Extinction Machine

Chapter Thirteen

Really bad time for the phone to ring.

The naked woman in my bed picked my phone up and, without looking at it, threw it across the room.

“Wrong number,” she said. The phone landed under the dresser and rang through to voice mail.

I peered at the lady from between eyelids that had been welded shut a moment before. What was left of my brain was still deep in a dream that was a sweaty replay of the party last night. The dream wasn’t specific because my brain was too deeply pickled for that. Instead there were flash images. The slideshow started off with an R-rating for content. The guys from Echo Team serenading Rudy Sanchez with a song from Mamma Mia! with a few significant modifications of the lyrics. Our version of the lyrics would have been too extreme for the letters page of Penthouse magazine.

We didn’t go as low as hiring hookers, but there were strippers.

Lots of strippers.

Rudy had asked for something small and tasteful, but let’s face it, he asked the wrong guy. Me. No way was I sending my best friend down the aisle with anything less than a blowout of epic proportions. Creating an international incident was a real likelihood at one point, no joke. I believe the police were involved for some of it, but I’m pretty sure we wound up cuffing some of them to the toilets in the ladies’ room.

It was that kind of a party.

For what it’s worth, even though I may have kissed several people — and I pray that most or all of them were women — I did manage to go home with the woman I came with.

Violin.

A luscious Italian shooter-for-hire who had a psychotic mother who frequently wanted me dead. Violin had warrants on her from several countries that had extradition agreements with the U.S. She also had a set of curves that made me not care about any of that, and more importantly, she was one of “my” people. That’s a small group of folks who I trust completely. Violin and I had history, we’d been through fire together, which meant that if anyone ever took a run at her they’d have to go through me. That would get very expensive in ways most people don’t want to pay.

Were we a couple?

Not really. Not in any way you could write a romance novel about.

When she was in this part of the world, and if neither of us was otherwise involved, we tended to attack each other in hot and creative ways. There were no strings, no obligations, and that was an arrangement that worked just fine for both of us.

Violin lay sprawled in a tangle of sheets in my Baltimore apartment. I think she’d gone back to sleep before the phone stopped ringing. She had pale skin with just the slightest hint of a Mediterranean olive in her complexion. No trace of a tan or even the ghost of a tan line — she’s definitely not the beach type. Round where it mattered, but lean and strong. Really, really strong. Some might say freakishly so, but she didn’t look it. She lay on her stomach, her face turned toward me, eyes closed, emitting a soft, purring snore. My middle-aged marmalade tabby, Cobbler, was snugged up against her, almost nose to nose with her, and they breathed with exactly the same feline rhythm.

The phone began ringing again.

My cell.

And then the house landline.

My dog, Ghost, started barking on the other side of the bedroom door.

Balls.

“Don’t,” mumbled Violin as I started to get up. It was somewhere between a plea and a threat.

“It’s probably my office.”

“Let someone else save the world for once. It’s Sunday, you’re hungover and more importantly I’m hungover. If you don’t let me go back to sleep I’ll kneecap you.” She said all this without opening her eyes, her voice a soft mumble of credible threat.

“I’ll risk it,” I said.

“Your funeral.”

I sat up and the motion set the room to spinning. Violin wasn’t joking about a hangover. I remember swearing to God while on my knees that I would never—ever—drink again if He’d just let me stop throwing up. Next time I was in church I was going to have to take a look at the fine print on that contract.

Right now, though, I watched the room do a tilt-a-whirl around the bed.

“Oh God,” I mumbled.

Both phones stopped ringing right before they would have gone to voice mail.

“Thank you, Jesus.”

And started up again.

I lunged for the cell phone, missed it by ten feet and crawled like a sick tree sloth across the carpet, grabbed the cell, pushed the little green button.

“What?” I snarled belligerently.

“Good morning, Captain Ledger,” said Mr. Church.

“Ah … shit.”

“Although it pains me to interrupt your Sunday morning meditations, I would appreciate your attention on a matter of some importance.”

Church hadn’t been at the bachelor party. I’d invited him but even though he didn’t say so I believe he would rather have been eaten by rats. Partly because, let’s face it, a bachelor party wasn’t his scene, and partly because Circe was his daughter. A precious few people on earth knew that fact, and I don’t want to know what Church would do to someone who let that fact leak. I’m a scary guy, but Church scares the kind of people who scare me.

“I’m off today,” I said with bad grace. “The duty officer is—”

“Joe,” said Church, “you need to get into the office now.”

Church never calls me Joe. Never.

I sat bolt upright.

“What’s happening?”

“Are you alone?” he asked.

I looked at Violin. She’d caught the urgency in my voice and propped herself up on one elbow. Alert and cautious. Cobbler crouched on the sheets next to her with wide, wary eyes.

“No,” I said.

“Then call me from your car. I’ll expect to hear from you in two minutes.”

He hung up.

I’ve been working for Church for a couple of years now, I’d seen him in the middle of some of the most terrible catastrophes this country has faced. Stuff that doesn’t make the newspapers, which is why my fellow Americans can still sleep at night. I’ve seen Church in situations where everyone and everything is falling apart and he’s always as cool as a cucumber.

But now there was something in his voice. Raw emotion held down by his iron control.

Fear.

Or maybe … panic.

Chapter Fourteen

Mr. Bones opened the wings of his Ghost Box and engaged the encryption. When it finished running through a system check, he waved to Howard, who was pouring cups of coffee into a pair of tall ceramic mugs. Howard’s mug had Doctor Doom on it, Mr. Bones had Lex Luthor. They had matching workout shirts. Christmas was weird last year.

