"Hold on to your weapon, Meira! The quiet entry is over!" Bisma shouted, his voice cutting through the deafening roar of the rain and the sudden, piercing wail of alarm sirens echoing across the estate.
The night sky above the outskirts of Zurich shattered into a blinding matrix of white light. Massive, high-intensity stadium floodlights mounted along the perimeter walls and roof eaves flickered to life in unison, burning through the thick sheets of falling water and turning the rain into a curtain of shimmering needles. The shadows that had protected them moments before were incinerated in an instant.
Meira pressed herself flat against the muddy soil at the base of the stone lion statue, her lungs burning, her fingers slick with cold mud and rainwater as she clutched her sidearm. The
