Date Thursday 19/02/2060, Location 40.02419, 48.95808

The team arrived back at the ranch, grabbed their gear and headed inside where they were greeted by Naena. She told them that Rusudan and the kids were out – the kids working the horses and Rusudan out in the local town. They grabbed their gear and headed into the dining area, settling down at the big table and relaxing for a few moments.

Kai pulled out the envelope from his pocket and cautiously opened it, then tipped it over. A large computer chip slid out into his hand, along with a smaller optical disk. He turned them over and examined them carefully. The optical disk looked to be a standard product, exactly like something purchased from the store that held music, a film or some kind of utility or program to run on your home computer. The other chip was much larger, about 50mm to a side, and with a row of blocky and sharp connector legs on each side ready to be mounted to a circuit board. On the underside were a series of small printed labels, etched into the plastic with a laser marker in a tiny san serif font proclaiming strange things like "MBB+" and "SVC-3.3V".

He shrugged and passed them over to Marius who examined them equally carefully, then gestured for the envelope, and reaching inside pulled out a single page of instructions with a badly drawn and printed series of instructions showing where each of the pins had to be connected to. Marius pulled the stolen deck to in front of him, grabbed his toolkit and started to carefully disassemble it, laying out the parts carefully in a mirror image of where they had come from, standing screws upright in the appropriate location and swapping tools carefully from his neat line-up next to him.

"This will take some time I think. It is not terribly difficult, but it will require precision and careful planning to execute correctly." Nadia shuffled around a little so she could watch and assist him, and the others edged slightly away from him, ensuring he had some elbow room to work in.

"Right Marius, fine. Take your time. We need to sort out the plan for this politician anyway. Nadia – can you pull up that database you created, and see if there are any hits for the politician in there from Ulvi and his gang. Any contacts at all?" Nadia frowned at Kai, obviously having intended to watch Marius at work, but then sighed and nodded, pulling out her pocket secretary and activating the right applications, quickly entering a series of queries. It didn't take her long to pull up the answer.

"No, no contact. Not by name, and no references to him by position either. We've got no keywords entered that might reference him at all, and only a few unknown names or codewords, none of which have any context that would indicate someone in a position of political power. So it would appear there is no contact there."

"Well, it was worth checking out. The way I see it, we are short on time, and I'm not sure we can do both missions in the timescale allowed. We know about Mammadova – he's the mafia boss, he's currently ignorant of the situation, but that won't last. Once he finds out about his family, he's not going to stop – from what Shimazu has said, he's going to take it personally, that's obvious – but he's also going to personally lead any attacks or responses, he's a hands on guy." Shimazu nodded in agreement with Kai's assessment.

"The politician, Aliyev – we're pretty certain he's as corrupt as they come, but we know very little about him and his situation beyond the briefing pack and some local news stories. While Mammadova is personal, we have this second mission from a contact that also has some rather tight time constraints." The team listened, and heard him pause as he described the requested assassination as a 'mission'. Each of them reacted slightly differently, based on their backgrounds and perceptions, but they could see what Kai was trying to do – separate the emotionally distasteful act from their planning and preparations. Shimazu and Aswon seemed the least bothered by this, while Tads had obvious emotions showing on her face.

"I think the distinction is somewhat academic. Both are personal missions – one for our own safety and security now, and one to maintain a useful personal contact. But, both missions are also worthy in their own right. Both targets are abusive, corrupt and arguably evil men. We should not kid ourselves – what we are planning is murder, plain and simple. But both of these men have manipulated and controlled their environments to enhance their lives at the cost of pain, suffering and misery of others on a grand scale. I have no issues with their termination, and I don't believe anyone else should." Aswon looked around the room, his dark eyes settling on each of them one at a time before moving on. He sounded utterly sincere and completely convinced of his own words.

"I do not take life idly – but in this case it is well deserved. I have no compunction about this at all. We should make it quick, clean and merciful – I am not interested in inflicting suffering upon them. But I have no issue with this. We should however take care not to inflict collateral damage." Tads shifted in her seat, clearly uncomfortable with her role in planning a murder, especially in light of the 'thin ice' she probably considered herself on with regards to her totem.

"Tads – you are a good person, and that's why you worry. But both of these people care as little for nature and the natural world as for other people. They despoil the land, they pollute, they extract resources without care and do not repair the damage they have caused. They hurt the world as much as the people, and they are your enemy, and the enemy of your totem. If your people were here, they would live under sufferance and control, and their way of life would be slowly destroyed. Wouldn't it?" Tads frowned and nodded. Clearly she was still having issues, but she could not fault the logic that had been laid out. She nodded again, more decisively. Whilst she might not enjoy it, she had clearly committed to the mission at hand.

"On another matter – Hunter, you said that your contact informed you that he had tripped flags?" Hunter nodded in agreement. "I would suspect that he's spun some kind of tale to his superior, promising results for his corporation that would be beneficial. He won't care what or how we approach this, as long as results are visible. But we don't know what he has promised, so we must work in the dark. But from what we known, we must take out the politician quickly, and for our sake, as cleanly as possible." Aswon relaxed back in his chair, looking around the table again.

Shimazu and Hunter sat quietly, watching the others and keeping their own counsel. Tads sat in the chair fiddling with a small fetish, radiating uncertainty. Marius had his head down, concentrating on his work – by now he had half a dozen wires neatly soldered onto the chip and small fly leads spanning all over the board, cross-linking circuits or connecting to information busses. He had displayed a good ability to multi-task so far though, and they had no doubt he was keeping up with the conversation and would speak if he felt it necessary. Nadia was working on her database, refining the data and looking for additional information or supposition that might assist them, but was otherwise keeping quiet. Kai was deep in thought, but then turned towards Tads and pointed at her.

"Right – so what did you trip? Or rather, what did you run into?"

"I don't know. I was keeping an eye out, being careful to look for wards or traps, alarms, spirits or guards. I didn't see or feel anything! There must have been something though, but I have no idea what it was."

"And what was it that attacked you?"

"There was a mage, and a pack of watcher spirits, out in the street when I exited the building."

"What kind are watcher spirits? Are they for, well, watching? Guard spirits?"

"No, not exactly, though they can be used for that." Tads looked over at Aswon for a moment, but then plunged on with an explanation. "Remember what Aswon said, about the differences between mages and shaman? How we call different types of spirits and elementals? Well, both types can call watcher spirits. They are less powerful than the other types, but easier to summon. There are limits on what they can do – they can't affect anything in the physical world for starters, so they couldn't attack Hunter or Nadia for instance, at least not physically."

