andadjusted in response to his movements—apparently the guidance system.
The man collapsed as the others stared in shock.
And then more whistling was heard.
Without a word everyone scattered.
As she ran, Philips looked up into the clear Kansas sky and saw several glints of steel coming in. She dodged between tombstones as she heard the ringing of steel spikes ricocheting off stone behind her. Screams of pain came on the wind, and she turned to see first one, and then another Korr officer drop as they fled with the rest of the crowd—singled out by the deadly rain. Many of the darts missed their mark, but the spikes were relentless, eventually striking flesh and bringing the Korr men down, one by one. She saw an injured man try to get back up, only to be struck in the back by several more darts.
Philips slowed and watched in amazement as a Korr officer threw down his MP-5 submachine gun and ran toward other officers—who avoided him like the plague.
“Help me! Someone help me! Help!”
There was no cover in the middle of the vast Kansas cemetery, and he zigzagged among the mournful monuments as spikes clanged off stone and buried themselves in the grass behind him.
But finally a dart struck the man in the shoulder. He fell—only to be struck by several more darts as he crawled on the ground.
A Kansas state trooper in dress uniform grabbed Philips by the arm. “Miss, stay back!”
She cast her gaze farther afield, seeing more Korr contractors in the distance—visible because they ran alone or in pairs, slaloming, only to be struck down by a series of glinting missiles.
It was a surgical strike. Philips looked back where Loki had been, but as she expected, he was gone. In the far distance she could see thousands of mourners fleeing to their cars. She knew that findingLoki among them would be next to impossible—not to mention dangerous to the public.
She looked over toward Roy Merritt’s deserted gravesite and cursed Loki. And The Major.
Their war would never stop—not even to honor the dead.
Chapter 4: // End of the Line
You know who you look like? That guy who killed all those cops. The one they executed.”
Pete Sebeck leveled his gaze at the convenience store clerk. She was a matronly Caucasian woman in her fifties. A portable television blared on a shelf behind her, tuned to the most popular tabloid news show in the country—
News to America
. Rotating graphics and techno music in the opening sequence proved distracting. “Well, if they executed him, I can’t very well
be
him, can I?”
She laughed. “I’m not saying you
are
him. Just that you look like him.”
Sebeck handed her a twenty-dollar bill.
She took the money. “Anyone ever tell you that?”
He shook his head.
“No offense. He was good-looking.” She paused, tapping her stick-on nails on the counter.
Click-click-click
. “What was his name? The Daemon hoax guy. Killed a whole bunch of people. Almost got away with like a hundred million dollars.”
“I don’t recall.”
She rang up the sale. “Man, that’s gonna drive me crazy.” She circled her face while clutching his change. “It’s in your face. He was on television every day for like a year. His head wasn’t shaved, though. And he didn’t have the Van Dyke.”
“The what?”
“The beard.”
“Is that what this is called?”
“You trim it like that, and you don’t even know what it’s called?” She laughed and handed over his change. “It’s called a Van Dyke. My ex-husband had one. Used it to cover a port-wine stain on his chin. Some people get the Van Dyke confused with the Winnfield or the Anchor, but they’re not the same thing.”
Her eyes suddenly went wide. “Sebeck! That was his name, Pete Sebeck. He was a
detective
, too. Did you know that? Killed his best friend, a woman, and like a dozen FBI agents before they caught him.”
Sebeck stared at her through sports glasses. “Well, he’s dead now.” He grabbed his energy drinks off the