“She on the line?” asked Howard. He hooked a wheeled chair with one bare foot and pulled it over to the desk. They were no longer in the kitchen. The incident in Washington had sent them running for Howard’s big office, where they each made a series of phone calls to try and get the latest information. In almost every case the people they called had no idea that anything was happening in Washington. Only the vice president, Bill Collins, knew anything, but the extent of his knowledge was the same as what they knew. It was maddening.

Now they settled down to call Yuina Hoshino, the third of the three governors who ran Majestic Three. Hoshino was a naturalized American whose family had moved from Japan when she was one. Like her parents, she was a physicist. Unlike them, she was a laconic and introverted hermit who seldom spoke to anyone except her lab staff and the other governors. She was not a mouse, as Mr. Bones viewed it, but more like a burrowing tick — relentless, solitary, and bloodthirsty.

The space between the wings of the Ghost Box glowed and Yuina Hoshino’s head and shoulders appeared. She had straight black hair streaked with gray, glasses hanging around her neck on a chain, and a face that might have been pretty had she spent any time at all in sunlight and fresh air rather than inside a lab. At sixty-one she was five years younger than Shelton and looked ten years older.

“What do we know?” asked Hoshino in a voice that was creaky with disuse.

“Only what we’ve told you,” answered Mr. Bones.

“What’s the problem with our intelligence sources? Are we out of the loop?”

“No,” said Mr. Bones, “that’s all there is. Linden Brierly arrived to take charge. Ghost Box has taps on all cellular and landline calls, we’re inside the Secret Service intranet, and we have bugs on every important wall. If there was more to know, we’d know it.”

Hoshino frowned. “That’s disturbing. This is not a good time for mysteries. The air show is so close…”

The Third Annual American Advanced Aeronautics Convention — informally known as “the air show”—was held at a fairground in Ohio. It was the highlight of the year for all defense contractors invested in fixed-wing aircraft, and particularly those who were rolling out new prototypes like old money families trotting out this season’s debutantes. M3 planned to steal the show with the Specter 101. The air show was not open to the public, of course, but everyone even tangentially associated with the DoD, Homeland, and the crucial arms sales to foreign markets would be there. It was the best opportunity to impress the brass and the congressional bean counters, and it was equally fine for showing up the competition.

Last week the security systems at the Ohio fairground were hit by the cyber-attacks, so Howard offered to host it at VanMeer Castle, where he had his own private airfield and grounds well screened by mountains and trees. Howard offered to augment security with a hundred operatives from Blue Diamond Security, a company in which he owned a sizable interest. The other exhibitors were reluctant at first, but the promise of security by the fierce Blue Diamond private contractors helped smooth things out. That, and there was a lot of sympathy for Howard after the tragic events at Wolf Trap.

“This won’t stop the air show,” assured Howard.

Hoshino snorted. “Of course it will. I’m surprised the show hasn’t already been canceled. And, frankly, Howard, it surprises me that you even want the show to go on. After Wolf Trap and the others events, it’s clear that whoever’s behind these cyber-attacks wants that show stopped and they want Shelton Aeronautics crippled.”

Howard hoisted a suitably morose expression into place. “My security people tell me that the new upgrades will assure a safe event.”

“Maybe,” grudged Hoshino, “but even the air show is secondary to this thing in Washington. And … let’s face it, gentlemen, we’ve all known that this could happen.”

“What exactly is it you think has happened?” asked Mr. Bones.

“Isn’t it obvious? Someone else has developed a working device before us.”

“Who?”

“It could be anyone,” said Hoshino. “It could be the Chinese. They’ve acquired most of the D-type components that were on the black market recently, and they’ve had an army of agents out there looking for more.”

“No,” said Howard. “If they had a complete device we’d know it by now.”

“Maybe we do know,” said Hoshino. “Maybe that’s what we’re seeing now. This could be their opening move.”

Howard constructed a brooding and contemplative face. “If they had a device,” he said dubiously, “they’d have to test it first before they did anything like this.”

“If you ever bothered to read my reports,” said Hoshino, “you’d see that there’s some indication of that. Sightings are up all over the world.”

“Oh, hell,” barked Howard, “we’re seeding most of that crap into the press. And a lot of it’s faked by morons hoping to get onto one of those stupid specials. They spray a Frisbee with silver paint and get one of their asshole friends to throw it over the house so they can take a picture of it with a cell phone.”

“Some of it,” agreed Hoshino. “Not all.”

“What are you saying?” asked Mr. Bones.

“I’m saying that there’s something up there and it’s not us,” said Hoshino. “It could very well be the Chinese. Maybe they’ve finished testing their device and this abduction is the opening move in something bigger.”

Mr. Bones grunted. “Maybe … but having a device and being willing to use it in such an outrageous way is a big jump. Attacking us like this?”

“It might not be the opening salvo of a war,” said Hoshino. “It could be an attempt to send a message.”

“You mean a threat?” asked Howard.

“Of a kind,” she conceded. “Something that only certain people would be able to recognize for what it is. People like us.”

“Are you saying they’re behind the sabotage of our computer systems, too?” asked Howard.

“We’re not the only ones being attacked,” said Hoshino.