"Well, what other way is there?" asked Hunter, still clearly confused by the rules and logic of the magical world.

"They can't hit you, or poke you, they couldn't pull a pin on a grenade on your belt for instance. So no interaction with the physical world. But they could suddenly appear and shout at you, or startle you – say if you were halfway across a rope between two buildings, or climbing a ladder, or in a high speed chase – they could appear in front of you and scream at you, and might startle you into crashing or falling." Hunter listened and shrugged, accepting but not rating it as much of a threat.

"But they can certainly attack magical targets and creatures – myself when I'm out of my body, or Aswon and Shimazu when they are looking at the magical realm. They can attack things like lodges or wards, or magical items. Anything that projects through to the astral realm can be attacked by them. And though individually they're weak, together in a mob or a pack they can overcome a stronger foe by chipping away at them and making it so hard to react or respond to their attacks." Again, Hunter didn't seem convinced by the threat.

"Hunter – you're a big, powerful, strong person yes?" He nodded. "Would you get in a pool with a bunch of hungry Piranha? Surely, you could defeat them? They're only thirty centimetres long? They're not strong, or tough like you? You could kill ten of them in a fight, right?" Finally, Hunter nodded in understanding now he had reference he understood.

"The other main thing is that when you summon a watcher spirit, it normally only lasts for a few hours – not even a whole day. So they were probably freshly summoned to the mage. It is possible to get them to last for weeks, but that requires some very advanced knowledge and training, as far as I know. So, my guess would be they had just been summoned." Shimazu stirred in his seat and raised a finger, indicating he had something to add, and Tads waved at him to speak.

"That sounds right to me. We used to train with magical controllers for keeping our VIPs safe. If we had someone trip an alarm, they would often take a few seconds to summon a few spirits to themselves to act as astral bodyguards, or for sending messages back to the HQ. It took them only a second or two each, and they could grab half a dozen and still be hundreds of miles away quickly. And like Tads said, they allow you to mob a target and distract it or even damage it, while you attend to the principal."

Hunter pulled out his phone and sent a simple text message to the burner phone number for Jules. 'OK?' He checked his watch and calculated the time difference between their current location and Stockholm, figuring that it would be about 16:30 there. Hopefully he should get a response after his friend finished work for the day and got chance to check his messages.

The conversation stopped for a moment as Naena came back into the room with a fresh pot of coffee and some homemade oat cakes drizzled in honey and set it on the table – not because they didn't trust her, but because they were too busy asking for utensils, or eating and drinking. Their host went to the back window and cracked it open, allowing a chill breeze into the room, but also wafting away the smell of solder and hot electrical components which was slowly building up as Marius continued to methodically solder the chip in place and connect up the dozens and dozens of tiny pins.

"So, what firepower do we have? Physically I mean, we have an idea about our magical responses now. But what options do we have?" Kai looked over as Hunter, who pulled up a list on his PDA.

"Well, we have a couple of LAWs – they're old fashioned and will be ok against cars and small trucks, providing they don't have defensive measures. They're not shaped charges or anything though, so they'll struggle against serious defences. Likewise, we have some RPG launchers and a bunch of those generic old fashioned Russian RPG heads. They're mostly anti-personnel though, and they're one shot weapons, so not good for putting a lot of fire down-range quickly. Great in a confined space by the way – or rather shooting into a confined space. Don't fire them if YOU are in a confined space."

"After that, my assault rifle is pretty decent for laying down a volume of fire over a short time, though it doesn't have the magazine capacity for an extended engagement. I've got the grenade launcher underneath for a bit of blast damage as well. Shimazu is pretty choppy with his sword, but has to be at point blank range, and we've got Marius with his drone which can lay down a fair stream of fire from the two assault rifles."

"Ja – but remember that they too will struggle against any kind of armoured vehicle. People can be killed or suppressed, but vehicles require something with more power."

"My Purdey is a great rifle, but ideally used against metahuman targets in the none-to-medium level of armour. Provided I have a few seconds to aim, they can be neutralised efficiently. The new gun is a considerable step up in power, and I would match that against even moderately armoured vehicles. I certainly think I could probably shoot through the windscreen of our own truck for instance, and take out a target inside. However, I have only five shots before I need to reload, and we have very little ammunition for it. And whilst the first shot is pretty quiet, the second is not, and by the third shot everyone around knows that you are firing a large calibre military anti-material rifle. With all the issues that entails."

"Shimazu – if you were working as a bodyguard to that politician then, and you'd had an intruding mage like Tads, what would your alert status be like?"

"It would be high, Kai. And remain high for a few days. We'd probably be looking at upgrading the magical defences long-term if someone had penetrated that easily, maybe stationing an adept or a spirit there as constant surveillance. It depends how often it has happened, and what the threat is like. He isn't the leader of the country, just a prefecture – so it depends how much weight he has to throw around. But certainly we can expect more resistance. And they will probably be faster to respond."

There was a sharp intake of breath and a wince of pain as Marius kept the soldering iron on a fly-lead for a few seconds too long and the wire heated up to the point of burning his fingertips, but the team – even Hunter – managed to ignore it and they continued their discussion.

"I didn't get a great look at him – I was too busy trying to get away. But he felt more like a spirit summoner than a mage. Certainly his spirits were quite robust. I think I was more powerful than him overall, but he did a great job of keeping up with me and almost catching me at one point. But certainly we should be wary about the type of spirits he summons. If it came to a direct magical confrontation, I think I could probably win – but it wouldn't be a sure thing."

"Ok, well, let's try not to have it come to that then, Tads." Kai glanced over at Marius and made sure he wasn't at a crucial stage of work. "Marius – your drones, what's the operational life on them?"

"Well, the surveillance drone is effectively unlimited during the day. It's got a solar cell on top, and unless the wind is phenomenally strong, it can keep the same position based on absorbed solar power indefinitely. Much less than that if we need to manoeuvre of course, and even less at night. But we can still keep aloft and running for a couple of hours. The down side is that the sensors on it are not great – at least not yet. If you're talking about the vector thrust drone, then the operational hang time is very short – it drinks fuel regardless of what you're doing with it, and we don't have anything to fill it up with at the moment. So we can launch it and use it, but we need to be thinking in terms of a direct strike, rather than longer duration missions."

"Ok, can you send the drones down to monitor from here?"

