touch of fear.

Boyle stepped back and fired three, three-round bursts through the door. The figure by the desk shuddered as the rounds struck. The other figure seemed frozen, in a slight crouch, weapon half-way raised but not yet trained on the door.

Cascade’s firearm fell to her side, still held loose but no longer close to ready. “I have Sergeant Everson contained. He’s exceptional. Please physically restrain him.”

Boyle went through the door. Rudi followed. Boyle had let the HK53 drop to his chest, held by a tactical sling. A solidly built black man lay in an expanding pool of blood on the floor. An equally solid, sandy-blonde Caucasian crouched to the side, eyes watching but otherwise unmoving.

The man on the floor lay still. He didn’t breathe. So much for shoot to wound. Rudi, though, understood the necessity. For this man to have sensed them in the hall, he had access to something more than the five senses. He could be post-human, or something else.

Boyle drew out flex cuffs and pulled the Caucasian’s arms behind his back. “Sergeant Everson, I am disarming and restraining you for your own protection. There are things you don’t know about the man you knew as Flick.”

“Flick? You mean this guy was supposed to be Flick?” Rudi gestured to the body of the black man. “Flick’s Pakistani.”

“Yes,” said Boyle. “Someone somewhere heard he was coloured and didn’t do their due diligence.”

“Is that a bad joke?” Rudi checked for a pulse on the body. Nothing. “Who would be that stupid?”

Boyle stuck Everson’s Browning Hi-Power in his waistband. “Flick has a legend file that got accessed. His handlers let it fly. That gentleman ran around playing Flick for almost a year now while the real Flick was busy in the Hindu Kush. He almost got erased a couple of months back. This Flick has been very careful staying away from anyone in the know, but he was getting his face seen.”

Rudi stood and considered the desk–an open laptop, some notes, an AKM assault rifle. “Didn’t the CIA bring this team together?”

Cascade entered the room and closed the door. “Not the CIA. Their handler was delayed in Addis Ababa and replaced in situ.”

Everson slumped to the floor, apparently now free of Cascade’s control. Boyle helped him onto the couch.

“I’m sorry, sergeant, but you’ve been played.” Boyle pointed to the body on the floor. “That man isn’t Flick, he’s not British special forces, and he certainly wasn’t playing for your team.”

Everson gave a wry chuckle. “And I believe you because . . . ?”

The sergeant spoke the words, but they hid his real meaning. Rudi could hear the sentiment in his tone. The sergeant was on the way to being convinced already. “I imagine that your team already believed that the mission was not what it seemed, yes? You already knew someone was lying to you, but you had not deduced who.”

Cascade had gone to the body and began to search it. She didn’t seem squeamish in the least.

Boyle worked on the laptop. “Our little pretend Flick was in communication with the outside world.” He began examining the exterior of the computer. “Must be some kind of internal adjustment to the modem. Something like the headsets.”

As if on cue, Cascade held up a device similar to the one she wore. She tossed it to Boyle.

“We were sent to get you,” Everson said to Boyle.

“I’m well aware of why you are here.” Boyle turned to face Everson, leaning against the desk. “My people got their hands on Mr. Hitchens before he left the country. He has been most helpful.”

Everson’s face drew into a tight frown, if only slightly. “Your people?”

“Tangible Stream, Sergeant Everson.” Boyle offered a smile. “I believe you have heard of us.”

Everson nodded slowly. He took a long breath before speaking. He looked directly into Boyle’s eyes. “Now what? What about me?”

“You?” Boyle’s smile remained. “You are going to have the distasteful duty of dealing with this dead body. Of course, if there is nothing linking this room to you or your team, feel free to leave it here.”

While Cascade unplugged the laptop, stuffing it into her backpack, Boyle put the headset she had found on the table.

“You’ll want to share this with your people.” Boyle gently tapped the headset. “Someone has found a way to circumvent the Kathmandu silence. That someone isn’t being very friendly, and I have a feeling that Mr. Fake Flick may have caused you all some problems.”

