Despite the odds against him, Kuhn hadn’t felt this alive in years. Also, from what he had seen, he thought he might actually have a chance to take the other man. Stengrave’s closed-face helmet protected him, but it also limited his vision to a tiny strip right in front of his eyes. Plus, as the helmet was attached to the rest of the armor, it didn’t allow him to turn his head! Finally, there were many places where he wasn’t nearly as heavily armored, like his neck, elbow and knee joints.
If I can just take him by surprise, I might be able to pull this off, Kuhn thought. And I think I know exactly how...
Hiding behind the last suit of armor near the far door, he tried to get his breathing under control as he peeked out just enough to locate Stengrave. The bigger man had returned to the middle of the hallway, standing a few steps away from the rack of swords. Although he was looking around, Kuhn’s evaluation of his helmet was correct—Stengrave couldn’t turn his head. He ran through his plan one more time in his mind. Here goes...
He shoved the armor he was hiding behind over as hard as he could, counting on the movement to attract his boss’s attention. The moment he felt it tip, he ducked and ran, keeping low, down the row to the suit of armor closest to Stengrave.
The falling suit hit the floor with a clatter. Kuhn didn’t wait for Stengrave’s reaction, but shoved the suit he was standing behind over, as well, straight at the big man. His plan was to follow that up with an attack, hoping to injure the other man as he dodged the falling armor.
It wasn’t a bad plan, and went off more or less as he had planned it. The only trouble was that Stengrave ended up facing Kuhn to fend off the falling armor, and as such, saw the smaller man coming at him. Already committed, Kuhn kept going, even as Stengrave sidestepped the second distraction. Kuhn angled over to the other man’s left side, where his sword wasn’t, already raising his sword to swing down at the armored man’s left knee, hoping to chop into the joint and maim him.
Kuhn wasn’t exactly sure what happened next. As he started bringing his sword down he caught a blur of movement from Stengrave out of the corner of his eye, then it felt as though he had run into a horizontal railing with such force it knocked the breath out of him. He kept moving forward, his sword forgotten in his hand, even as he felt a strange pressure on his chest, which was gone as soon as he’d sensed it. He stumbled a bit, falling to one knee. Sensing that something wasn’t right here... Where did all this...blood come from? he wondered as he stared down at the pattering of droplets on the floor in front of him. With a gasp, he realized the front of his shirt wasn’t indigo anymore, but black...black with wet, fresh blood.
Oh, my God... A long, horizontal tear had cut his shirt in two. Kuhn moved numbing fingers up to pull the top part away, revealing a long slash across his stomach, through the abdominal wall lining and into his abdomen. With mounting horror, he thought he saw the pinkish-gray of his own intestines as he fell backward to sit on the ground. Blood was everywhere, on his hand, in his pants, covering his shoes. Oddly, there was no pain, which surprised him, as he would have thought being sliced open this way would have hurt like a son of a bitch.
Kuhn’s sword dropped from his other hand as a wave of weakness crashed over him. Dumbly, he looked up to see Stengrave looming over him. The owner of Stengrave Industries had raised his visor and now stared down at Kuhn with cold, slate-gray eyes. His face looked as if it might as well have been carved from granite. Again, he raised the sword, its edge now covered in blood, to salute him.
“You lasted longer than I expected. Farväl.”
Drawing the sword back, he swung it forward and down, the heavy blade slicing through Kuhn’s neck and spinal cord, and cutting off his head. It rolled to the ground while the jet of blood that spurted from the stump was already subsiding as the body fell backward to the floor.
* * *
KRISTIAN STENGRAVE REGARDED the body of his former employee as dispassionately as he did most of his investments. The strongest feeling he would admit to at the moment was annoyance—annoyance that someone in his employ, whom he had spent considerable resources to retain and improve—would have turned on him for such a base reason as money. It was only through the most fortunate circumstance that the hapless programmer hadn’t realized the true value of what he was stealing. If he had, then anyone he would have come in contact with, from his minders at the other company, to his family, would have had to have been killed, as well. Secrecy was simply that vital for his largest project, one that would irrevocably alter the world as humanity knew it.
Stengrave cleaned his sword and set it back on the rack before unstrapping his helmet and removing it, revealing sweaty, white-blond hair that fell to his shoulders. He tapped his wireless earpiece. “It’s done.”
The door at the far end of the hallway opened and a whip-thin man with a shaved head entered. Dressed in an impeccable three-piece dark gray suit, he walked to Stengrave, careful not to get any blood on his handmade shoes. “I sure hope that isn’t the severance package you have planned for me.” His voice held the smooth, supple tones of a top-class British education.
“Do not betray me, Mr. Firke, and you will never have to find out,” Stengrave replied, not taking his eyes off the body. “Have this hallway restored, and set up the accident as we had discussed.”
“Of course, sir.” The second man eyed the head with pursed lips. “I suppose there wasn’t any way you could have avoided beheading him, perhaps? That will make it more difficult to, uh, disguise his condition.”
“He deserved an honorable death. Just make it happen.”
“Of course, sir. Don’t forget that you have the update call in an hour. The lab in the Congo says it has news.”
That tore Stengrave’s gaze from the body, and he began divesting himself of the rest of the armor. “Excellent. I look forward to hearing about their progress. I suggest that you keep a travel bag prepared. If all goes well, you may be overseeing a field test shortly.”
“Of course, sir, I’ll prepare that just as soon as I’ve had this—” Firke nodded at the mess “—cleaned up.”
Sixty hours earlier
Dr. Gerhardt Richter sighed as he leaned back in his chair, trying to avoid the chill breeze blowing on the back of his neck. Shaking his head, he walked over to his single upright dresser, pulled out a black, silk scarf and draped it around his neck. Although the laboratory needed the air conditioning to maintain the temperature throughout the complex, it was difficult for him to get re-acclimated, particularly after two days in the field. Now, he always felt cold, no matter where in the complex he was, and that damnable breeze seemed to follow him around the room. Richter walked to the thermostat mounted next to the door and tapped it, not sure if the damn thing was regulating anything anymore.
This is not how groundbreaking science is achieved, he thought, activating the VOIP—voice over internet protocol—program on his machine. “The thermostat in my office is malfunctioning again, Sharene. Please get someone in maintenance to take a look at it as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir. Yours is the third complaint I’ve received, and maintenance is already looking into it. I’ll pass on the status update as soon they get back to me. Also, I just received word from the lab that they’re ready to begin the next round of tests.”
“Good, I’ll be there shortly.” Richter closed his computer and tucked it under his arm. With a grimace, he glanced at the roof above him one last time, as if willing it to stay up long enough for him to get out of the room. Rising from his desk, he left his cramped office and walked into the even more cramped hallway.
His backers had built the complex to be sturdy—at least, that’s what they had told him—but the German was forced to stoop as he walked, so that his balding head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. He was slightly concerned that he would develop a permanent hunch from