"Well, technically, yes we can. We can probably control them from further away if we really needed to. But we shouldn't. If we wanted to control them from here, I'd have to ramp the power up so much on my signal amplifiers that everyone for about 50 kilometres around would be able to see the signature of my deck, and that's bound to attract some attention!"

"Can't we do it like they do on the trid movies? With the designator light thingy?" Tads asked.

"Again, not yet. For that to work, you need two things – the designator to lase the target and keep it lit up."

"Which I can sort out no problem," interrupted Hunter, drawing a quizzical glance from Marius and Aswon.

"… but you also need the receiving equipment on the drone itself, capable of tracking and analysing the laser signal. And that we don't have. It's on my list, but they're very expensive."

The team continued to talk, making sure they understood the capabilities of their kit and equipment, until Marius sat back up straight and stretched. After working out the kink in his back, he carefully screwed the deck casing back together and flipped it over, giving the top side a quick burnish and then plugging the power supply in and flipping the other end of the cable to Hunter, who moved his chair around and stretched the cable to the wall and the nearest power outlet. Marius fired up the deck, checking that it was working ok, and then fed the optical disk in to install the additional programs for the deck.

Whilst Marius worked through the intricate setup routine that customised the program and masking chip to the deck, Shimazu talked about his experiences as a bodyguard, describing the various levels of resources assigned to different levels of VIPs.

"He's going to have at least one close protection officer. That is possibly a policeman who has been on a four week course, and still thinks in terms of a law enforcement officer, and will hesitate to shoot to kill. Or, it may be a specially trained CPO that has gone through a decent training routine, and now will work more as a bodyguard and think in terms of saving their principal rather than catching criminals. There may be a professional driver who doubles up as an additional guard as well, who will have received training in evasive and combat driving."

"Depending on how much money he has, he may also have hired in additional guards from a private security company. If he has done so, then they will almost certainly be more proficient – but there may be communication issues and rivalries between the assigned and the hired guard. They may even have different tactical systems and have problems working together if it all kicks off. Unless we have time for a bit more data gathering, we just don't know."

"Regardless, it is my estimate that striking him actually inside his house, or in his car, or his office workspace would be the most difficult targets – they are the easiest places to harden or protect, and they have standard procedures to do so. We should aim for a moment when he is transitioning between them – that was always the period we feared most, and required the highest levels of attention and concentration."

"In that case, I recommend that we find a nice perch where I can be concealed, and we conduct the attack at the maximum possible range, with my rifle – striking him as he gets in or out of his vehicle at some location. If we can obtain access to his diary or engagement list, we can work out where to strike."

"Ja, Ja, I'm working on it. This setup program is a nightmare. Ten more minutes, unless you can tell me a faster way to link my Op-GUI to the binaries via the cryptography suite and get it to load the MSP address on the fly through the Net-Prot chimney…."

Hunter winced in sympathy, whilst the rest of the team looked confused, wondering if Marius had suddenly started speaking a previously unknown language.

"Ok – so how about this as a plan. We work out where he'll be once we have his diary, and get set up, Aswon takes the shot. But, about thirty seconds before, we call in to the police, saying that we've heard about a Mafia plan to off Aliyev. The police find out that their boss' head has exploded, like a melon, drive round to Mammadova's place, storm it with a SWAT team and take him down for us?"

"It's a nice idea Kai – but I just don't see it working. For one, the Mafia almost certainly pay better than the government, so most of the people who could make that decision will be wondering how much they get paid NOT to do that." Aswon shook his head. "Secondly, even if we got straight cops, I think they'd go for the arrest at the most, and the investigation wouldn't hold up. And that puts Mammadova in police custody for a while and we don't want to attack him there!"

"Why don't we plant a car bomb or something like that…of course I want to continue, you heap of crap… anyway, set the bomb off, and draw the police away from the residence, then hit him there, whilst there is nobody in response range. This program is awful. Was it written by a child?"

"Oh, and we could get Tads to do a trid-phantasm of a police chopper, over and around the gun drone, and then shoot him dead, and make it look like a police coup! Or a Mafia hit using the police! Maybe other agencies would then take Mammadova out for us?"

"No Kai! WE want to take him out, in his house, so WE can rob him blind and get access to his funds!" chorused Aswon and Hunter, in unison.

"This is getting complicated. How about I just use my magic to levitate and conceal Aswon, up into the air, and hold him there – and let him just shoot him?" It went quiet for a moment as they considered the plan. It certainly made positioning easy, as they could choose the most favourable position to attack from without the hassle of finding a convenient high rise building. As they considered the plan, Hunter pulled up the map and plotted the house more clearly, and then started working on a model to account for the elevation needed to shoot over the walls and still reach the target.

"This is doable. If we can get him high enough, he can be far away – at the extreme range for effective shots – that gives us masses of time in term of response, and makes it very difficult to determine source of the shot. I like it." Hunter spun the map around, showing a circle drawn at 800 metres, covering a significant part of the built up inner city area.

"How high can you make me fly, Tads?"

"High enough." She saw him open his mouth and continued, forestalling the question. "High enough that you would either freeze to death or die from lack of oxygen unless special arrangements were made." She saw his mouth close and gave him a lopsided grin. "High enough?" He nodded at her.

"If you're up that high in the sky – can you stop your spells from glowing from a passing mage, Aswon?"

"Yes, Shimazu – with deliberate effort I can hide them, though it's somewhat distracting. But I can't stop the spells that are holding me in mid-air from glowing – only Tads can do that! But I don't think that's a major factor – if a mage spots a life sign hanging in mid-air, they're going to be suspicious and that will set off the alarm I'm sure." Shimazu grunted in understanding – he hadn't considered that.

"Could we send up the drone instead "Kai mused, "and hold that in the levitate instead of Aswon. That way it will use no fuel, and can hang there for ages?"

"I don't think that would work – the drone needs time get the engines warmed up, and it would be fighting for position against the spell. Also, the assault rifles just don't have the same effective range against targets as that rifle, they're just not designed for long range precision shooting." Marius was tapping away at the screen furiously now, and the progress bar on the configuration routine moved closer and closer to 100%.

"Shimazu – how would you feel about jumping over the wall, charging and then just killing him with your sword?"

"Well, I've got no issues doing it Kai, but I'm not sure how feasible it is. I mean, depending on where we go over, there's a bit of ground to cover and they are probably armed with guns and panic buttons and things. And if I can't get to him before he gets in the car, then my sword or even my pistol may not get through the armour. Plus they'll get to see me at point blank range and the guards will no doubt try to be shooting me. So overall, I'm not keen, thanks Kai."

