Cloud saw into the open window. He’d been wrong about the Americans. It hadn’t been their hackers who found him. It had been Malnikov. He overestimated the United States and underestimated the brute who, at that moment, was half a car length back, raising a gun toward him. He heard the loud boom from the gun in the same moment he heard the frame of the Ducati being struck. The next shot would come any second, and so …

In one startling motion, Cloud flexed his right knee out, dived forward and to the right, as if he were trying to dive off the bike, and pushed the left handlebar with every ounce of strength in his body. The bike slashed hard right, the back tire slid but held. He was now alone on a deserted street. In front of him stood Moscow’s newest skyscraper, Evolution Tower, half constructed.

He throttled the Ducati. Now was the time. He had to lose Malnikov now. When he heard the sound of gunfire, he ducked lower and rolled the throttle to its max.

*   *   *

With his left hand, Malnikov lowered the passenger window. He put his hand back on the wheel as, with his right hand, he reached for his gun from the center console.

He came alongside Cloud, raised the gun, then aimed it at Cloud’s head. For several seconds, he held the target in the muzzle. Instinctively, Cloud turned, the black glass of the helmet all Malnikov could see.

Malnikov felt the steel of the trigger. He wanted nothing more than to put a bullet in the head of the man who put his father in prison, who stole a hundred million dollars from him, who caused him nothing but embarrassment and anger. But he didn’t fire. Instead, he swept the muzzle lower, aiming for the Ducati’s back tire. Then he pulled the trigger. The slug hit metal, just above the tire, and Cloud banked abruptly right.

Malnikov slammed the brakes. He opened the door and jumped from the car, his gun out in front of him. Cloud was getting away. Malnikov fired, once, twice, and then the third bullet ripped into the motorcycle’s back tire. The bike popped right as Cloud tried to keep it vertical. He weaved sharply left, fighting to slow the Ducati before it tumbled. Then the bike’s front tire jackknifed and the motorcycle collapsed backward, with Cloud still on it, and slid down the Moscow street. Sparks and flames arose from the friction of metal and tar. Cloud’s horrific scream pierced through the noise.

Malnikov sprinted toward the crash. Smoke and flames shot up from the engine, doused only partially by the rain. He ran until he was just a few feet from the smoking wreckage, then slowed, pistol extended in front of him.

On the other side of the badly damaged Ducati, he came to where he knew Cloud now was lying, unconscious, maybe even dead. He stepped past the smoking pile of steel, gun out, muzzle trained, finger on trigger, cocked to fire.

Cloud was gone.

*   *   *

Dewey scoured the ceiling, looking for a way to get to the roof. In the center of the room, at least fifteen feet in the air, was a small hatchway.

He pushed the tables together in a line that ended beneath the hatchway. He went to the far end and sprinted down the line of tables, leaping from the end, into the air, legs and arms kicking, then grabbing the frame of the hatchway. As he dangled from the ceiling, he held himself up with his left hand as he punched at the steel hatchway with his right. It was lodged shut. After several minutes of trying, he dropped to the floor. An involuntary yelp of pain came out as he landed, the drop exacerbating the wound in his leg.

A few minutes later, after catching his breath, he walked to the window, picked up the gun, and put it in his coat pocket. He climbed back onto the table and repeated his run, charging as fast as he could go, then leaping and catching the edge of the hatchway. He pulled the gun from his pocket and smashed it viciously into the steel. This time, after less than a minute, the seam between the hatchway and roof, sealed tight from decades’ worth of rust, cracked. He pushed the square hatchway up and pulled himself onto the roof.

Rain was pouring down in sideways sheets. Dewey sat atop the roof for several minutes, catching his breath. He closed his eyes and allowed the rain to wash over him. He pushed away the thought of Cloud and of Russia. He pushed it away and thought of nothing, knowing that any other thought would bring him back to the harsh reality facing him. He knew that if he sought mental refuge in thoughts of family, it would only remind him of the bomb—the nuclear bomb that was now somewhere close to America’s shores.

*   *   *

Cloud limped toward the base of the skyscraper. Looking back, he saw Malnikov running toward him.

He needed to get to a hospital. But that wasn’t going to happen until he killed Malnikov.

He looked up at Evolution Tower. Its curvilinear half arcs swerved like steel ribbons, as if they’d been interwoven and then hung a thousand feet in the sky. Even half constructed, it was stunning. He’d admired it before, from afar. Now it represented his only hope of escape.

The building was ablaze with lights from cranes and scaffolding and, from within, bright halogen lights for the crews of workers who, at this hour, were not there.

Cloud pushed open the steel chain-link fence. He dragged his right leg, using his right hand to help pull it. He limped through the base of the tower, between stacks of steel girders, past massive construction trucks, huge piles of cement to be mixed into concrete, cranes, and other materials.

He looked up. Wind made the top of the structure move. The skyscraper appeared as if it might simply fall over on him.

He heard a clang from the chain-link fence. He didn’t bother glancing back.

Cloud’s eyes moved to the ground. For the first time, he realized he had on only one shoe. His right foot was exposed and covered in blood. He couldn’t see some of his toes. He registered a raw sensation on his right side. Most of his pant leg had been scraped away in the crash. The sight of his injuries sent a wave of fear through him. Because he didn’t feel them. Because, left untreated, they would kill him.

If you want to live, you must kill him.

Beyond a pile of lumber, Cloud saw the construction elevator. He limped to it, climbed inside, and slammed the gate shut. He hit a red switch, and the elevator bounced, then started climbing into the tower.

Malnikov came running into the light, saw the elevator rising, then raised his gun and fired. The slugs struck the steel cage just to Cloud’s right. He ducked into the corner, shielding himself from the fusillade.

*   *   *

Even on a calm night, the all-black, heavily customized Eurocopter EC155 B1 Dauphin was difficult to spot. Its lights could be extinguished completely at the pilot’s discretion and flown via advanced thermal night-vision optics, either in-helmet or imposed on the inside of the chopper’s cockpit glass. Tonight, in the hell of a storm, what was usually difficult to see was nearly impossible.

For Stihl, the elements were nothing. Twelve years in Russian special forces, including more battles in Chechnya than he could count, battles that nobody in the outside world knew about, had forged skills no standard training could match.

When Malnikov told him to create the most lethal helicopter he could, Stihl had spent a week in Marseille, testing what Eurocopter had to offer. He spared no expense outfitting the machine with every technological feature available—and some that weren’t, including flight envelope protection, as well as navigation and weapons systems that could be managed by Stihl through helmet-based optics and exoskeletal motion sensors.

He let the nav system take him to the coordinates Malnikov had provided. A thermal module in the helmet illuminated the building from a mile out. As he swooped in close, a red apparition of heat appeared atop the roof. His passenger.