Cascade stood at the door, staring at it. She turned to Boyle and nodded. Boyle unslung his HK53 and slid it into his canvas book bag. He gestured Rudi toward the door.

“I’m going to remove your cuffs, Sergeant Everson.” Boyle took out a knife and advanced on Everson. “I’m going to request that you not do anything heroic like attempt to detain me or my colleagues. I will leave your gun on the floor outside the door. Please feel free to retrieve it after a ten count. I don’t want to kill or incapacitate you, but I will do so if forced. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” Everson said. “You need to know that we’re still going to find you and we’re going to get our answers from you. Is that clear?”

Boyle slid the knife along the plastic cuffs, releasing Everson’s hands. “You are welcome to try, sergeant.”

________________________________

Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “Thicker Than Water?”

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent. Rudi the Russian gets sent to Kathmandu to kill the Bedouin, but Boyle and “Cascade” emerge to save Rudi from “the Cat’s Reward.”

Now, Mads finds himself in the middle of a very tense situation with lots of people and lots of guns.

________________________________

Eleven:  . . . I Would’ve Baked A Cake

Mads hauled Psycho Number 2 behind him. Walker and Dyck both propelled their prisoners in front, manoeuvring them like they were driving. It’d work nice for a meat shield, but Mads just didn’t have those skills, so he dragged his guy.

Forward movement ahead of him stopped, but Mads still passed through the door. He wanted out of that coffee shop. Considering Walker had shot a guy back there, Mads expected the police to come swarming down on the place at any moment. Rather than wait politely inside the kitchen at the back of the shop, he pushed his way out into the alleyway, dragging his prisoner with him.

And right into a classic Sergio standoff.

Everyone had guns out—Heather, Walker, Dyck, some old dude and and Asian woman. Mads, however, wasn’t really thinking about the gun in his hand. He wasn’t thinking about the flex-cuffed prisoner he was hauling behind him. He wasn’t even thinking of the likelihood of getting shot should things go south. No, he was only thinking of the hot, buff, Korean-American woman aiming the sub-machine gun at Walker.

He lowered his gun. “Shit, Becca,  . . . Hi.”

Becca’s eyes narrowed, then went wide. Her sub-machine gun lowered just slightly. The Old Dude—wait, Mads remembered the face, that was the guy who was supposedly working with Boyle, the guy Walker knew—glanced at Mads, then looked at Becca.

“Friend of yours?” Alexander Scott’s tone didn’t carry any threat, no anger, no hardness. Mads though Scott sounded amused.

“We’re all friends here, right Alex?” Walker didn’t lower his MP5K. “Given that, you want to ask Lt.  Park to lower her weapon so we can all run like hell before the police show up?

A smile threatened the edges of Scott’s mouth. “Indeed. My safehouse or yours?”

“Are you joking?” Heather still had her pistol in hand. “Listen, the CIA seem to think that you’re part of some conspiracy. We’re here to bring your buddy Boyle in. The spook wasn’t so explicit about what we were to do with you.”

“Yeah, about that CIA guy.” Mads holstered his Sig. “I got here late because we got a landline connection, and it turns out the CIA are looking for us. They think we missed our briefing and are cowboying it in Kathmandu.”

“Missed our briefing?” Heather exhaled slowly through her nostrils. “We’ve been played.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Scott put his weapon away. “We have a place that’s nice a quiet to question these three.”

“No, you’ll come with us,” said Walker. “There’s questions we need you to answer as well.”

“I’ve got some bad news for you, news I don’t want to share in front of our unnamed friends here.” Scott gestured to the prisoners. “I think they’ve heard enough of our business as it is.”

Heather didn’t miss a beat, SIG trained on Scott’s chest. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

Walker lowered his MP5K, letting it hang beneath his jacket on his tactical rig. “No, I think that’s good enough for me. I know this guy. Trust me on this one.”

“On this one?” Heather put away her weapon. “You seem to be asking that a lot of me.”