"And the vehicle might be warded or magically defended, so you wouldn't be able to count on unobstructed access. After all, our vehicle is warded – it's not that hard. Just something to think about." Tads added to the mix.

"Hunter, pull up a map of the area and show me the max res satellite view will you. Can you see manhole covers that they drive over, something we could plant some kind of device under?"

"Sorry, the maps here are a bit crap. And it looks like the sewers run under the pavement mostly, not the streets? There's loads of holes down the side of the road though – ohh, right – the report mentioned that the place flooded, didn't it."

"Stop a minute," Kai frowned.

"I guess it's to let the water drain away quickly, you need lots of capacity."

"STOP a minute, will you?"

"The pipes under the pavement must be pretty large – we might be able to get something in there…"

"WILL YOU SHUT UP A MINUTE!" Kai pointed a finger at Hunter, who just grinned at him.

"Right – I have a plan, a better plan. How about this…we get the number for the politician. We call him – from Ulvi's phone. We send a message 'Its Ulvi Mammadova, my dad needs to talk to you, will throw a clean phone over the wall in 2 minutes. Your eyes only' ok?" Kai looked around the team, gesturing a phone being thrown over a wall.

"We get Aswon in position, floating, from Tads. We get the phone thrown over. Aliyev goes out into the garden when his security system registers something landing there – because he thinks the mafia don needs a quiet word. You can't send a security guy out for that, it has to be handled personally. And besides, the Mafia don is sending his son – a trusted minion to do the delivery. So it seems legit from his point of view. He walks to the corner of the yard, to get the package and…" he turned and looked at Aswon, who raised a hand and squeezed an imaginary trigger.

The room went quiet for a moment as they considered the plan.

"We still don't know what the relationship is between the two of them."

"No we don't Aswon. But surely, for people in their kind of positions, positions of power and used to wielding it – they probably do talk to each other, and keep at least some lines of communication open – otherwise they'd be at war through misunderstandings." Tads looked at Kai. "Right?" Kai nodded to her.

"I still think we should attack Mammadova first, then Aliyev. Mammadova lives in the shadows - Aliyev in the light. If we attack in the light first, we set off the alarms, we alert the police, the media gets involved. It could make our job so much harder…"

"We may have to do it that way, depending on if we can find out the Aliyev's comcode. Nadia? How many comms companies are there around here?"

"Here? One, just one. Azerbaijan Communications. It was the national carrier, but has been sold to private interests." Nadia sneered. "They are awful, but there is no competition. Seemingly any company that tries, it all goes wrong for them. I wonder why."

"Ok, well, that's good – at least for us. Only one place to crack. Marius – how you doing?"

"Nearly there. Five more minutes."

"If we use the phone to attack the politician, which I think is our best plan so far, then we need to move fast against Mammadova." Tads looked around the table. "The police will investigate, and find the phone."

"And once they have the phone, they will find out who it is registered to, and that will lead them to the town, near the ranch. And the two cops there – how long will they last. They've seen us. From there, it's all too easy to get to the ranch, and the family." Aswon added, his eyes widening as he picked up the thread that Tads had started. He saw Kai start to grin, his smile growing wider and wider. "This is not funny, Kai."

"No, that isn't. But that's why we're not going to use one of those phones. We're going to use one of the burner phones from Iran. You know those phones that kept losing charge even with everything turned off? Because of the tracking and monitoring chips installed by the government? The ones where once they're found, the TCL authorities will then start wondering if this is a state sponsored assassination by Iran. One of those phones. That's the phone we're going to use."

There was silence around the table as they considered his words, then slowly smiles or outright looks of glee started to appear as they imagined the looks on the faces of the investigators as they uncovered that rabbit hole.

"Ok, last stretch. It is compiling crypto-keys and binding them to sockets, and sampling atmospheric noise for the randomiser tables. It will take a few more minutes, but my part is done. So – I believe we have a plan. Drive to the spot where Aswon will have line of sight to the compound, and still be near Mammadova's residence. Tads makes him float up in the air. We deliver the message. A minute later we deliver the phone. The target comes out for the phone, and we shoot. We bring Aswon back down, and whoever delivered the device gets back here, then we head to Mammadova's place. We kick in the front door, and take him down, get his codes and then finish him. We use his codes to take his wealth, and then escape."

"Well, pretty much, yes. I'm concerned over the person delivering the phone, and how far they have to travel though. Could we get a drone to do it, Marius?"

"Yes, of course – but I would need to fabricate a hook or delivery device or something. It will take time, but it can be done."

"And that brings its own problems. Drones are not common around here, from what we've seen. It might cause more alarms than a person nearby, and be more easily traced" Aswon pointed out.

The deck pinged, and the screen cleared for a moment, then the standard interface appeared as would be expected – all apart from an icon on the right hand side of the screen showing a skull and crossed femurs on a rippling flag. Marius shoved the hardware over toward Hunter who licked his lips and looked a little nervous – for the first time since the team had met him. He pulled out a fibre patch cable, and carefully placed one end into the datajack on the side of his neck, and the other end into one of the ports on the deck, settled back into the chair and made himself comfortable and then closed his eyes. A moment later the fans on the small unit started to rev up and the activity light started to blink so fast that it looked like a strobe.

Marius and Nadia pushed their seats back and headed out to the truck, to begin a thorough check of the systems, check the wheel nuts and everything in between – in the middle of an assassination would not be the ideal time to find out they had an oil leak…

The rest of the team ate and drank, and made small talk, while at the end of the table Hunter sat motionless, looking like he was asleep rather than projecting his conscious mind through the sat uplink into the matrix riding the electron surf and trying to stay clear of the circling sharks. The deck hummed, the noise of the fans rising and falling and the light occasionally showing solid for seconds at a time and then going dark – but through it all, Hunter was still and quiet.

Without warning, his eyes opened and he reached for his mug, taking a sip of lukewarm coffee with a grimace and then holding out his cup for a refill.

"Got into the MSP, found his record, got his number. Away clean too, as far as I could tell."

"Excellent work, Hunter. Right, next thing we need is his appointment calendar for tomorrow."

Hunter pouted, but was ignored by the rest of the team. With a sigh, he grabbed a biscuit, and pushed it into his mouth, chewing it slowly – once, twice, three times… then he stopped, his jaw slightly slack again as he delved into the matrix.

