Free Deus Ex - Icarus Effect by James Swallow Page A

the ideal cover, but the mimetic hull could just as easily mimic the insignia of any civilian airline or military air force.

    The operations room was a high, narrow chamber that filled both decks. Thinscreens were arranged on every surface, and hanging down from
    above, a cluster of holographic projectors resembled the splayed legs of an impaled insect. Folding seats among the control consoles and comm
    desks provided space for everyone to sit, but most of the Tyrants stayed on their feet. The air of barely contained tension was thick in the
    room; all of them wanted to hear the go-command.

    Namir worked a panel, bringing the holograph to life. Nearby, seated in a way that communicated casual disinterest, the sixth member of the
    Tyrants toyed with a loose belt length, hanging from a half-jacket patterned with triangular armor plates. If Yelena Federova was actually capable of speech, she made no effort to show it. When Saxon saw her, the woman was padding silently around the aircraft, almost a ghost.

    Most of the time she kept to Namir's company, and Saxon had been content to leave it at that; still, he couldn't escape the sense that she, too,
    was measuring him.

    The dusky-skinned woman graced him with a cool nod, sullen eyes briefly looking up from under a cascade of dark hair that hung down over
    her face from a half-shorn scalp. Federova had a dancer's physicality to her, an aura that Saxon could describe only as "grace"—but she hid a
    lethal edge beneath it. Her augmented legs were crossed in front of her; long and perfectly machined, they resembled the framework of racing
    motorcycles, curved and finely balanced. Standing, she seemed to balance en pointe like a ballerina.

    The mutter of the holograph's activation pulled Saxon's attention away, and he watched as a vector-scan model of a blunt, modernist building
    sketched itself in the air before them.

    Jaron Namir stepped up to the edge of the nimbus of laser glow; the colors threw stark highlights over his craggy features. "Intelligence has
    located one of our high-value targets," he began. "Here. The Hotel Novoe Rostov, off Zubovskaya Square." He touched a control and the image
    blurred, re-forming into a series of phantom panes. Several of them showed digital photos of a heavyset man with a beard and thinning hair.
    "This is the mark. Mikhail Kontarsky, a minister of the Russian federal assembly, and senior administrator of the RFS committee on human
    augmentation policy."

    Saxon raised an eyebrow at that, but said nothing.

    "This man is corrupt to the core" Namir went on. "He's betrayed his country and the people who elected him. Kontarsky has been suborned by
    an organization called Juggernaut. What we know of them is this: they are a decentralized anarchist terror group that uses information warfare
    to further an antiglobalization agenda. Neutralizing Kontarsky is a first step toward eradicating these dangerous militants, and it will deny them
    a conduit into the Russian Federated States."

    The Juggernaut name was familiar to Saxon. He recalled intelligence briefings from his time with Belltower; one of the targets of the group had
    been Tai Yong Medical, a major client for the PMC's security division.

    "So the Russkies are incapable of dealing with Kontarsky themselves?" said Hardesty, throwing a look toward Federova, who ignored it. "Why
    do we have to intervene?"

    "Because the man is a point of instability, in a kleptocracy masquerading as a government." Namir paged through more images. "Kontarsky is a
    wild card. He has many friends in the duma—the parliament... That's why Juggernaut has turned him. He has to be removed."

    "That would mean terminated," Hermann asked, "if we are being clear?"

    Namir nodded once. "Make no mistake, we are dealing with a dangerous man here. Kontarsky is connected to several Russian organized crime
    syndicates. He's no choirboy."

    Saxon peered at the screens, catching glimpses of elements from the politician's