My blood ran cold. “Who and how many?”

S’s voice betrayed a slight amount of worry, which surprised me. “It’s the Carnevale, four low-level members and a couple of supervising veterans. They know who you, and possibly Marissa, are. They’re extremely well-armed and have managed to sneak weapons into the terminal under the auspices of being agents for the Department of Homeland Security. They’ve rerouted calls to the police department and other emergency services.”

Standard operating procedure for both the Carnevale and the Society, though we tended to work alone. “I see. Any chance of backup?”

“Maybe. Delphi informed me of this a few minutes ago, and told me to call you. I’m just getting back from Zurich.”

And the AI didn’t contact me directly?

Strange.

“Are you in the airport?” I asked.

“The terminal. Shall I meet with you?”

“If you can.”

“I’m uploading profiles of the agents to your cellphone,” S said. “Good luck. Try not to die.”

“I’ve been lucky so far.”

Switching it off, I looked to Marissa, who appeared less than happy.

“Let me guess, people are coming to kill us,” Marissa said.

“Yep,” I replied.

“Lots of them?”

“Yep,” I answered.

Marissa leaned back in her seat. “And just when I thought I was going to be having a good day.”

The plane was empy now except for the flight attendants and the pilots. In a few more minutes, they would start wondering why we weren’t departing, and I had no doubt we would be marked by the Carnevale agents waiting for us outside. Hell, it was possible they’d tap me in the head with a sniper rifle the moment I stepped off the plane. Not to mention Marissa. A plan formed in my head. Not a good one, but probably the best one I could come up with on such short notice. “Can you make a distraction?”

“How big of a distraction?” Marissa asked.

“Keep the flight attendants away for the next few minutes.”

“You can call them stewardesses,” Marissa said.

“Whatever.”

I leaned down and pulled out my jack to plug into my cellphone. Immediately, I had the profiles of six different killers downloaded into my head: Carlos Mendez, John Chambers, Michelle Thompson, Joshua Harland, Rosario King, and Hugo Alvez. The latter two were the Carnevale veterans with such lovely names as the Yellow Spider and the Zombie. It made me think the research department boys had way too much time on their hands.

The first four were nothing more than jumped up thugs with military training, but the veterans had been enhanced with Karma Corps’ unique blend of mnemonic drugs, muscle-enhancers, and pain suppressors. Possibly even cybernetics. It would make them capable of pulling off feats of strength and speed that normal people just couldn’t match. We’re talking real Hercules meets John Woo shit.

S was kind enough to also provide a complete map of the airport terminal, a listing of all its various security camera locations, as well as how many security officers were present. Even if we didn’t have to worry about the police, people were justifiably anxious about security in airports, and it wouldn’t take much to get a small army brought down on our heads. If that happened, and I got arrested, the Society would make sure I had an “accident” in holding. They didn’t tolerate screw-ups like that.

“When?” Marissa asked.

“Now.” I got up and retrieved my briefcase but not my carry-on bag. I then proceeded to walk to the restroom next to the cockpit.

“Oh my god! I’ve lost my meds!” Marissa shouted, starting to crawl on the ground, summoning the flight attendants to her side.

Watching the flight attendant by the cockpit door move past me as Marissa threw an ever bigger fit, I proceeded to the two pilots sitting before the dashboard. Setting down my briefcase, I shut the door behind me. One minute and thirty seconds later, I emerged wearing a pilot’s shirt, a jacket over one shoulder and a hat tipped over my face. The pilots were immobilized but alive. Picking up my briefcase, I saw the flight attendants trying to restrain a now-screaming Marissa. Unlike me, nothing would happen if she was brought in by airline security, and it would guarantee her protection against the Carnevale to be in the hands of the “proper” authorities.

Moving down the plane’s airstair onto the tarmac, I counted on confusion over my identity long enough to allow me to move behind a set of luggage carriers to avoid a sniper shot. Walking alongside it with my exposed side to the open sky, I used my tablet to check the CCTV of the airport. I saw, not at all to my surprise, that they had set up a sniper atop Logan Airport’s roof, overlooking my position. They had airport security covering all the exits, with their men supervising. It was a clever tactic, even if it wasn’t going to work out well for them should airport security balk at my summary execution. Then again, they might decide to kill me and claim they had justifiable cause.