And like that, the tension disappeared. Maybe not for the guys tied up and heading for interrogation, but for everyone else. Firearms disappeared. Everyone made nice.

“Lead the way,” said Walker.

Scott did just that. Becca fell in beside Mads.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

“I have no idea.” Mads shook his head.

Psycho Number 2, the dog Mads took for a walk, stiffened. “You don’t know?”

The guy spoke perfect English. Thing was, it was too perfect. It was the perfect language with dialect that spooks got taught to match a legend. Mads filed that away, wondering if Walker or Heather had already marked it.

Mads wondered what Psycho Two in Tow might know. “Are you telling me you’ve something interesting to share?”

Psycho in Tow sneered. “You really don’t know?”

At that moment, Mads stopped. He felt  . . . felt someone ‘pushing,’ pushing on the air around him. It compressed—it seemed like the world around him compressed, tightening against his skin. He realized he looked down at his feet. He looked up. Walker had stopped also. His MP5K was out.

“Everyone down!” Walker shouted.

Mads was already diving to the side. Becca had as well. A cloud of red mist sprouted from Psycho in Tow. All the prisoners took hits. Dyck had dragged his Psycho down with him, and got tagged for his troubles.

Gunfire erupted. Everyone had weapons out. Mads did the same. Too late. Too late.

There, on the roof, a guy with an M16 and a scope. Mads realized he was the only one on that side of the street, the only one who could see the guy. The guy who was targeting Dyck—targeting Dyck who had been hit and lay in the street.

Mads gave Mr. Marksman something else to think about.

________________________________

Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “Switch of the Flick.”

In “The Stream,” Boyle and his team get jumped in Kathmandu by a crew who may work for the Chinese.

In “The Vault,” a special section of Canada’s Communications Security Establishment is monitoring Kathmandu, which has gone dark to all electronic and parapsychic traffic. Madison and Heather, two agents from the Vault, joined their international spec ops team in “Meet & Greet.” While on the trail of Boyle, the team is ambushed  by a group of parapsyches able to break through the Kathmandu silence. The team foiled the ambush, but at the end of “Dirty Hands,” they were facing the business ends of more firearms.

In “Mission Unlikely,” we learn that Boyle and his team have gone missing. Becca meets Alex in Monrovia in order to get him to come with her to Kathmandu to find Boyle. Off the record and off the reservation. Alex then goes to meet a contact in Burma in “The Russian.” Rudi the Russian agrees to supply both equipment and information for Alex’s forway into Nepal. Alex and Becca try to make contact with a prisoner in Kathmandu allegedly connected to Tangible Stream, but in “Target of Opportunity,” they find that someone is watching. That someone isn’t professional, and they capture him with ease. This doesn’t make them feel any better.

In “The Bedouin,” Kyle and Meredith from the Prospero Group contract the intelligence broker known as the Bedouin to get them a lead on what is happening in Kathmandu. The Bedouin returns to old haunts in “From Delhi With Indifference,” only to be ambushed by hit teams led by a man with a Nepalese name but an American accent.

Now, Rudi the Russian is in Kathmandu, sent by his Burmese bosses to kill someone.

________________________________

Ten: A Cat’s Reward

Rudi the Russian didn’t like this job. Working in Burma, that was one thing. Yeah, he hated the fucking generals, hated their obstinacy, hated their total lack of anything resembling common sense. Other than that, though, the job was good. He didn’t deal with domestic matters, only the various international conspiracies against Burma, of which there were none. Not that this mattered to the generals. Someone, somewhere was out to get them.

That job, Rudi tolerated because—perks aside—it paid well. This job . . . well, this job had no perks. It had only real problems that could cause Rudi annoyance. He didn’t like that.

Everyone thought they knew Rudi’s background. No one really did. He had been playing so many sides against each other in Russia that sometimes he didn’t even really know where his loyalties lay. He had done his share of killing. He had killed with his own hands and he had ordered murders. He had hoped to leave that all behind when he had left Russia behind.