His consciousness of the real world faded away and became nothing but a memory as his thought patterns merged into the deck, creating his avatar. A shining knight clad in plate armour, astride a huge white motorbike. He grabbed his lance and revved the engine, and the bike rippled as his avatar sped up the datastream towards the waiting satellite, following the neon trail of the carrier wave. At the satellite a barrier lowered, denying access to his data stream, recognising the hot deck without the carrier signal that all normal terminals carried to identify them.

He swung to the side, out of the saddle and his plate gauntlet scrapped along the trail, sparks of ones and zeros erupting from the carrier stream as he slid the bike under the barrier, evading the protocols. He felt liberated, empowered – like he could go anywhere, do anything. At least he felt like he could if he wasn't weighed down by the primitive hardware in the deck.

Regaining his seat he spun the bike around, finding the right portal and hurled himself back down to earth, heading for the Trans Caucus League parliament matrix site. Here the guards were more alert, stronger and faster, more determined to challenge him. He circled the building, rendered into a low resolution castle by the overtaxed filters on his deck. The drawbridge was up, the portcullis was down and he couldn't see another entrance, no matter how hard he looked. He knew that an assault on the castle would be loud and noisy – and he also knew that he just wasn't that good, at least not yet.

Then he spied an approaching wagon, riding up to the castle with strongboxes loaded onto the back. He spun the bike around and drove at the wagon, full tilt, and as he passed, threw himself off the bike and at the rear of the wagon, desperately grabbing at it and swinging himself underneath it. His bike and his weapon continued down the road, into the woods and out of sight, while he wormed himself underneath, hiding himself in the axles.

He heard a slam, and then the wagon was driving across the drawbridge, under the portcullis and into the main courtyard. Behind him the portcullis slammed shut and he heard the chains rattle as the drawbridge raised. Armed guards moved the boxes full of information off to the data-vaults, and he remained in hiding until they'd all gone, then dropped to the floor and scurried off to the side. Amongst a mound of low level data supplies piled up against the wall of the courtyard he hurriedly slipped his armour off, realising now that stealth was what he needed – his armour would only slow him down and defend him against the most basic of attacks.

He worked his way through the corridors in the castle, stealthily flitting from one shadow to another. As he moved along, he felt his speed draining away, the combination of the overtaxed deck trying to make sense of the dense data haven and the horrendous response lag imposed by the satellite journey taking their toll on his responsiveness. He slowed further, listening, lurking, moving only when it was safe. The low resolution of the digital reality he was in further compounded the journey – he had to get so close he was almost touching each sign before the text resolved from glyphs to something readable and he could navigate his way around.

Further and further he went, until he found the office for Aliyev, and he pulled out a skeleton key from his pocket, gradually working it into the door, managing to open it and clear the corridor just before a patrol of four heavily armed soldiers discovered him. Inside it was dark and quiet, lit by a few spluttering torches that cast shadows around the crowded room. A long bench would allow serfs to slave away at their work, and he saw a brighter portal on the other side of the room – probably the office of Aliyev himself. The lock however was more complex, hugely more complex than the one leading into this room, and he turned away, and started to rummage through the scrolls.

Minutes trickled by, and he felt a bead of sweat trickling down his back as the tension ramped up. What happened if someone found his armour, his weapon or his bike? Would they raise a full alarm or just send soldiers looking for him? He tried to concentrate, pulling out scroll after scroll, peering through ledgers and books, filled with inconsequential data. Press summaries, invitations, past speeches – a mass of data stored and kept for what reason? Eventually though, he found it, studying the scroll carefully and copying it into his own notebook. He was about to replace it when he glanced around at the carnage he had wrought on the tidy room – scrolls and paper adrift, debris all over the floor. Instead he mixed the data in with the rest and moved to the door, listening carefully.

When he was sure it was quiet he moved, squeezing out into the corridor and closing the door behind him. He moved along the corridors, three times having to throw himself into alcoves behind statues or open store rooms to avoid patrols. Higher and higher he worked, until he emerged upon the walls. Looking down at the courtyard far below. Glancing over at the guardhouse above the main gate he saw it was swarming with guards – dozens of them. There was no way out that way.

He glanced around, and then did a double take. It was crazy… but it might just work. Maybe.

He snuck along the wall to one of the defence posts, creeping carefully across the stonework and heading for the giant catapult that stood sentinel over the approaches. Evading the guard, he climbed up the massive timber limbs and seated himself in the cup that would normally hold a giant flammable projectile. He concentrated hard, warping the reality around him as he inserted code into the matrix, and slowly the arm bent down, until it clicked into place, the limbs bent back and the creak of sinew and horn starting to grow loud. A digital knife flicked out, and he accelerated, flung into the air and over the castle wall, towards the waiting woodland on the other side of the cleared fire zone that surrounded the castle.

A little tweak here… a tweak there. Then the roaring of an engine and as he plummeted to the ground, the motorbike roared and burst from the trees, shooting underneath him. He landed, hard, the shock absorbers dipping beneath him until he felt a bone-crunching slap as they bottomed out. But he was away from the castle, data intact with no sign of alarm. He accelerated, appearing out of the far side of the woodland and riding fast towards the crudely rendered sunset on the horizon. A noise behind him made him twist his head, and look over his shoulder – a giant raven flew above him, travelling in the same direction. It didn't look at him or interfere with him in any way, but it made him worry for a moment.

With no weapon, there was nothing he could do, so he concentrated on navigation, pulling back his persona and travelling back through the satellite relay and back down to his deck, notebook pressing against him in his pocket.

He opened his eyes again, the aches of his muscles and digital body suddenly translating into a tension headache, while his physical body which had remained sitting at the table felt fine. The mush of the biscuit in his mouth was quickly swallowed, washed down with a gulp of coffee, as he opened the file on the deck. For a moment he wondered if it would be displayed in some weird scroll form and in "Olde English" to fit in with the metaphor of his journey – but instead it displayed as a normal calendar with entries for various tasks and a number of notes.

"Ok, got it. He's working from home tomorrow. Got a number of virtual conferences with people, and two separate sessions in parliament which he'll remote presence into. But he's going to be at home all day."

He felt his pocket buzz before anyone else could say anything and pulled out his phone, checking the message from the burner phone Jules was using.

"Oh, and I asked Jules if he was ok. He's responded with 'not really, bosses getting impatient. Please tell me good news?' Do you want me to send him a thumbs up?" Kai nodded and responded.