Locating Hugo Alvez with the CCTV system, I saw the six-foot-seven Venezuelan man dressed in a black suit with an earpiece. He had long black hair tied in a ponytail and a Fu Manchu mustache which gave him more than a passing resemblance to Danny Trejo. The giant assassin was surveying the baggage handling area, frequently stopping to check individual pieces of baggage.

The Zombie’s record was a nightmare of murders for cartels, syndicates, dictators, and fun. He had survived stabbings, shootings, beatings, and even an alligator attack, if his file was to be believed. I could tell by the way his suit bulged that he was armed with an Uzi in addition to a Glock 9mm. He was surrounded by a dozen workers sorting through hundreds of pieces of luggage next to a conveyor belt.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Any frontal attack would be suicide and any attempt to sneak up on the Zombie would be a dicey proposition. I might be able to fool the junior members into believing I was just another pilot, but a seasoned assassin of the Carnevale would see through it in a second. I needed to get rid of this guy as well as provide myself an escape route. Thankfully, I had brought my briefcase. The one rigged to explode if I needed to dispose of any incriminating evidence after a mission.

Turning the combination to 666 on both sides, I opened it up and removed the spare cellphone, pen, and iPod which were disguised components for assembling a six-shot pistol. I hid my gun in my right pocket and set the bomb hidden in the briefcase’s lining to go off in about forty seconds, just the right time for it to reach the Zombie.

Walking around the side of the building and watching everything on my tablet, I saw the Zombie’s right arm blown off along with half his face. The explosion triggered alarms all around the airport, which I took advantage of, sneaking in before adopting a panicked look to fit in with the rest of the now-terrified crowds. According to the security cameras, all of the Carnevale’s agents, even the sniper on the roof, were going for the spot where they’d heard the explosion, providing me the perfect opportunity to reach the main terminal.

The front doors were visible. Deftly avoiding the airport’s cameras, I strode out to join all the other airport customers trying to get away or call the police. That was another benefit of my impromptu bomb scare; it meant the Carnevale’s people would be overwhelmed trying to capture all of the calls coming out.

I smirked, heading out into the nearest parking lot to hotwire a car. “This is why you don’t fuck with the master.”

That was when my cellphone buzzed with a text. Picking it up, I looked at the message from S: Meet me in the women’s bathroom in front of the gate at Terminal A.

I texted back, I’m kind of busy escaping. Can’t this wait?

S texted back, No.

“Fuck,” I said aloud, immediately turning around to slip back through the doors before security sealed them shut tight.

As big a sonofabitch as I was, I owed S and wasn’t about to abandon my wife, fake marriage or not. As I walked through the crowded airport terminal, alarms rang and instructions to remain calm came over the intercom. I saw the A Gate women’s restroom had an “Out of Order” sign tied in front of it. Keeping my eyes on the cameras, I headed into the restroom and found myself surrounded by a horror show.

The restroom was completely destroyed: two sinks smashed and leaking water onto the ground, a collapsed stall, holes in the tiling from where someone had punched them in, a shattered mirror, and the body of a blonde, business-suit-wearing woman on the ground. The woman had arms full of porcelain shards, three bullet holes in her chest, one through the side of her jaw, and a broken leg. The actual wound that had killed her was a broken neck, though, done by someone with superhuman strength.

S had killed the Yellow Spider.

“Took you long enough.” S’s voice drifted out from behind one of the still-intact stalls, and then my wife stumbled out.

S was a five-foot-six woman with long dark hair, sculpted cheekbones, a firm muscular frame, and an English accent. She was a striking woman, which had its advantages in the intelligence game but tended to make her identities things like professional swimmers or tennis players.

Right now, S was wearing a bloody white sweater and a pair of blue jeans. She was nursing her right shoulder and had a bullet wound in her right leg that wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as it should be. Her knuckles were bloody and several bruises were rapidly disappearing on her body, the result of the enhancements she’d received.

More than me.

“Trouble at the office?” I asked, looking her up and down.

