Desh’s mouth fell open, but he was able to recover before anyone noticed his reaction. He recognized this newcomer immediately.
It was Ross Metzger.
Eric Frey didn’t have to know what was happening to know there was more danger here than expected. He pulled a gellcap from his pocket and swallowed it. He was now minutes away from being the absolute master of any situation that might arise. “Report!” he shouted at the two snipers.
“This bastard took out Curt and his entire team,” said the merc on the left. “Quietly, and without firing a single shot,” he added. “They’re all dead.” He pushed Ross Metzger’s body with his boot. “But so is he.”
“This guy took out four armed and trained men, all by himself?” said Frey in disbelief, and in that instant Desh realized Ross Metzger must have been enhanced. Ross was good, but he wasn’t that good. Desh remembered being a hostage years earlier, and facing certain death, when an enhanced Ross Metzger had came to his and Kira’s rescue, killing Alan Miller in the process. It was a bit of Déjà vu. Only this time, Ross wasn’t his ally. This time he was working with the poisoned Kira Miller for corrupt ends of their own.
The sniper nodded. “I saw him take out Dmitri through my scope. His speed seemed almost, I don’t know . . . superhuman,” he added, both fear and awe in his voice.
Frey gasped. He had finally realized that their mystery assailant was enhanced.
Which meant he could control his vital signs.
Frey began to raise his arm to fire a bullet into Metzger’s head, but he could have been moving in slow motion for all the good it did him. Before his arm had moved a foot the bloody body on the floor twisted to the side and flung a stainless steel combat knife, which buried itself between Frey’s eyes, killing him instantly.
Metzger yanked the legs out from under both snipers beside him before they even registered that he had thrown the knife, and broke the neck of the merc to his left with the sound of a branch snapping in two. He was an instant away from breaking the second soldier’s neck when Andrew Dutton shot wildly at the blur on the ground using the tranquilizer gun Frey had handed him earlier. The dart hit Metzger in the leg, which wouldn’t have stopped him if it had been a bullet, but Metzger’s superhuman speed ended abruptly, like a video that had been in extreme fast forward being stopped on a dime—and he fell once again to the floor, blood still seeping from his shoulder.
“Get up!” shouted Dutton to the soldier lying near Metzger, whose life Dutton had just saved. Dutton rushed over to Kira Miller, grabbed a handful of her hair, and yanked her face toward his. “Who is he?” he demanded.
“I don’t know,” croaked Kira, wincing in pain. “He’s not with me.”
Dutton put a gun to her head and chambered a round. “Who is he, and who else is coming? You have three seconds!”
“Kill me and you’ll never see my longevity treatment!” she blurted out breathlessly. “I wasn’t planning a double-cross. Frey would have known. Think about it! I have no idea who he is. But if he has backup we’re sitting ducks in here,” she added.
Dutton turned toward the two mercs who had remained in the living room since Kira had entered. “You two are with me,” he commanded. “We’ll split up, recon the area, and meet outside this door in fifteen minutes. Look sharp.” He turned to the sniper he had saved. “As for you,” he added, “stay here and babysit these two.”
Desh had remained hyper-alert since the moment Metzger had made his move, waiting for an opening. During the commotion he had managed to come to a standing position by the wall without being noticed. Desh could tell that the sniper Dutton had ordered to guard them was still a little shaken from the torque Metzger had applied to his head and neck faster, and with greater strength, than should have been possible. Desh’s hands were still bound behind his back, but he readied himself for action and studied the man’s eyes. As Dutton left with the two armed mercs in tow, and closed the door behind him, the sniper shifted his gaze to follow and lowered his arm for just a moment.
This momentary lapse of attention was all Desh needed. He exploded forward and closed the ten feet between himself and the guard. The sniper raised his arm to fire as Desh collided with him, head down, and kept his legs churning, like a fullback running through an attempted tackle, driving him into the opposite wall with bone jarring force and causing the gun to fly from his hand. The sniper recovered from the initial shock and reached in his belt for another weapon, but Kira swept his legs out from under him and he fell to the ground, where Desh kicked him in the face with enough force to break through concrete. The man’s head snapped back and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.
Griffin and Metzger were still unconscious from the tranquilizer darts, and Frey and both snipers were dead. Only he and Kira remained standing.
Desh rushed over and dropped down onto Frey’s lifeless torso, angling back until his bound hands came into contact with the hilt of Metzger’s knife. He tugged at it until the blood-covered blade dislodged from between Frey’s eyes, which required more strength than he had expected.
Desh tried to maneuver the blade to cut through the hardened plastic of his cuffs, but his hands were tied too closely together and he couldn’t get the proper angle, or the leverage to do anything more than stab himself with the bloody knife repeatedly until fresh blood was leaking from cuts of his own.
“Give me the knife,” said Kira. “I’ll free you.”
Desh shook his head. Even if she were an ally, the plastic was too tough and his hands were too close together. She’d have a better angle than he did, but with her hands tied behind her as well, he was sure she wouldn’t have enough strength to saw through the hardened plastic. It didn’t matter anyway, since they were decidedly not allies. “Yeah, I’m going to give you a knife and let you use it near my wrists,” he said sarcastically. He had already done enough damage to himself.
“Then cut me loose and I’ll free you,” offered Kira anxiously.
Desh laughed at the absurdity of her request. “No chance. You’ll just kill me and escape. Jake was right, you’re the most dangerous psychopath on earth. That’s not going to happen.”
“David,” she said calmly, and it was the voice of the old Kira, the Kira he loved, which made him hate the current version even more. “I’m on your side. I’ve always been on your side . . . on our side,” she corrected. “I know I’ve been acting strange and I’ve deceived you, but it’s not what you think.”
“Save your breath!” snapped Desh in disgust. “You really think I’d buy any act you could come up with at this point? Really?”
“David, remember when you figured out that Alan was the one pulling the strings? And his exact plan? Remember? And you kept that from me. You weren’t sure how I’d react, and too much was on the line to trust my acting abilities. Remember?” she repeated urgently. “I thought we were dead, that we had lost everything. You let me think that—but for noble reasons.” She took a breath and hurried on. “Well this is similar; an audacious plan that Ross and Matt had to be in on. But you and Jim didn’t. I couldn’t afford to take any chances and tell you. Too much was on the line.” Kira’s eyes grew larger and she looked as pained and vulnerable as he could ever remember. “But I’ve never stopped loving you, David. With all of my heart.” She shook her head. “And I never will.”