A sanction had brought him to Nepal, one of those operations the Americans loved to call wetworks. He had come to Kathmandu to kill someone. And not just any someone, but the foremost freelance intelligence broker in the world. He was there to kill the Bedouin.

He still couldn’t figure out why the generals would want the Bedouin dead. True, the Bedouin had  never entered Burma, but he had done work for the generals. He had refused far more contracts than he had accepted, but did it warrant removal?

No, someone else was behind this. Someone the generals owed. The Chinese sprang to mind. In the end, it didn’t matter. He was contracted to the Burmese. They told him to remove the Bedouin. Did the why and who really matter so much?

Yes. It did. It really did. And that answer annoyed him. He was a professional and he had signed a contract. Now he needed to abide by that contract, personal issues aside. And really, was this a personal issue or just curiosity?

Perhaps a little of both.

He had Sahasya—first name? last name?—in sight, but the Bedouin had not yet arrived. Rudi’s information placed Sahasya as the Research and Analysis Wing’s man in Nepal. Someone somewhere had intercepted communications between this Sahasya and the Bedouin. That surprised Rudi. It also surprised Rudi that the Bedouin would be out in the open in this city. Something must have forced him here.

Something like the “Kathmandu matter,” as some newspapers had come to call it.

This city was on everyone’s mind. It was on Rudi’s mind. The little he knew of the situation made him sweat. Stay clear, his common sense told him. Leave it to the fools to rush in.

Making him, of course, a fool.

“You’re not going to find him.”

Rudi didn’t react. Didn’t spin around, or jump, or even speak. If the man behind him wanted to put a bullet in him, it would happen. Apparently, the man wanted to talk.

“I’m beginning to doubt he’s even here.” The speaker used relatively flat English. An American?

“Do I know you?” Rudi used Russian, just to see what would happen.

“You understand me, Rudi the Russian.” The speaker still used English. “You’ve got impressive defences, I’ll grant you, but in the end, they all fall.”

There, inside his mind, he felt the hand. Someone grabbing hold of him, like holding his soul. Rudi tried to react, tried to get his Yarygin Grach pistol. He couldn’t move.

“You will move to the alley,” the speaker said. “You will stop five metres in and wait.”

Rudi started to walk. He couldn’t help himself. Somehow, an ESPer had cracked the Kathmandu silence. Impossible? So the analyses had all said. All wrong. And he had paid good money to acquire those. Not that he could do anything about it now. No one would ever know about this. Rudi knew what awaited him in the alley. What he didn’t know was the who or the why.

The Bedouin? Considering Rudi was there to kill him, that made sense. Who else could it be?

He reached the mouth of the alley. He continued down it. There, about five metres in, he saw a man who looked like a local. He wore clean and pressed casual clothes with a jacket. It seemed that everyone with a weapon in Kathmandu wore a jacket. What was the point of carrying concealed if you broadcast the fact?

Stupid thing to be thinking when one’s life was being measured in footsteps.

Rudi halted five metres in, just in front of the local.

“You and I are not going to talk, but I’m going to learn everything you know.” The local smiled a cruel little smile that told Rudi this man enjoyed his work. “Then I will kill you. No one will miss you. You have questions, I know. Ask one question.”

And his voice was freed. “Who ordered this?”

“There are those that want to know everything that you know,” the local said. “I wish I could tell you more, but everything is darkness and smoke.” The local leaned close, his eyes intent on Rudi. “Tell me, does the name St. Martin mean something to you? No?” The local scowled. “Unfortunate. You will die ignorant, just as you–”

Rudi’s hand went to his pistol. It froze for a moment as he realized he moved freely. The local’s eyes widened as a hole drilled itself between them, and his shirt billowed as two others blossomed on his chest. Rudi had his pistol out and spun as the local dropped.

The man before him had a silenced SIG Sauer P226 autoloader aimed at Rudi’s heart. “Drop the weapon, Rudi.”

The woman to the side and just behind the man had silenced  Beretta 96 with an extended magazine also aimed at Rudi. Fine, fair hair pulled back in a bun, the woman had an athletic build and an attractive face, except for the fact that she appeared entirely capable of airing Rudi out with that Beretta.

