Chapter 213: The Chase Through Old Streets

The balcony offered a moment’s sanctuary, but it was an illusion. Below, the alley was a roaring chimney of flame, painting the night sky a hellish orange. Sirens converged from all points, their wails dopplering into a wall of sound. The bomb had been a sledgehammer, designed to kill or corral. It had done the latter.

“We can’t stay,” Sabatine gasped, pushing himself up. His body protested—burns, bruises, the deep ache of blast concussions. “The fire brigade will secure this whole block. They’ll search gardens, houses. We’ll be trapped.”

Anton nodded, clenching his teeth against the pain as he got to his knees. The prototype was a hard, accusing rectangle against his ribs. “Through the house. Front door.”

The French doors leading from the balcony into the darkened bedroom were locked. Sabatine didn’t bother with picks. He wrapped his jacket around his elbow and drove it through a small pane of glass near the handle. The sound was masked by the chaos outside. He reached in, unlocked the door, and they slipped into the silent, wealthy darkness.

The house was empty, the owners likely away or evacuated due to the blackout and now the nearby explosion. They moved through opulent, unfamiliar rooms by the flickering glow of the fire through the windows—a grand sitting room, a formal dining table like a sheeted ghost, a marble-floored foyer.

Sabatine peered through the front door’s peephole. The street was a tableau of emergency. Fire engines, their lights strobing, blocked the far end. Police were stringing tape, shouting orders. Residents in dressing gowns clustered in shocked groups. The direct route was sealed.

“Back,” he whispered. “There must be a kitchen, a service entrance.”

They found it—a modern kitchen opening onto a small, walled courtyard with a gate. The gate was locked with a simple bolt from the inside. Sabatine slid it back, and they emerged into a different lane, quieter, shielded from the main chaos.

Here, the darkness was deeper, the air cooler. But the respite was measured in seconds. A shout echoed from the direction of the burning alley, sharp and authoritative, not a fireman’s call. “Spread out! Check the perimeter gardens! They didn’t walk through the fire!”

Kaine’s men. Flushing the edges.

“Run,” Sabatine said.

They ran.

The next fifteen minutes were a desperate, lung-searing plunge into Geneva’s older quarter. They left the wide, orderly streets of the diplomatic district and dove into a maze of narrow, medieval passages—the vieille ville. Here, the power outage felt ancient, appropriate. The cobblestones were uneven underfoot, slick with a misting rain that had begun to fall. Timber-framed buildings leaned conspiratorially overhead, their overhanging stories blotting out the already clouded sky.

It was a terrain made for evasion, but also for ambush. Every shadowed archway, every recessed doorway, could conceal a threat. Sabatine’s senses were hyper-alert, parsing the sounds of their own frantic footsteps, the distant sirens, the drip of water from gargoyles, and the more sinister silence that might be pursued.

Anton kept pace, but it was a brutal, unsustainable effort. His breath came in ragged, wet gasps. Each jarring footfall on the cobbles sent lances of fire from his wounded shoulder through his entire nervous system. His vision began to narrow, dark spots dancing at the edges. He was running on fumes, on sheer, dogged will.

Sabatine, just ahead, glanced back and saw him falter. Saw the ashen pallor of his face, the glazed look of pain and exhaustion. Without breaking stride, Sabatine reached back and grabbed Anton’s wrist, his grip like an iron manacle.

“Don’t you stop,” he growled, the words ripped out by the effort of running and pulling. “Not here.”

The contact was more than physical. It was a tether. Anton’s fingers curled around Sabatine’s forearm, clinging. He wasn’t being dragged; he was being led, his body following the imperative of that grip when his own mind was fogging with agony. Sabatine became his compass, his locomotive force. The world narrowed to the burning in his lungs, the scream of his shoulder, and the solid, relentless pull on his arm.

They twisted down a flight of slick stone steps, through a covered passage that smelled of wet stone and centuries, burst into a tiny, deserted square dominated by a dark fountain. Sabatine didn’t pause. He hauled Anton across the square and into another, even narrower alley—a ruelle barely wider than their shoulders.

Halfway down, Sabatine suddenly yanked Anton sideways, pressing them both into a deep doorway. He clamped a hand over Anton’s mouth, his own body rigid. Anton froze, the taste of soot and Sabatine’s skin on his lips.

Boots. The crisp, efficient sound of tactical boots on wet cobbles, moving at a fast jog. Not the heavy tread of firemen. Not the scattered run of police. This was the purpose. A team, moving in formation.

Two figures passed the mouth of their alley. Dark, streamlined silhouettes against the slightly less-dark street. They didn’t glance down at the ruler; they were sweeping forward, clearing paths. Hunters with a pattern.

Sabatine waited until the sound faded, then risked a glance. The square they’d just crossed was now occupied. Three more figures, fanning out, checking the fountain, the other alley mouths. One shone an infrared torch, its beam an invisible menace. They were methodical, silent, a net drawing tight.

“They’ve cordoned the old town,” Sabatine breathed into Anton’s ear, his voice a thread of sound. “They’re driving us.”

“Towards what?” Anton whispered back, his lips moving against Sabatine’s palm.

Sabatine didn’t know. But being driven was better than being cornered. It meant there was still a path, however dangerous. He had to find the gap in the net before it closed.