“That’s not the point. Someone is waging a war … but I don’t buy China for any of this. Maybe the attack on us, if they had the tools, which they don’t, but not taking the president. That’s just too risky for them. They’d have to know that if we got wind of who was behind something like this, even if the president is returned unharmed, we’d retaliate. China’s tough, but they’re not as tough as the press paints them. They’re not ready for a nuclear exchange or even an air war. The Seventh Fleet would love any opportunity to prove that they aren’t patrolling those waters for show.”

“What about the Russians?” asked Hoshino. “They’re working on something—”

“They were working on something,” corrected Mr. Bones, “until Pietrovich woke up dead.”

“Wait … what? Pietrovich is dead? When did that happen?” demanded Hoshino.

Mr. Bones cleared his throat. “End of September.”

“Why wasn’t I told?”

Another pause. “Guess it was an oversight. Sorry, Yuina. Didn’t mean to cut you out of the loop.”

“Loop?” Yuina Hoshino turned to Howard. “Did you know about this?”

“Well, yes,” he said blandly. “I’m shocked Bones didn’t tell you.”

“Sorry we didn’t tell you,” said Howard. “It was one of Erasmus Tull’s quiet little magic tricks.”

“Tull?” said Hoshino with distaste. “I thought he retired.”

Howard snorted. “He’s only as retired as we want him to be.”

“And you didn’t think it was important to tell me any of this?”

“I said I was sorry, but it’s done and Pietrovich is in the ground. What matters is that it closed down a line of research that could have hurt us. If you want me to go whip myself later, Yuina, then fine. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea fuck me culpa. Correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s yesterday’s box score and we have something a lot more important right here, right now.”

“Fine, fine,” said Hoshino in a totally artificial tone of concession, “let me know next time. Especially if you’re going to activate an agent like Tull. He was erratic at the best of times.”

“They’re all erratic,” said Howard. “Bunch of test-tube freaks.”

“They’re our children,” chided Hoshino.

“The fuck they are. They’re meat by-products. And, even though I use Tull because he gets the job done, that cat gives me the creeps. All of them do, so let’s not romanticize them, okay? There’s not going to be a Hallmark Christmas special at the end of this. Either they serve their purpose or we put a shiny new bullet into each of them. End of story.”

Mr. Bones cleared his throat to clear the air. “If it’s not the Russians and it’s not the Chinese, what are the chances that the North Koreans rebuilt their lab?”

“‘Rebuilt’?” repeated Howard. “Rebuilt what? That lab is a hole in the goddamn ocean. No, the Koreans only ever had two genuine D-type components, and they lost those when the lab blew. And maybe — maybe — they’ve acquired one or two more parts since then, but that’s a long way from having a device. Besides, if it was them, and they could take the president out of the White House, then we’d have found his body hanging from a tree in the Rose Garden. I’m not saying they’d sign their handiwork, but they wouldn’t risk holding him hostage or waste time with a catch-and-release.”

“They might,” said Hoshino. “If they were able to take him, imagine what kind of threat they could make. Instead of the usual saber rattling with their missile program, they would be able to whisper right into the president’s ear: ‘Look what we can do!’ Think about it. Think about how that would impact every decision the president made.”

“Maybe, but I don’t buy it.”

“Who does that leave? Brazil? Israel?” asked Mr. Bones. “Do we start looking at our allies now? We knew that there was always a possibility they’d turn on us if they got a working device, but I can’t see it this soon. It’s way ahead of any projection.”

“Actually,” said Hoshino slowly, “I think you’re wrong about that. There is one more possibility we’re overlooking. It skews everything, but the more I think about it, the more I’m beginning to believe that all of this fits one of our earliest projections.”

“Which one?” demanded Howard Shelton.

Yuina Hoshino looked from one to the other.

“The Truman Projection,” she said.

The silence was as fragile as spun glass and it lasted a long time.

“Oh my God,” said Mr. Bones.

Chapter Fifteen

It took me three minutes to dress, grab my gun, yell a goodbye to Violin, hustle Ghost into my car, and start the engine. I called Church as I backed out of my parking slot.

He told me what was happening.

That sobered me right up.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

I put the pedal all the way down.

And broke every speed law in the state of Maryland.

Chapter Sixteen

As Lyle Ames ran interference for him, Linden Brierly slipped into a quiet corner where he could make a discreet call to Mr. Church. His cell phone had a built-in code scrambler based on a design originally used by Hugo Vox and the Seven Kings, but which Church had reconfigured for the DMS. And friends.

“Linden,” said Church, “has there been any change of status?”

“Nothing good.”

“Better tell me anyway.”

“First, there’s nothing new on the president, and per your suggestion I’ve put a lid on that crop circle we found. It’s a needless complication. I put two agents on it, but I’ve also isolated the agents who found it and the helicopter crew that took aerial photos of it. They’re not talking to anyone right now.”

“Good.”

“But I just heard from a friend in the AG’s office — a former agent now with the DoJ. The acting president has requested that the attorney general meet him right away.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know for sure, but my friend said that he heard the president use two names. Yours and Joe Ledger’s. My guess is that Collins is going to try and get a warrant to allow him access to MindReader.”

“The cyber-attacks thing,” said Church.

“What else can it be?”

“Thank you for the heads-up, Linden.”

“Deacon … if the president doesn’t come back … If he’s hurt or dead … then Collins will well and truly be our president.”

“I know,” said Church. “And won’t that be interesting?”

He disconnected.

Chapter Seventeen

I took a corner on two wheels and as my Explorer thumped down onto the side street I tried to kick the gas pedal through the floor. Ghost yelped and dove for the footwell. He was trained to be passive during high-speed driving, but I think he had doubts about my skills while hungover. Fair enough.

