The third operative swings his rifle like a club, aiming for Jagger's skull. Jagger ducks, comes up inside his guard, and the next three seconds are a blur of violence I can barely track.
Elbow to the throat. Knee to the groin. The operative doubles over, gasping, and Jagger grabs his head and slams it downonto his rising knee. The man's nose caves in, blood and teeth spraying across the tile floor.
But he's not done. He comes up swinging, catching Jagger across the jaw with a wild haymaker. They grapple, crashing into the counter, knocking pots and pans clattering to the floor in a cascade of copper and steel.
I try to get a clear shot, but they're too tangled. If I fire, I might hit Jagger.
The operative pulls a knife. Short blade, serrated edge, meant for close work. He drives it toward Jagger's stomach.
Jagger catches his wrist with one hand, twists until the bones grind together, and forces the blade around in a slow, inexorable arc. The operative's eyes go wide as he realizes what's happening, as his own hand drives the knife toward his belly.
"No, please, don't—"
The blade sinks in. Jagger shoves it deeper, angling up, and I watch the life drain from the operative's face as his internal organs are shredded by his own weapon.
He lets the body fall and turns to me. His face is a mask of blood, red dripping from his jaw, pooling in the hollow of his throat. But his eyes are calm. Focused. Like he's completed a task and is ready for the next one.
"You okay?"
"Shoulder's fucked. But I'm moving."
"Good enough."
The operative I shot in the knee is still alive, still screaming, dragging himself toward the door. Jagger walks over, places hisboot on the man's back, and puts a bullet in his head. The screaming stops.
The door to the main room crashes open. The remaining operatives pour through, Webb behind them, his face twisted with fury.
"Kill them both!" he screams. "I want them dead!"
Jagger grabs my arm and pulls me toward the ruined back door. We stumble into the night, cold air hitting my face, and then we're running.
Behind us, gunfire erupts. Bullets whine past, one so close I feel the heat of its passage. My lungs are burning, my shoulder screaming, but I don't stop. Can't stop.
The tree line is fifty meters away. If we can reach it—
Something hits me from behind.
Not a bullet. A body. One of the operatives tackled me, drove me face-first into the frozen ground. My gun goes flying, lost in the darkness. I try to roll, to fight, but he's heavy and trained and I'm already hurt.
His hands close around my throat.
Stars explode across my vision. I claw at his fingers, kick uselessly, feel my consciousness starting to slip away. This is it. This is how I die. Strangled in the dirt outside a safe house in Geneva, while Jagger—
The pressure vanishes.
I gasp, sucking air, and look up to see Jagger standing over me with a dripping knife and a corpse at his feet. The operative's throat is a red ruin, blood still pumping onto the frozen grass.
"Up," Jagger says, hauling me to my feet. "We need to—"
The shot comes from nowhere.
I see Jagger's body jerk. See the red bloom spreading across his collar bone. See his eyes go wide with surprise.
No.
No.
Everything slows down. I watch him stagger, watch his hand come up to touch the wound, watch his fingers come away slick with blood.