"Tell him we're on the case, and expect results on his business issue within the next day." Hunter sent the message quickly, then closed and returned the commlink to his pocket.

When he was done, Kai bought him up to speed on what they'd been discussion. Kai had started to embellish on the plan, involving messages from megacorps and byzantine plans within plans, until Shimazu, Aswon and Tads had shot him down, and told him to keep it simple. So now instead of Ulvi being a rogue element that had gone on a killing spree and had split the Mafia in two, they were going with the original plan.

With all the data in hand, they used the loo, got changed into the combat gear and headed out to the truck, finding Marius and Nadia almost at the end of their checklist. Soon they were ready, and leaving the trailer behind, the seven of them headed down the road towards Shirvan. The journey took only a few minutes, and was uneventful and their truck roared down the main road through the centre of town, following the course Hunter had plotted. They turned into the more upper class area marked on the Ares plan, and Marius slowed, trying to keep the revs down and the engine quiet. He navigated the winding roads and pulled up in a secluded street full of darkened houses at around 23:15, killing the engine and letting the truck go quiet while they looked around them.

Kai had pulled on a set of battered clothes from his stockpile scavenged from a second hand store. During the journey down he'd also been busy with his facial appearance. His bizarre magical abilities had twisted his features, widening his eyes and darkening his skin tone until he looked just like one of the locals. With appropriate dress, he grabbed the Iranian phone and then paused as Aswon handed him a thin set of sterile gloves from the medical supplies. Tads raised her hands and gestured, muttering quietly to herself while Aswon grabbed a piece of trash and laid the phone on the middle of it, along with the five monster fifty-calibre rounds from his magazine.

As Tads finished, there was a ripple across the collection of kit, almost unseen. Nothing changed physically about them, that anyone could see though. Aswon and Kai both put gloves on and Aswon grabbed the rounds, carefully loading them into the magazine and then reloading his rifle. Kai wrapped the phone in the trash, and jumped down from the truck, heading at a brisk walk towards the walled compound that Aliyev lived in, around three quarters of a kilometre away.

"What was that for, Tads?" asked Hunter.

"A sterilise spell. In an area around the phone, there's no living bacteria or material now. Hopefully it will stop the forensic examination of any of this stuff finding trace DNA or anything that can be used to identify us." Hunter nodded in approval, realising he'd missed a fair bit of the conversation apparently during his foray into the matrix, but pleased that they team were starting to think more tactically. "Oh, can you open the roof hatch for me, please. It's a lot easier for you than me."

Hunter grinned and then moved into the cab, easily pushing open the heavy armoured hatch and revealing the night sky above them. Tads climbed up onto the seats, standing on the other side of the opening and pushed up through the ward, feeling herself emerge into the night air as if rising from a pool. Opening herself up to the sky, she called on the spirits of the wind, calling forth a sylph to aid her. It appeared before her astrally, a shifting pattern in the breeze and she thanked it for answering her call, explaining that she was going to send one of her friends into the air and she wished for him to be stable and safe. The spirit nodded and then faded, waiting for it to be needed.

With that out of the way Tads summoned a watcher spirit to her side, then another, and another and then a fourth, continuing until she felt she could control no more, commanding them to be quiet and wait for her instructions. The effort of summoning so many spirits so quickly left her reeling somewhat, her eyes blurry and watering and a headache brewing. She lowered herself into the cab, grabbed a bottle of water and some painkillers and curled up in the corner out of the way, resting and trying to recover her mental strength.

They waited for fifteen minutes, whilst Kai meandered towards the target via a circuitous route, then moved onto the next stage when they got the all clear from him, indicating that he was waiting a block away.

Tads opened her eyes at the nudge from Hunter and blinked a few times. Even the short rest had been enough for some of the headache to fade, and the drugs had taken care of the rest if she concentrated. Muttering and waving her hands again, she wrapped magic around Aswon and he started to rise up in the air, smoothly and without pause. Slowly he climbed, as if standing atop a giant column that pushed him inexorably up into the air.

"Can you make him go faster?" asked Hunter, eyeing the shape as he ascended into the night sky. Aswon was wearing his camo outfit, and had no light source, but he was still a dark and unusual shape in the air, and the monster rifle was hard to disguise.

"Nope. I cast the spell as well as I could, but it's a low force spell. That limits the amount of power I can put into it. There's nothing I can do about that, short of improving the spell, and that would take weeks to redesign and learn. So no – he's going as fast as I can make him go." Aswon continued to rise at nine metres per second, silky smooth and without pause, up into the air. "And before you ask, that's as fast as he'll come down too. No it won't be easier with gravity helping. Magic doesn't work like that. So don't bother trying to work it out."

"Well, that doesn't make sense. But why do you only have a low force spell?"

"Why don't you have a jet bike and a minigun with nuclear bullets?"

"Because I can't afford it."

"Well, there you go then." Hunter snorted, but dropped the point, and instead looked up and watched as Aswon receded into the night air, before slowly spinning in place and checking out the windows and doors of the nearby houses, to see if anyone had noticed something strange. Fortunately, it was all quiet.

They waited, while Tads pushed Aswon up higher and higher, until her earbud transmitted a quiet message.

"Hold please. In position." His upward movement stopped, and then a moment later his skin twitched as the winds died away completely. The spirit wrapped him in a bubble of still air, the currents flowing around him, above and below him, but leaving him stable and secure. He hefted the rifle up and sighted down at the city below him, zooming in on the powerful scope until the yard filled the reticule. Sighted in, he lowered the rifle, resting his arms and keyed up again. "Sights green, send it."

Down in the truck, Hunter hit the send key on Ulvi's commlink, sending the text message to Aliyev. A moment later he saw the confirmation of delivery, and only a few seconds later got a read receipt.

"Message received. Throw it."

Kai pushed away from the shelter of the wall where he'd been waiting in the shadows and picked up his pace, walking swiftly along the road in parallel with the compound. As he reached the last few metres he pulled out the trash wrapped commlink from his pocket and hefted it up, praying that he didn't botch it. Visions of the smoke grenade bouncing off the lip of the hatch and going off in the cab filled his mind for a moment, and he watched with his heart in his mouth as the package sailed up towards the top of the wall. He relaxed, realising that it was going to go over by a good few centimetres, then his eyes widened.

