Deus Ex - Icarus Effect Read Online Free PDF Page A

was
    coming back by degrees, and she heard his combat boots crunching on the glass as the attacker balled a knot of her expensive Emile jacket
    between those steel fingers and hauled her off her feet. She struggled, but her arms felt like lead.

    Blank eyes, shark-black and wet, measured her; this bastard was playing games, tossing her about like a rag doll—but now that was going to
    end, now he was going to kill her. The other hand came up and clamped around her bare neck and squeezed like a vise. Anna tried to scream,
    but the sound died in her throat, trapped there. A cascade of warning icons rained down across the inside of her eyes, fed from the implanted
    biomonitor tracking her vitals. She heard her bloodstream thundering in her ears.

    The Mustang was heavy and dead in her grip. It was a block of iron, dragging her down. It took all her effort to lift it, her exertion ending in
    stifled gasps.

    He saw the movement, and tried to deflect her, knock the gun away. Anna jerked the trigger by reflex and the pistol roared. The first discharge
    missed, but the muzzle flash flared bright across the killer's eye line and he snarled; for a moment his grip slackened and Kelso pushed away,
    turning. When she fired again, the round hit him at point-blank range through the base of his jaw. Her assailant dropped like a felled tree,
    trailing a stream of blood from the back of his head.

    Anna went down with him, landing hard for the third time. She pushed away and came up in a crouch, turning away from the mess she'd made
    of him. A crawling, itchy gale of static was gnawing at the base of her skull—she'd lost the mastoid comm from the blast. Putting the dead man
    out of her thoughts, she moved off, low and quick behind collapsed tables and fallen chairs, wincing with pain at each step.

    There was thick smoke everywhere; all of Q Street was wreathed in it, the drifting haze of gray mist put out by the distraction grenades
    churning with the dark black pall from the burning limo. The rebreather implant in her chest stiffened; she'd use it if she needed to. A strident
    chorus of pealing car alarms was crying up and down the street, warning lights flashing. She glimpsed Connor lying at the curb, his torso a red
    ruin of bullet impacts. The agent's eyes were lifeless, staring into nothing.

    Anna kept moving. The crackle of automatic rounds sounded nearby, and she heard someone call out. The words were lost to her, but she knew
    Matt Ryan's voice when she heard it. She could make out the vague shape of the SUV—he had to be there, with Skyler. The Secret Service's
    first priority was always to their principal, and Ryan would be doing everything he could to get the woman out of danger.

    A figure moved in the smoke, and she called to it, stifling a cough. "Matt?"

    The gunshot that answered her struck Anna in the gut and she cried out. Burning, white-hot agony seared her belly and she recoiled, stumbling
    against a low wall. Her legs turned to water and she slipped down, a blossom of stark crimson blooming across the white silk blouse beneath her
    jacket. The round had gone straight through the Kevlar undershirt and buried itself in the meat of her. The agony was like nothing she had ever
    felt before. Her hands tightened into fists; her pistol was gone, spinning away out of reach. She felt a tightness in her chest as her biomonitor's
    active response system released protein threads into her bloodstream, racing to the source of the injury.

    The SUV's engine rumbled, and the taillights glowed white as the gears shifted; they were going to get away, get Skyler to safety. Kelso felt
    panic rising in her thoughts. She was going to be left behind.

    The haze was thinning, and for one random moment, a breath of clear air passed before her. She saw Byrne and Ryan with Skyler between
    them—the senator was slack, semiconscious—trying to maneuver the woman into the back of the SUV and keep a watch for the assailants at
    the same time.