He pulled Anton out of the doorway and they fled deeper, down the impossibly narrow lane. It ended at a T-junction. Left or right? Sabatine chose left, on instinct, pulling Anton with him.

The left fork opened onto a slightly wider street, sloping downward. And there, at the bottom of the slope, was the reason for the cordon.

A stone bridge arched over a pitch-black canal, the water a ribbon of ink below. On the other side of the bridge, the modern city began again—wider streets, the potential for vehicles, for escape from the claustrophobic maze. The bridge was a choke point. The only way out of the old town on this side.

And standing in the middle of the bridge, illuminated by the lone, battery-powered emergency lamp on its stone parapet, was a figure.

He wasn’t in tactical gear. He wore a long, dark wool coat, hands in its pockets. His hair was the colour of granite. Elias Kaine.

He stood perfectly still, a statue placed with intentional, theatrical precision. He was the destination of the drive. He was the wall at the end of the labyrinth.

Sabatine and Anton skidded to a halt in the shadows at the bridge’s approach. There was no other route. The canal was too wide, the walls too sheer. To go back was to run into the advancing net.

Kaine didn’t turn. He spoke, his voice carrying clearly in the damp, still air. It was calm, conversational, devoid of malice or triumph. It was the voice of a man stating a mathematical certainty.

“Mr. Rogers. Mr. Stalker. You’ve had a remarkably energetic evening. The fireworks were a tad excessive, I admit. But sometimes a dramatic gesture is required to focus the mind.”

Anton’s grip on Sabatine’s arm tightened. Sabatine could feel the furious, helpless tension thrumming through him.

“You’ve proven more resourceful than anticipated,” Kaine continued, finally turning to face them. His pale eyes seemed to gleam in the low light, absorbing it and giving nothing back. “The business with Finch was… gauche, but effective. It forced an accelerated timetable. No matter. The outcome remains the same.”

“What outcome is that?” Anton called out, his voice stronger than Sabatine expected, ringing with defiance in the narrow street.

“The prototype is returned. You both cease to be a complication.” Kaine took a single step forward. “You can hand it over, and your ends will be quick, painless, and will contribute to a plausible conclusion to this night’s unfortunate events. A tragic double-suicide of a disgraced CEO and his unbalanced lover, despondent over failed business and personal ruin. A neat, emotional story. The papers will eat it up.”

The cold, clinical way he laid it out was more terrifying than any shouted threat. He was already writing their epitaph.

“Or,” Kaine said, his head tilting slightly, “you can force me to take it from you. That story will be messier. More forensic. But just as final.”

Sabatine’s mind raced. The bridge was a kill zone. Kaine wouldn’t be alone. Snipers would have the approaches covered. Their only advantage was that Kaine wanted the prototype intact, and possibly wanted their deaths to look a certain way. That limited the weapons his team could use at this moment.

He leaned close to Anton, his lips brushing his ear. “On my signal, we run. Not back. Forward. Straight at him.”

Anton’s eyes widened, but he gave a microscopic nod. Trust. Absolute and terrifying.

Sabatine’s hand went to the small of his back, finding the grip of his silenced pistol. It was a last resort. A shot would bring the entire net down on them instantly.

He took a deep breath, ready to shout, to charge into the teeth of the trap.

A new sound cut through the night—the high-revving snarl of a powerful motorcycle, echoing off the canal walls. It came from the modern city side of the bridge, behind Kaine.

A single headlight speared through the gloom, blinding. The bike, a black, sleek machine, shot onto the bridge, its back tire sliding on the wet stones as it skidded to a stop between Kaine and the far end.

The rider was clad in black leather, helmet visor down. In his hand was not a gun, but a cylindrical object. He raised it and fired into the air with a soft thump.

Not a flare. A canister of military-grade smoke. Dense, grey-white clouds billowed out with shocking speed, enveloping the bridge, swallowing Kaine, the bike, everything.

Leon’s voice, tight with strain, burst in their earpieces. “GO! THROUGH THE SMOKE! NOW! MOVE!”

The signal. The chaos.

Sabatine didn’t hesitate. He pulled, with every ounce of strength left in his battered body. “NOW, ANTON!”

They ran. Not away from the trap, but into its heart. Legs pumping, lungs burning, they charged onto the bridge and plunged into the blinding, choking smoke. The world dissolved into a grey, sound-muffled nightmare. Sabatine kept his viselike grip on Anton’s wrist, dragging him forward in a straight line, trusting Leon’s positioning.

Shapes loomed—the motorcycle, a dark bulk. A figure (Kaine?) coughing, disoriented. A shouted command, cut off.

Then they were through, bursting out of the smoke on the far side of the bridge. The motorcycle engine roared again. Leon, having provided the diversion, was already peeling away, drawing pursuit.

Sabatine didn’t look back. He dragged Anton off the bridge mouth, into the welcome grid of wider, modern streets. The old town and its terrors were behind them. But the chase was far from over. They had broken the cordon, but they were still in the darkened city, with the prototype, and Elias Kaine had just been personally thwarted.

As they stumbled into the relative openness, Anton finally sagged, his legs buckling. Sabatine caught him, holding him upright, their foreheads touching as they gasped for air in the damp night.

They had escaped the old streets. But the price of the chase was written in the agony on Anton’s face and the fresh, bloody tear in Sabatine’s resolve. The game had just entered a new, even more deadly phase.

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