Church put me on hold to take a call from Washington. While he did that I switched from cell phone to the tactical communicator — a tiny earbud for a speaker and a high-fidelity mike that looked like a freckle next to my mouth. One of the guys at the Bose lab makes these special for Mr. Church.

He came back on the line, but before he could say anything I yelled, “How in the wide blue fuck does the President of the United States go missing from the goddamn White House?”

“We don’t have answers,” said Church. “The vice president has assumed temporary power—”

“That shithead shouldn’t be allowed to manage a Taco Bell.”

Church agreed with a sour grunt. He related his recent call with Brierly. It did nothing to improve my view of our temporary commander-in-chief. Vice President Bill Collins was, at best, an opportunistic dickhead who had a hard-on for the whole DMS and once used the NSA to try and tear us down. At worst, he was a closet traitor who may have been in bed with the Jakoby organization, one of the worst cabals the DMS ever tackled. Or he could just be a total damn fool. Whichever way, Collins was a wizard when it came to keeping shit off his own shoes. Even Church hadn’t been able to prove that Collins was bent. Knowing that Collins was now in power, however conditionally, made my nuts want to climb up inside my chest cavity.

“So,” I asked, “what’s our official involvement?”

“Official? None. Linden Brierly has been expressly ordered to keep us out of this. Apparently President Collins believes that we may be tied in some way to the cyber-attacks. No, Captain, don’t try to make sense of that, you’ll hurt yourself.”

I didn’t. Instead I cursed a lot, in several languages. Church rode it out; he neither stopped nor contradicted me. I did some weaving in and out of traffic. Lot of horns blared; lot of people flipped me the bird. I spread love and peace everywhere I go.

“What’s the alert status?”

“The military is bulking up at all the appropriate hotspots, notably the Middle East and the Taiwan Strait. The official word is that this is an unscheduled preparedness exercise, so nobody is launching missiles,” said Church, “but we’re not far enough back from the brink. Everyone is suspicious of ‘exercises’ because they can be used to hide just this sort of emergency protocol.”

In the White House there are protocols for everything. Presidents have been assassinated, they’ve died in office. There have been shots fired at the White House, there have been bomb scares. There’s even a protocol for an armed invasion of the capital by enemy troops, crazy as that sounds. Depending on the scale of the crisis, phones ring throughout the city, causing the pillars of government to shudder.

“However,” Church said, “the base commanders have not been told the nature of the alert.”

I could understand that. Ever since 9/11 and the subsequent wars, we’ve gone to high-alert status way too many times. Homeland and the Department of Defense don’t always share the “why” of this, even with base commanders. The Joint Chiefs have become very cagey — you could use the word “paranoid” without too much exaggeration, and for good reason. Sure, most of those alerts were false alarms, but there have been a number of times when something very big and very bad was looming and everyone had to be ready — just in case. Often it was the DMS who put the monster back in its box.

“We need to keep this totally away from the public,” I said.

“No doubt. A whiff of this would cause panic and likely crash several of the world markets.”

The yellow light ahead was about to turn. I did something fast and irresponsible, and as I shot through the intersection a pedestrian threw a bottle of Coke at me.

“Hey, the sky is falling, jackass,” I yelled out the window.

“Captain?” said Church mildly.

“Almost there.”

I laid on the horn as I blew through another intersection. My Ford had lights and sirens, and if the local cops ran my plates they’d get a message that basically said “fuck off and leave him alone.” But this was my town and I knew most of the cops anyway. Didn’t hurt at all that my dad, former chief of police, was mayor of the fine town of Baltimore.

Ghost barked continually, his nerves jangling in rough harmony with mine.

To Church I said, “How does someone kidnap the president out of the White House? Isn’t that supposed to be impossible? I mean actually impossible?”

“Yes,” said Church, and disconnected.

Chapter Eighteen

Erasmus Tull stood by the slatted wooden rail of the deck and watched the woman walk from the surf wearing a scuba tank and a bikini bottom that was barely more than a swatch of colored cloth. The ocean was a soft blue, shades lighter than the sky, and it was unseasonably warm for October. Water streamed down the woman’s tanned legs and beaded on the undersides of her small breasts. Her nipples were bright pink after her exertions and they looked somehow more sensual and more vulnerable that way. Tull felt a heavy throb deep in his loins.

He sipped his Scotch and smiled.

The woman called herself Berenice, but that was as false as the name he’d used when they had booked this vacation.

Berenice stopped by the chaise lounges on their private stretch of beach, hit the release on the tank harness, and slid it off. Tull watched her, appreciating the care she took as she lowered the tank to the sand rather than letting it drop. That kind of consideration went a long way with him. He despised the casual arrogance of so many of the scions of the super-rich. The ones whose access to wealth encouraged them to value nothing, and to even show contempt for property — anyone’s property, even their own — merely because it had no true value in their minds.

This one was different, even though she was the daughter of the billionaire Dutch owners of Donderbus Elektronica, the second largest military weapons manufacturer in Europe. Berenice stayed out of the tabloids as often as possible, and gave the paparazzi nothing to sell beyond the occasional long-distance topless photo. And who cared a damn about that? Not when the Internet was rife with celebrity sex tapes pedaled by disgruntled exes of lower income or station. Not her, though. Not this lovely woman with the long legs and liquid green eyes. Berenice was quiet — boring by media standards — preferring to linger inside her own head, to explore her thoughts with as much diligence and receptive interest as she maintained for the seas in which she swam. She and Tull had snorkeled and dived in the ocean, sometimes swimming naked under star fields scattered with ten billion diamonds.