“Less than I thought I’d have,” S said, reluctantly sliding up against one of the sinks and sitting on it. “She came at me with a gun, but I managed to get it away from her. She’s got the nano-enhanced bone structure we’ve been working on. I don’t think any of the bullets even reached her organs.”

“I hate this sci-fi bullshit so much,” I said.

“Says the cyborg,” S said.

I looked away. “This is serious.”

“No shit.”

“Do you need me to sneak you out?” I asked.

S rolled her eyes. “The day I need your help escaping from the airport is the day I’ll go back to being a meter maid or whatever I was before.”

“What do you need then?”

“We have a problem. A big one.”

I double checked the CCTV scanners on my tablet. They were all down now.

Shit.

“Aside from the Carnevale knowing my identity?” I said, half-suspecting the Society would consider me a lost cause and terminate me.

“They know it because they have one of our own here to kill you.”

I took a second to process that. They hadn’t been sent by the Society, since they would have just waited for me to come back to the home office to terminate me. Likewise, S wouldn’t be here to help. She liked me a great deal but didn’t like me that much. It meant we had a defector. “Who the hell is stupid enough to turn traitor?”

“Delphi doesn’t know.”

“That’s a first.”

“I wish. The traitor is the reason we’ve been summoned back.”

So that was why we’d lost two of our own.

And I was to be the third.

“He, or she, is here,” S added. “Somewhere in the terminal.”

“That’s a big coincidence.”

“Yes, all of the agents recalled to the home office in Boston end up in Boston’s largest airport.”

“Point taken. Why expose himself now?”

“I think this is a test of loyalty, one I suspect we may have made difficult for them.”

It didn’t explain why the Carnevale was targeting us in the first place, though. As crazy as their antics were, tonight’s escapades in point, they were a business. It wasn’t very savvy of them to start a war with one of the few organizations entirely capable of bringing the fight directly to them. Then again, people did stupid shit all the time.

“We have to stop them,” I muttered. “You need my help to do it.”

“Yes.”

I smiled.

“You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?” S asked, sighing.

“Nope.”

That was when my cellphone rang again. It was Marissa. Clicking the send button, I put it to my ear. “Hey, how’s your situation?”

A deep, throat, Spanish-accented voice greeted me on the other end. “I’m afraid it’s not good, at least for your little girlfriend.”

“Alvez.”

A strange sensation filled me, causing my throat to constrict and my breath to become labored. A chill went up and down my spine, making my entire body feel clammy and cold. I had never experienced anything quite like it. Not that I could remember, at least. It was fear—an emotion I only rarely felt, and even then, only in the abstract. But here, it was raw and undiminished. Fear that Marissa was no longer going to be in my life, save as a memory. Was she dead? I wasn’t sure I could deal with that. I’d never experienced anything like it.

“You cost me an arm. It will take my people very long to replace it.”

“World’s smallest violin here. How are you still alive?” I tried to be glib, but I couldn’t. I wanted to reach into the phone and rip his throat out with my bare hands.

“They call me the Zombie for a reason.”

“Your breath?” I joked, trying to hide my unease.

There was a cry of pain in the background followed by much Spanish profanity. Marissa was very colorful in what she wanted to do to the Carnevale’s killers.

“That was me breaking your girlfriend’s finger. Care to test me again?”

I didn’t. I closed my eyes. “What do you want?”

How did they know about my relationship with her? Only Marissa, myself, and S knew.

“You.” The Zombie’s voice chuckled. “You come to us and the girl goes free.”

“That’s not a very fair bargain.” I was trained to act like it wouldn’t matter. Hostages didn’t matter. Not normally.

“We’re not going to kill you, Mister G. Though I’m sincerely reconsidering that position. The Carnevale wishes to make you an offer.”

I didn’t believe him for a second.

“Where?” I asked.

“The tarmac, ten minutes.”

“All right.” I turned off the cellphone.

“So what are you going to do?” S asked.

“What do you think? Kill all of them.” My heart settled back to a steady rhythm as I focused on the new emotion welling in my breast. I believe it was hatred. “Care to help?”

S smiled.