The package tumbled suddenly, spinning for no good reason – as if it had hit something. Fortunately the momentum carried it over the wall, and a few seconds later he heard the muffled thud as it hit the ground. He walked swiftly, on the verge of a jog, trying not to lose his cool. At a guess there was a trip wire or some capacitance wire strung up around the top of the wall – an incredibly fine wire that would detect pressure, heat or bioelectrical energy and trip sensors in the security system. He reached the end of the block and crossed the road, then headed west, keeping up his brisk pace.

"Delivered," he said as he turned and started to head back towards the truck. Up in the night sky, Aswon raised the rifle again, regaining the view of the grounds. Wiry tendons bulged in his forearms as he raised the huge firearm into position, straining to keep it steady and still. His breathing slowed dramatically as he used his intense physiological control to get ready for the shot, and his pulse plummeted down to the 40s.

He saw someone appear in the bottom of his sight, walking towards the package in the corner. In the low light sensor, he was monochromatic, but it looked like Aliyev – right build, right height. His finger tightened on the trigger, taking up the slack and he concentrated further. His heart rate dropped to below 30 beats per minute, and he felt each beat clearly. Lub lub. Lub… lub. Lub…..lub. A second target appeared in the viewer, looking up and around, surveying the walls. Not watching the first target.

"Eyes on, one additional security."

"Fire." Kai's voice was slightly breathy, as he speed-walked away from the scene. As he spoke, Aswon waited for a tiny fraction. Lub….squeeze. The trigger broke cleanly, the pin hitting the primer and igniting the round. The main charge ignited and the round accelerated down the 66 cm long barrel, reaching a maximum speed of 1250 metres per second….lub.

Aswon let the rifle rise, absorbing the ferocious recoil. The shot was good. He *felt* it – it was right. Instead of watching the impact, he reached for the transmit button. The round covered the distance between Aswon and Aliyev in just under a second. By this point the spin of the round had degraded somewhat and the projectile was starting to yaw and tumble – though it still followed the calculated trajectory. It struck Aliyev in the base of the skull, entering the soft spongy area at the rear of the head as he bent to pick up the package. On meeting resistance the yaw intensified and the round ripped through the brain stem, now tumbling and spinning out of control as it ripped through the target.

As Kai walked up the street he heard a sound, like someone ripping a melon in half and throwing the contents against the windscreen of a car. It was unlike anything he'd ever heard before, but it could mean only one thing.

"Hit." He looked around quickly and kept walking, heading for the first available turn to break line of sight to the compound. Tempted as he was to break into a run, he kept to a fast walk, making sure he didn't arouse suspicion. Up in the sky, Aswon bought the rifle under control and regained the picture, seeing the security guard running over towards the body. The picture was confusing, until he realised that hot blood had fountained out of the nearly headless corpse and was spraying over the ground like a fountain, rapidly warming it.

"Guard is running to the body."

"Take him, too."

Aswon considered for a moment, then aimed, waited, squeezed. This time there was a distinct bark from the rifle as the hot gasses exploded out of the barrel into the huge silencer, but found it still full of roiling air from the first shot. In accordance with gas dynamics, they instead shot out of the barrel, still at near supersonic speed, creating a pressure wave that blasted out of the muzzle. Aswon winced, and lowered the rifle, calling for Tads to start lowering him. He didn't want to be in the air any longer than he had to be. He sighted down the rifle to check out the compound and saw the security guard crawling on the floor. Something bothered him about the shape, and then he realised the figure was missing an arm. He must have moved slightly whilst the round was inbound. Aswon felt strangely relieved that he wasn't dead, but he was out of the running for effective response. He was only doing his job, after all…

Just as Kai rounded the corner he heard a scream behind him, then a high pitched artificial wail. Turning the corner greatly diminished both sounds and he keyed up again.

"Think the guard had a med-sensor. The alarm is definitely raised!"

Aswon felt himself start to descend at the same steady rate, lowering from the sky in a perfectly straight line. As he did so, the wind picked up again as the spirit stopped using its power to steady him. He looked around and saw nothing to alarm him physically, and just to be sure he dropped into astral space, looking around the area. As he did so he saw a blinding flash of light approaching him – an astral entity closing at high velocity. He didn't even get a chance to call out before it arrived and started to attack the spirit that was guarding him.

The two spirits engaged in combat, and immediately Aswon knew he was in trouble – the attacking spirit was larger and more ferocious-looking in astral space, and started to batter at his guardian, driving it back with a flurry of blows and lashes of power.

"Tads! Astral contact! GET ME DOWN!" He continued to drop at the same rate, nine metres per second, slow and steady. He continued to look around, and spotted a second astral target, closing on him slightly more cautiously – this time the shape of a metahuman – an astral mage. It gathered up power – Aswon saw the motes of energy entering the body from all around, the form glowing brighter and brighter before it was flung directly at him. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion as his reflexes accelerated and kicked in, and his heart rate shot up as raw adrenaline was dumped into his bloodstream. He tried to move, to sway, and realised he couldn't – trapped completely in the embrace of Tad's spell. He'd never felt more helpless in his life.

The spell arced across the distance between them, and Aswon was unable to move out of the way – closer and closer it flew until no more than a metre away it splashed off something. Like a torrent of water splashing off an umbrella the power rebounded and flowed around him, licking at his mind and tugging at his soul, but mostly deflecting off into the air. With a sudden gasp he realised what he was seeing – it was Tads protecting him. As she had gained in power, she had become open to advanced forms of magical talent, things impossible for an untrained user to grasp let alone use. Her totem had unlocked these secrets, and now it was being put to the test.

In the truck Tads stood and stared upwards, one hand clenching as if pulling on a tiny string, forming a pincer between fingers and thumb as she pulled Aswon out of the sky. The other was extended outwards, fingers splayed as she mentally shielded her friend, protecting him from harm. A second later the torrent of energy stopped, and she had a moment to act.

"Get that spirit." Her flock of watchers exploded upwards, a gibbering and writhing pack of energy, mouths, claws, whirling vortices of power and emotion. They burst onto the enemy spirit which had been handily winning the fight, grinding her wind spirit into oblivion. The chittering pack struck over and over – individually feeble they were everywhere, ripping and rending, slashing and tugging, and the spirit started to howl in fear as they mobbed it.

A bolt of power lanced into one watcher, disrupting it instantly and without mercy, lowering the odds. The remaining spirits continued their attacks, rending at the spirit which was now leaking magic from a score of wounds, slowly unravelling into the night air.