Tull wondered if he was falling in love with her.

He wasn’t sure if he could. Some of the others in his family seemed to manage it; others did not. So far, he hadn’t.

It troubled him, as it often did when he wondered at the big empty places inside his head and heart. He took another brooding sip. The rich Balvenie 191 burned its way down his throat with such elegance that he closed his eyes for a moment to explore the complex subtleties of the whiskey. This, he decided, was what love probably felt like. So — was that what he felt for Berenice?

After weeks with her he still wasn’t sure.

The cool breeze off the ocean ruffled his blond curls.

Berenice picked up her sunglasses from the table between the lounges and put them on, then she stood for a long minute looking off toward the swaying trees that grew lush and dense here on Little Palm Island. Tull followed the line of her gaze and saw a small key deer step daintily out from between the trunks of two torchwood trees. It was a young doe whose coat was still splashed with faint spots and was only now growing into the gray brown of adulthood. The deer seemed unaware of the woman as it poked around on the ground for fallen thatch pine berries.

Tull knew that Berenice was as unaware of being watched as was the deer, and her unguarded smile was lovely. Peaceful and uncomplicated in a way that lent her face a look of profound serenity.

Yes, thought Tull, you are falling in love, old sport.

The cell phone on the porch railing began to ring. It was a soft sound, not enough to startle deer or woman. A very specific ringtone. Tull picked it up and clicked the button with a thumbnail.

“Go,” he said.

Berenice heard him and she turned, still smiling, and gave him a small wave. Tull blew her a kiss.

The caller said, “There is a fire in heaven.”

Tull sighed and parked a haunch on the rail. He frowned into the amber depths of his drink as he swirled the Scotch around and around.

“Are you sure you have the right number?” he asked. It wasn’t the agreed-upon response code, but he was annoyed at having the moment spoiled. There were so few moments like this in his life.

There was a slight pause at the other end. “There is a fire in—”

“Yes, I heard you,” sighed Tull.

Down below Berenice was trying to approach the deer with the bread and lettuce from the sandwich she’d left unfinished before going diving. The doe peered at her with a blend of innocence and natural wariness, her muscles tensed for flight.

The silence on the other end of the line was ponderous.

Tull shook his head and wondered if it wouldn’t be better to simply chuck the phone out into the salt water. He didn’t need to work anymore — he had enough money squirrelled away to live in sybaritic comfort for the rest of his life. Granted, he enjoyed the work, but today he was in a different head space.

Berenice crept closer to the deer, and the animal still had not fled. The princess moved like a tai chi practitioner, keeping her weight on her back leg, letting the other move out slowly to find its place, and then using a controlled shift of her body to empty her weight from one leg and fill it onto the other leg. It was so smooth it was as if she glided across the sand. No jerky steps. Lots of pauses to allow the deer to find its trust and its courage. Tull found it both fascinating and very sexy. Not because of the similarity to tai chi, but because a beautiful woman wearing only a skimpy bikini bottom stalking like a hunter pushed a lot of the right buttons in Tull’s libido.

The caller tried it one more time. “There is a fire in heaven.”

Tull really wanted to drop the phone and stomp on it. Instead he gave the counter-code. “Where are the angels?”

“In the east,” said the caller.

“Hello, Mr. Bones.”

“Hello, Mr. Tull. I trust you are well.”

“I was better before the phone rang.”

“Ah. Then, on behalf of the governors, please accept my apologies. However, your services are needed.”

“Send someone else,” said Tull.

“We can’t,” said Bones, and Tull heard a note of alarm in his voice. “There are complications.”

The doe spooked and bolted, vanishing into the woods. Berenice stood, the sandwich in her hands, her disappointment written in the lines of her body. Even so, the day remained beautiful. Bees and dragonflies flitted from flower to flower and far away a few white clouds floated like sleeping giants on the bed of the horizon.

“What complications?”

“Religious complications.”

It took a moment for Tull to grasp the meaning from the obtuse language. His pulse quickened. Religious complications.

Religion.

Church.

God almighty.

“Tell me,” he said. Mr. Bones told him.

With each word the colors seemed to drain out of the day. The music of the waves turned to noise; the sound of the songbirds became the discordant chatter of pests. It was how it always happened. It was how it usually was for him. Sadness crept into his heart as he felt the magic that defined this day, this place, this moment, slip like oiled flesh through his fingers.

Below, the princess turned and began walking along the beach toward their bungalow. Sunlight reached for her through the trees and dappled her breasts and shoulders. Tull sighed, and the sound of it, even to his own ears, was filled with weariness and sadness.

“Very well,” said Tull.

“You’ll accept the assignment?”

“Yes.” His voice was a soft croak. “Send me any intel you have. I’ve got a little travel time ahead of me, but I can be there soon. Have my jet fueled and the airport cleared. Call Aldo — I’ll need him. In the meantime, make sure there are some good people on this guy Ledger. See if you can put him in a box until I can get there.”

“Thank you, Mr. Tull. We have assets in play as we speak.”

The line went dead.

Tull finished his Scotch and set the glass down and leaned on the rail with both hands. It would be so hard to leave this place. To leave this woman. To leave this chance at being like other people. At being normal.

At being human.

Tull sighed again, and went inside to pack.

Chapter Nineteen

Linden Brierly and a dozen agents moved in an armed wave to intercept the president from entering the White House. Before Brierly could say a word, William Collins pointed a finger at him.

