“Think the XLS did this?” Sam’s voice was barely audible through Jessica’s earpiece. They had to speak softly. The search parties were getting close.
Jessica leaned back against the cold stone of the skyscraper wall as searchlights rebounded through the alleyway. The KGB’s gruff shouts grew closer. She watched one of the soldiers kick a vagrant and slam the butt of a rifle into his skull. The homeless man fell into the snow and whimpered.
A circle of soldiers stood in front of a lavish restaurant. Two men lay sprawled out on the pavement in front of them.
“I don’t know,” Jessica whispered. “It’s not like them to shoot two men in cold blood.”
“After what they did to JFK, I don’t know what to expect from them,” said Sam.
The restaurant doors opened and a well-dressed, rotund man strode to a luxury sedan waiting for him at the curb. Jessica moved out from behind the corner of the skyscraper and peered through the ocular enhancer to get a better look.
“Who’s that?” asked Sam. His perch atop a building down the street was too far away to get a good look.
Her datapad ran the images through a facial recognition program. “Rustam Egorov, arms dealer.”
“Think that’s why they’re here?”
“Who knows–”
A bright white light blinded Jessica. Disengaging the ocular enhancer, she dove for cover. Too late. Bullets pinged off the skyscraper wall. She bolted for the end of the alleyway.
“They’ve seen me, Sam!”
A small, hovering camera darted around the skyscraper. Beeeeeep! It engaged its night vision lens. Jessica fired two shots. The drone short-circuited and crashed to the ground, but the images had already been transmitted. She ran.
Dead end.
A hobo warmed his hands over a fire burning inside a trashcan. Startled, he jumped back and started to protest. Then he suddenly stopped. Terrified and blubbering, he fell back into the snow and wrapped his arms up and over his head.
Jessica spun around. Soldiers repelled down the sides of the skyscrapers. They hit the ground and shouted at her. She brandished her gun as the semi-circle of soldiers closed in. There was no escape.