Down at the truck, Hunter dropped down out of the way and slithered into the back of the truck. Shimazu replaced him in the hatch, also looking astrally and spotting the mage high above them. He snarled in frustration, realising that there was nothing he could do unless the enemy came within range of his fists.

Aswon descended, slowly and steadily. He suddenly realised the danger he was in and stopped looking on the astral plane, cutting off his vision of the fight. The mage and the spirits disappeared as he returned wholly to the physical realm. While the mage was present only astrally, as long as he remained on the physical plane, it could not harm him directly. The only thing he could do was try to disrupt the spell. A sick feeling twisted his stomach – Tad's spirit was in no condition to arrest his fall, or even slow him now. If the enemy mage realised… he would pancake across the ground and that would be the end of him.

Hunter climbed back into the front of the cab and up into the now crowded hatchway, shoving at Shimazu and trying not to do the same to Tads. Clutched in his hand was Aswon's spear – the ancient magical relic found in the temple to the east. He thrust it into Shimazu's hands hopefully. Shimazu took it, and looked up at Aswon, still hundreds of metres in the air. There was no way to get it to him, not in time. Unless Tads could control a second levitate spell and send it up quickly. He was just about to speak when it happened.

Tads had been watching the battle, and had come to the same conclusion, and realised that there was one way out of this mess. With a wave of her hand, she stopped concentrating on her spell, feeling the magic dissipate. As it did so, Aswon plummeted. Accelerating downwards he spun and tumbled, hands reflexively grabbing his rifle. One moment he was flat, and air resistance was at its maximum, the next he was flipped and falling headfirst towards the ground. His speed rose second by second, ten metres per second, fifteen, twenty, thirty. An involuntary scream sounded as he fell, faint and reedy as the air was sucked from his lungs.

Tads watched him fall, counting in her head. As she reached five, she flung both hands up, drawing in mana and recasting her spell, trying to wrap him in her mana and arrest his fall. The spell took hold, firming up and slowing him. Thirty metres, twenty, ten. He stopped a metre above the truck, body flat and a look of horror on his face. The enemy spirit was just behind him, closely followed by the mage, with no sign of the watcher spirits or Tad's wind spirits.

The enemy mage looked down at Aswon, laying flat in space and obstructing his view of the target's below, and peered at him intently as he descended like quicksilver towards the truck. Aswon felt himself being tugged at, probed and examined as the mage tried to get a read on his aura, and the sensation was like a bucket of cold water being thrown over him. He snapped to his senses, and masked his aura, denying the enemy mage a good look at him. Below him Tads grabbed a handhold on the roof of the truck, trying to climb out. She suddenly shot forward as Hunter gave her a boost, his massive physique easily lifting her body up and out.

In the cab, Marius started the engine, having seen Aswon close enough to count, and slowly and smoothly pulled away. He kept the lightest touch possible on the accelerator, aware that there were teammates on the roof and he was determined not to knock them off. The truck pulled away so smoothly that most of them didn't even realise they'd started to move.

Back on the roof Shimazu passed the spear up to Aswon who grasped at it gratefully, while Tads crawled to the side to get a glimpse of the mage. She was rewarded with another powerful blast of magic lancing down from the sky like a thunderbolt, hammering into her shield. She recognised the spell – a manabolt, cast with deadly intent. Clearly the mage was not pulling any punches. He was also taking a large risk – channelling power through the body was fatiguing and draining, leading to headaches, burst blood vessels and potentially passing out – if you were in your body.

Out of your body, without the flesh and blood of the human form, the intrinsic strength of a morphic field to channel and guide the mana, it was a case of pure will. In astral your mind was your body – and any damage caused by failing to channel the power correctly led to physical wounds, not just a headache. Cast too much or too hard in the astral, and you would die. Tads realised that he had been casting profligately while astrally projecting and chasing them – which made him either very good, or very stupid. Possibly both.

Aswon landed on the roof, and as soon as he had purchase, he thrust with the spear. The spirit was closing on him, unaware of the threat, and could not respond in time, and Aswon slashed across the spirits form. The ancient spear bit deep into the body, ripping open the magical bindings and raw mana sleeted out as the spirit wailed in pain. Two metres away Tads lashed out almost without a thought and banished it, sending it from the place forever, then turning her attention towards the mage still plummeting towards them. She saw him start to pull up, aware that at least three people below him were magically active, and that one of them had a magical weapon – a weapon fully two metres long.

Tads gathered her power, dropping her other spells and concentrating fully on the mage. Her gaze locked upon him and she ripped aside his own attempts to conceal his soul, and she examined him, tasting his aura, studying his essence, his body, his form. Every part of his being was laid bare before her, and she grunted in satisfaction as she imprinted that taste, that astral fingerprint in her mind. She KNEW him now, could recognise him in a crowded room with a moment's attention, could detect his magic, his defences. Now to get rid of him.

Her body crumpled to the roof of the cab and started to slide towards the edge, until Aswon and Hunter grabbed her, holding her still. Her astral form vaulted upwards and for a moment she focussed purely on the attack. There was no holding back, no attempts to shield herself, no thought for blocking, or defence. All of her might and rage was focussed for a moment into a single attack. Her astral fist flew upwards, rising past his waist, his chest, impacting under his chin as her body rose. One astral form hit another as real to each other as two boxers were in the ring. His head cracked and flew backwards, his neck straining at an unnatural angle. The body flickered and then vanished, as Tads hit him so hard he was knocked out, instantly. His disrupted spirit vanished, returned to his body.

She floated down, landing in her body easily at the pace the truck was moving and crawling back inside the cab gratefully.

"Mage down. Somewhere, he's back in his body taking a nap. He won't be an issue for half a day, unless someone manages to wake him up medically."

She collapsed back on her seat and started to shake a little as the impact of her actions hit her. It was quite possible that the shock to the mage's system would actually damage his essence, robbing him of power and disrupting his ability to channel energy, permanently weakening him. She imagined how she would feel if that happened to her, and then wondered if she would ever forgive someone for weakening her link to her totem. And if she felt like that, it was only logical that so would the mage…

The truck moved off serenely down the street, heading out of the estate to pick up Kai and then looping back towards Mammadova's house. In the distance, faint flashes of blue light could be seen as the first response vehicles arrived, crowding around the decapitated corpse of the politician Aliyev whilst medics worked to save the bodyguard's life, stopping the flow of blood from the stump of his shoulder and picking up the severed arm and dropping it into a bag of nutrient gel.

One down, one to go.