“Don’t,” he barked.

“Mr. President,” said Brierly in a tight whisper, “this is extremely ill advised.”

The president stopped and looked around. His motorcade sat in the underground entrance, lights swirling, armed men and women everywhere. Security cameras were mounted on the walls, guards at the gated entrances.

He closed on Brierly, getting right up in the director’s face, and his whisper was every bit as fierce. “You told me you swept the building.”

“Yes, sir—”

“Top to bottom, every room, every possible hiding place.”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“You ran scanners over every inch of wall space. There are no listening devices and no hidden compartments where the entire Al-Qaeda could be lurking.”

Brierly said nothing.

Collins had enough courtesy to lower his voice so that only Brierly could hear him. “Whatever happened this morning is over. Your own team has deemed the building safe.”

“Sir, I approved a memo saying that there were no detectable threats. That’s hardly the same—”

“I am the president, Linden. I know it pains you to accept that fact, but there it is. Now get the fuck out of my way while you still have a job.”

Collins glowered until Brierly reluctantly stepped back and to one side.

With his entourage in tow and agents fore and aft, the president went into the White House to lay claim to the Oval Office. Linden Brierly, defeated, followed in his wake.

Chapter Twenty

The two men in the black Crown Victoria watched the huge red-brick apartment building. The driver chewed gum slowly and methodically as he studied the building through dark sunglasses. The man next to him was hunched over a small laptop whose split screen showed him the feeds from several camera drones that perched as fake pigeons on power lines, light poles, and window ledges. From ten feet the drones looked entirely real. At close range their tiny black bird eyes were too dark, too lifeless, too unnatural to sell them as real. But they did not need to pass close inspection, and no one looks twice at a pigeon in Baltimore.

“Okay,” said the man with the small laptop. “The woman’s leaving, too.”

A tall and lovely young woman stepped out through the main doors and raised her arm for a cab. Both men paused to admire her legs and the way her clothes clung to her ripe lines.

“Ledger’s pumping that?” said the driver. “Lucky bastard.”

“Yeah, well his luck just ran out,” said the passenger. “Hope he got laid this morning, ’cause it’s going to be a long time before he sees a pair of tits again.”

“Ah, well,” said the driver. “Life’s a bitch.”

The other man laughed, then he tapped his Bluetooth. “The apartment’s empty. Send in the team.”

Chapter Twenty-one

As I drove I tried to make sense of things. On one hand, abducting the president made every kind of political sense — if you were a terrorist. If you were willing to die to make a point, this would be the biggest play of the game. Short of detonating a nuke on U.S. soil there’s no real way to top something like that.

On the other hand, abducting the president made no sense. It was on a par with kicking a grizzly bear in the nutsack. Yeah, you can brag about it if you live long enough, but how much do you like your odds? You’d have to know that once guys like me — and the thousands of other agents, lawmen, soldiers, and shooters who would be in this hunt — were on your trail, you were done, cooked. Dead, if you were lucky; in custody if your luck turned to shit. There are worse things that can happen to an enemy of the state than Gitmo. Hate to say it, hate it to be the truth, but there it is.

Who was the bad guy here? Who had either that much balls or was that crazy?

The U.S. of A has a lot of enemies, and some of them are supposed to be friends and allies. Friendship is every bit as illusory as the concept of alliance — it’s all really a balancing of mutual interest, mutual greed, fear, and barely concealed exploitation. And that math is skewed even more when you factor in that everyone hates the guy at the top. So, who among our bitter enemies or supposed friends would risk abducting the president? Who would think the rewards would outweigh the risks? Moreover, who was dumb enough to believe that a hostage, even one of such importance, is a genuine shield? In the short term, sure … but that kind of protection goes toxic faster than macaroni salad at a hot August picnic. Hold a hostage too long and that person’s political relevance diminishes. There would be a change of power in the White House — hell, the veep was already the de facto president. All the useful codes were already being changed. Pretty soon the hostage has symbolic value only, and I wouldn’t want to live on those terms.

Maybe this was political from a different camp. I mean, the loss of the president would tear down a lot of partisan structures. The president’s party would lose face and would likely be overwhelmed in the next round of congressional elections. The people most loyal to the missing president would be held up to scrutiny in case there was any possible chance that they were complicit in action or derelict in duty, and that stain of doubt would never wash off. Gradually everyone upon whom the president relied for swift, decisive action would be diminished, replaced, or otherwise disempowered.

And, of course, there was the issue of retaliation.

I couldn’t believe that any government was directly responsible for the abduction because this was an undeniable act of war. It was also a violation of our apparent strength and security. Once this was out we would lose face with the other superpowers; and the stock market would go right into the crapper. Our only response would have to be one of overwhelming military force. We would need to identify the culprits and utterly destroy them. If this was the work of a nonnuclear state, then they would be invaded and steamrolled flat. I’m not saying I agree with that, but I’m practical enough to understand the political philosophy of it. If you want to maintain the reputation as the absolute strongest, then when someone slaps you, you don’t slap them back. Instead you run them down with your car and make sure all four wheels bump over their bones. Barbaric? Sure. Spiritual? Of course not, because it is the exact opposite of the lessons of the enlightened teachers. But practical for a corrupt, illogical, and fiercely violent world? Sadly, cynically, yes.

