Dark as Angels: We Are the Enemy (2018) by Dominic Adler

Author:Dominic Adler [Adler, Dominic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07H8TXXHJ
Publisher: Ambuscade Books
Published: 2018-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

“Oh, I’m fine. They call me Daddy-Shark. Behind my back, of course. It’s better to be feared than loved, after all.”

“Machiavelli?” said Hooker.

“Very good.”

“There were plenty of books in the prison library,” Hooker shrugged. He could be across the desk, strangling Bliss, in two seconds. Then he thought of Leah. The girl could look after herself, but she didn’t know the Green Zone.

Bliss steepled his fingers, “you need to understand what’s at stake. We want the same thing, don’t we?”

“And what’s that?”

Bliss snapped his fingers and the music stopped. “The People want security and reconstruction. And, most importantly, no Archangels. Aren’t those bastards the reason we’re living in this half-baked police state in the first place?”

“I don’t much like ‘em either, but you can’t un-invent RXP,” Hooker replied. “Archangels are like guns or nukes. They’ll keep coming back, because they’re weapons. Everyone wants weapons.”

Bliss nodded. “I agree. You’re a sensible man. Pragmatic. But doesn’t it make your skin crawl? Knowing those… deviants might have the whip hand again?”

Hooker shrugged. “You think this is about transhumans?”

“Everything’s about Archangels, they’re an existential threat. More so than the Crimson Brigade or Black Bloc. The Reds’ masturbatory fantasies of class warfare are nothing compared to what transhumans are capable of.”

Hooker remembered the briefing with Hyatt. “They say there’s only a handful of archangels left. They’re helping the Wessex Parliament with the Reconstruction.”

Bliss made a so-so gesture with his hand. “That’s the official line. But their real desire? The Archangels want to breed, Hooker. Breed. They’ve got the technology to the point where RXP will be passed on genetically.”

“It’s an arms race. What about the Chinese and Russians? Or the ‘mericans? They all have RXP.”

“Of course, the Americans do. Russia has a much earlier iteration of the procedure – the side-effects are killing their transhumans slowly but surely. The Chinese? Their facility in Tianjin was sabotaged during the war. Beijing are reviving the program, but they’re a decade behind the Americans. By then it’ll be too late.”

Hooker glanced at his watch. “What’s it got to do with me and Leah?”

Bliss tapped the omni on his desk. “Now, this was a good piece of detective work.” An image of Natly Hare’s manifest flickered onscreen, the list of smuggled tea and cigarettes. “You’ve linked a terrorist suspect directly to the Commune International. Furthermore, I know Rhys is being blackmailed by the Crimson Brigade.”

“Why’s the Commune so important? It ain’t surprising, a smuggler mixing with anarchists and squatters.”

“We know a Crimson Brigade intelligence officer called Sorcha is active in London,” Bliss replied. “An Irishwoman, associated with a man described as chain-smoking Marlboro Red cigarettes. Our analysts have been hard at work. They found a report from the CIA in southern Italy – the Americans seized a Marlboro cigarette butt from the scene of an execution in Naples last year. They’ve a DNA match to a known Crimson Brigade assassin.”

“Naples? Sounds like a long-shot,” Hooker replied coolly. Yet his pulse raced. Sorcha is Roisin…

“Come on, Hooker. Marlboro? Vintage cigarettes, very rare and very expensive.

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