UAV

Lahore, Pakistan
Thursday, 2:47 PM Local Time

1

"Do you think they are staring at us because of how we smell?" William shifted his weight.

Victor Cross blinked, stifling a groan. He was sitting on a park bench outside the Siddiq Trade Center in Lahore, Pakistan, twirling a pair of Chanel sunglasses in his hand and trying to appear inconspicuous; a task made all the more difficult by his bumbling compatriot.

"What?" Francis asked from the opposite side of the bench, his brow furrowing as he turned to stare at William.

"You know," William explained, "like hamburgers. Do you think we smell like hamburgers?"

Victor groaned.

"What the hell are you going on about?" Francis reiterated. "Why would we smell like hamburgers?"

Francis was Victor's second in command, the only person Victor would trust with his life. Unlike William, Francis Umstead was lithe, standing barely over five feet and thin as a rail. His accent was thick cockney, hard to understand until you'd spent enough time with him, and he wasn't at all intimidating to look at.

His size was deceptive, though, and Victor would prefer facing William, the three-hundred-pound bull of a man, in a fight over Francis. Francis had mastered every dirty trick for disabling and crippling opponents, and was the most brilliant tactician Victor had ever met.

While Victor built his reputation and became famous as an international mercenary for hire, Francis was always there at his side keeping him out of trouble. They both worked for JanCorp, a private military contractor buried under layers of shell companies in the Cayman Islands. On paper, the organization barely existed—its contracts routed through subsidiaries that dissolved after each job, its payments washed through banks that asked no questions. In practice, it ran jobs for governments, corporations, and private citizens, maintaining a network of local fixers, safe houses, and surveillance assets across four continents. Francis was brilliant and dangerous.

William, on the other hand…

"Like in that movie where soldiers keep eating Chinese food so they don't smell like Americans," William elaborated. "These people keep staring at us, and I was wondering if it's because we smell like strange food to them."

"Do you ever run out of stupid things to say?" Francis raised an eyebrow.

"No joke, man, all the attention is starting to creep me out." William's head swiveled toward a cluster of men watching from a tea stall. His fingers drummed against his thigh—right where his gun was strapped beneath the robes.

"Don't do that." Victor's voice didn't shift. "No sense drawing attention to yourself."

"Okay, boss," William folded his arms.

It was an oppressively hot day in Lahore, Pakistan, and Victor couldn't stop sweating. The air reeked of diesel exhaust and fried street food, a cloying mixture that clung to the back of his throat. Somewhere nearby, a spice vendor's cart sent waves of cumin and chili through the humid air. The city noise was relentless—honking horns, autorickshaw engines whining in low gear, the distant crackle of a loudspeaker broadcasting the afternoon azan from a mosque two blocks over. A pack of stray dogs trotted past the bench without a glance.

His own comfort mattered less than his gear: heat was brutal on electronics, and too much time in the sun could fry the hardware. His laptop sat open on the bench beside him, and he was using it to monitor the timeline and details of his plan.

"They are on schedule," Victor checked his watch, ending the conversation. "We have a little under two minutes."

"Why do we need this guy alive, anyway?" William shifted his weight. "It would be a lot easier just to put a bullet in Imran and steal his laptop."

"Because a laptop isn't what's in his head." Nothing changed in Victor's face. "Imran Hyderi built the backdoor into Markwell's drone systems. He knows every line of code, every authentication pathway. Without him, Helen will spend weeks trying to brute-force her way in."