I was nudged out of those gloomy thoughts when a black car shifted into my lane two cars in front of me. It was a Crown Victoria of the kind often used by government agencies. It caught my eye because there was one just like it behind me. We reached a light and the four of us sat there — the first Crown Vic, then a red Honda with a woman with two small kids, then me, and then the second Crown Vic. On another day I might have missed the cars, or noticed them but dismissed them. Today was not another day. Today was today and weird things were already happening.

The light turned green and we moved forward in a line to the next corner. The green light was about to turn and the lead car had just enough time to hurry through the yellow. He didn’t. The driver slowed and allowed the light to go all the way to red.

I punched a button on my cell and called Church.

“Boss, did you send an escort?”

“No,” he said, “what are you seeing?”

I told him and gave the tag numbers from the one behind me, transposing them from the reverse image in my rearview. “Can’t see the numbers on the lead car though.”

“Hold on,” he said.

The light turned green and we moved forward. The red Honda peeled left and went down a side street. That left my Explorer sandwiched between the two government cars. I gave Church the plates of the lead car, which I could now see.

Church came back on the line. “Both plates belong to cars in the general FBI fleet. Do you need to know who checked them out?”

The light turned green, but the lead car did not move. I was in a box. I had six feet between my front bumper and the lead car, but the follow car had crept up so close he was crowding my taillights. Some wiggle room if this got weird.

“I have a feeling this is about to go south on me, boss.”

“I’ll roll backup,” said Church. “Be careful, Captain.”

“Always am,” I said.

Doors opened in both cars. Front doors, both sides. Four men got out. All of them tall, all of them in black suits with crisp white shirts, nondescript ties, sunglasses. Their jackets were unbuttoned and there was a slight breeze, however each man used one hand to keep the jacket flaps closed.

“Uh-oh,” I said to Ghost. Actually I said, “Rut-roh,” in my best Scooby-Doo voice.

Ghost straightened and looked out of the windows, turning to look in front and behind us.

The agents closed in on my Explorer. Two on the passenger side, two on the driver side. The point man removed his identification wallet and held it out as he approached my window. Ghost growled softly, the ridge of hair on his spine standing as straight as a wire brush. He bared his teeth, four of which were made of gleaming titanium — replacements for the ones he’d lost on the Red Order gig in Iran. Ghost loves biting things with those chompers. He’s never hugely friendly with strangers at the best of times and right now he was picking up my tension. This car stop had “wrong” written all over it. It was weird, it was unexpected, it was improper and today wasn’t the day for that shit. I gave Ghost a couple of get-ready-but-wait commands.

I rolled my window down one quarter of an inch. Enough for sound, not enough for any hanky-panky. The glass is bullet-resistant. I’m not.

“Federal agents,” said the point man. He was a medium-size guy with a beaky nose and hardly any lips. All I could read on the ID were the three big letters that my boss insists do not stand for “Fart, Barf, and Itch.”

I slapped my ID against the glass. I’d dug a set of NSA credentials out of the glove box. Since these guys were FBI, I wanted to both trump them and also play home-court advantage — and the NSA is based in Fort Meade here in Maryland. The DMS doesn’t have ID cards or badges being one of those “we’re so secret we don’t officially exist” things.

Beaky Nose barely looked at my credentials. “Federal agents,” he repeated. Which, in the circumstances, was kind of a silly thing to say.

“Me, too, friend,” I said coldly. “I am responding to a matter of national security. Please move your car.”

He did not acknowledge my statement in any way. Instead he said, “Please step out of your vehicle.”

“Sorry, did you miss the part where I said that I’m with the National Security Agency? Perhaps you’ve heard of us? Bunch of officious pricks with way too much authority? Including the authority to tell you to back the fuck off and let me go about my business.” Just to be pissy I gave him a toothy smile and added, “Please.”

Beaky Nose opened his jacket and laid his hand on the butt of the pistol clipped to his belt. “Please step out of your vehicle, sir. Don’t make me ask you again.”

“You just did,” I said. “You made yourself say it again.”

Beaky Nose didn’t seem to know how to answer that. While he was sorting it out I opened the door and stepped out. He stepped back, his hand still on his pistol. I was wearing jeans and an unbuttoned Orioles shirt over a thermal undershirt. My Beretta was in a quick-draw shoulder rig, out of sight but in easy reach. The second agent, a beefy man with black hair and an Italian face came around from the far side of the car and stood a few feet behind me and to my right. My car door was still open, and it formed a nice barricade between us. The guys from the follow car, a scarecrow with sallow skin and a black guy with a precisely trimmed mustache and a gleaming bald head, stood behind me and to the left. Maybe six feet behind me. Almost but not quite the right distance to stay out of my range. Ghost stood up on the seat, but I kept him in place with a small hand sign. I left the door open, though, just in case things got creative out here. Ghost makes a great party crasher.

“We need you to come with us,” said Beaky Nose.

“Why?” I asked.

“We need you to come with us.”

He repeated the comment with exactly the same deadness of voice. No emotion, no inflection.

“What’s your name?” I asked him.

He didn’t answer.

“Let me see that ID again.”

Beaky Nose didn’t answer. He stared through the black lenses of his sunglasses. I couldn’t see his eyes at all, not even the outline of them through the opaque lenses. It was a sunny morning, but the street we were on was shadowed by the tall buildings on either side. I was surprised he could see with such dark glasses.

“We need you to come with us,” repeated Beaky Nose. It was almost robotic. Lifeless.

Yeah, it was a little bit scary.

The whole setup was scary.

And it was all wrong.

“Listen to me,” I said, “I’m a federal agent and I’ve been called in on a matter of national security. Unless you have a warrant, then detaining me is a federal crime. Now, you’re going to get into your cars and I’ll get into mine. You’re going to move your cars so I can get around you. Are we understanding each other here?”