The man had very short, dark hair and a craggy, angular face. He spoke English with an almost indiscernible Dublin lilt. His cold grey eyes said that he wouldn’t hesitate to put three rounds into Rudi.

“Boyle, I imagined you were dead.” Rudi holstered his pistol. He didn’t want to tempt Boyle to do anything rash, but he also had his pride. He wouldn’t drop this sidearm.

“That seems to be the consensus.” Boyle spoke with calm equanimity. Rudi would have felt more comfortable without the weapons pointed at him. “People either think I’m dead or want to kill me.”

“They were ESPers, operating in Kathmandu.” Rudi didn’t know why he felt compelled to state the obvious. A kind of shock, maybe? He had, very recently, believed himself about to die. It was still a possibility. “This one and the one in the street.”

It didn’t faze Boyle. “We noticed. The one who ambushed you followed you in. If it makes you feel better, he’s done.”

“You know how they do it?” Rudi asked. “How they break through the silence?”

“We’ve encountered something similar, yes.” Boyle gave the woman the briefest of glances before his eyes returned to Rudi. “Your minders are down. I hope you weren’t overly fond of them.”

Rudi’s eyes narrowed. “Minders?”

“Your babysitters.” A smirk played on Boyle’s face. “You didn’t know the Burmese sent a team to watch you? Really? You’re getting sloppy.”

And Rudi had to admit that Boyle was right. He hadn’t bothered to maintain security. He hadn’t bothered to be professional. So focused on his own disdain for the job on which he had been sent, he forgot the truest maxim of his job: trust no one. It was all falling apart and he was letting it happen.

“Did they think I was going to turn or something?” Rudi didn’t know if Boyle had the answer, but he needed to ask the question.

“You know what the cat got for being curious, right?” Boyle shook his head. “Always knew you had the white-hat streak in you, Rudi. I guess the Burmese didn’t appreciate you nosing around.”

“Sloppy isn’t a good enough word.” Rudi rubbed his eyes. “I got lazy. I got complacent.”

“Just so you know, the Bedouin isn’t here, he’s not in Kathmandu,” Boyle said. “He’s not stupid. You, though, I’m starting to wonder.”

“If you’re going to do it, just fucking do it, man.” The exasperation Rudi felt, the anger welling up inside him, he directed at Boyle. Everyone was playing Rudi for a patsy. Everyone.

The woman lowered her Beretta and took a few deep breaths. Rudi started to sweat. Something was about to happen. So far, everything that had happened that day had ended badly for Rudi. This didn’t look like it would be any different.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Boyle said. “I don’t want Cascade here ripping through your brain. I’m sentimental that way. All the same, I’m going to ask you some questions and she’ll know if you’re lying. You get one chance, Rudi. One. You lie to me and you’re going to die here, right beside Mr. Smart-Ass Dolme.”

“She’s Cascade, then you’re Untold.” Rudi looked past them, searching the mouth of the alley. “And where is Willow?”

“Should’ve known someone was listening.” Boyle spit out the words with annoyance but no real venom. “Willow doesn’t concern you. What concerns you are the twelve rounds of 9 millimetre Parabellum I still have available to illustrate my displeasure. Are you ready to answer my questions, or do I need to start making that illustration?”

Rudi spat at Boyle’s feet. “I thought you were a decent man. Stupid, like you say. No one in the business is decent. The business isn’t decent.” He watched Boyle for two heartbeats. The hollow words and aspersions did nothing to make him feel better. As much as he hated it, he didn’t want to die. He had lost, yet again. “Ask your fucking questions, Boyle.”

The woman, Cascade, put something that looked like a headset transceiver over one of her ears. She nodded.

Boyle’s eyes bored into Rudi. “First one: is Gurung planning to kill Alex Scott?”

________________________________

Mundus Novit: Dark Horizons continues with “. . . I Would’ve Baked A Cake.”