Beaky Nose looked at the Italian, then over to the Scarecrow and Baldy. Then he looked at me again. There was no flicker of expression on his face. He did not repeat his favorite catchphrase. He did not, in fact, say a goddamn word.

Instead he went for his gun.

Up till that moment I’d hoped that this encounter wasn’t as weird and threatening as it seemed. And, up till that moment Beaky Nose had a chance of ending the day without severe physical discomfort.

That moment passed.

I kicked Beaky Nose in the nuts with the tip of my shoe. Very, very hard. I have big feet and my shoes have steel toes. This is never good news for the sorry son of a bitch whose balls get in the way of my rage issues.

He screamed loud enough to crack glass.

“Ghost—hit!” He launched himself out of the car like a snarling white torpedo as Scarecrow moved in on me. They went down hard and messy.

I slammed the half-open car door into the Italian, jolting him to a sudden stop, I whipped the door shut and jumped at him with a short-range front kick, crunching the flat of my foot onto the front of his thigh. It knocked his leg way too straight and way too hard and the leverage bent him in half and sat him forcefully down on his ass. Even as his tailbone tried to drill a hole in the asphalt, I pivoted my hips, cocked my leg and gave him a flat-of-the-heel side thrust right above the eyebrows. I’m pretty sure he was in happy land before the back of his head hit the blacktop.

Then I whirled to see the bald guy caught in a moment of indecision — help Scarecrow or go for me. He spun and went for the dog. Wrong choice. I reached him in two fast strides, grabbed his collar and jerked him backward off his feet. His gun went flying straight up into the air. I twisted my hip and dropped into a crouch, using the torque and downward weight shift to slam Baldy’s back against the ground with a meaty thud. Air burst from his open mouth, and before he could take the next breath I leaned over and drove a two-knuckle punch into his solar plexus. He made a strangled screech and lay there, gasping and twitching like a gaffed marlin.

“Off!” I called, and Ghost released Scarecrow’s bleeding arm. Ghost’s metal teeth had done impressive damage. The man screamed in pain. I knotted my fingers in Scarecrow’s hair, half lifted him and used my other hand to punch him in the face twice, breaking nose and mashing lips. He went out like a light and I let him drop.

I spun, crouched, ready for more.

But there was no more.

The Italian and Scarecrow were out; Baldy was trying to figure out that whole breathing thing, and it was going to take him a while to remember the rules. That left Beaky Nose, who was curled into a fetal ball. As I approached him he tried to wriggle away, but we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. I felt something give when I’d kicked him. Probably his pelvis.

I’m a nice guy most of the time.

I’m a really nice guy some of the time. Last night at Rudy’s bachelor party I was everybody’s pal.

When it comes to ambushes, however, I find it hard to be affable.

Chapter Twenty-two

Once the call was ended, Mr. Bones closed the Ghost Box and turned to Howard Shelton. The old man was leaning heavily on the desk, head low, eyes staring fixedly into the wood grain. His color was bad and he was sweating.

“This is scary as hell,” said Mr. Bones.

Howard merely grunted.

“I mean,” continued Bones, “on one hand we should be happy that she’s still clueless about the cyber-attacks and—”

“Fuck the cyber-attacks,” snarled Howard. “We’ve got that safeguarded seven ways from Sunday. What about this thing in D.C.? What the hell is happening?”

“It’s definitely not the Chinese.”

Howard’s lip curled back from his dentures. “Yeah? And how do we know those slippery bastards aren’t screwing us?”

“We know because they can’t. Remember the last time they tried? That entire lab complex in Tangshan became the epicenter of a very, very big earthquake. Worst of the twentieth century, am I right? You really think they’re going to risk that again?”

“How the fuck should I know?” growled Howard, his face becoming livid. “We keep risking it. Any risk is worth it. Mount St. Helen’s, Haiti … even if someone ever puts two and two together, they’ll see how everything we’ve had to do is all for the ultimate good. That’s easy math. Besides, if we hadn’t gotten lucky with the organic component we’d be in the same boat as them.” He shook his head. “But it’s not the damn Chinese I’m worried about. Or the Russians or the frigging North Koreans or anyone.”

“Then what?”

“What Yuina said … about the Truman Projection. Christ, Bones, what if she’s right?”

“Oh God, you’re worried about that? You think we’re being invaded by aliens?” Mr. Bones burst out laughing. “Yuina is a very brilliant, very dedicated, very crazy lady and she’s been in the lab far too long.”

“Yeah, but what if she’s right?”

“She’s not right. ET’s gone home, Howard. We have junk and burned bodies and nothing else. This is all past tense and you know this.”

“What if she’s right?” Howard insisted.

“Not a chance in hell,” said Mr. Bones with absolute certainty.

Howard merely grunted, but sweat continued to boil from his pores. It ran in lines down his cheeks.

“Jesus Christ, Howard,” yelped Mr. Bones, “what’s wrong?”

“I … I think you’d better get my nitro,” said Howard very carefully. “I feel like shit.”

Chapter Twenty-three

We were starting to draw a crowd. I ignored them.

Beaky Nose kept trying to wriggle away, but I moved into his path of retreat and squatted down. He took one look at me and gave up.

I took his ID case and looked at it. The photo was bland and uninteresting. The name printed on the card was “Stephen Albert.”

“Who sent you?” I asked him.

Instead of answering he leaned over and vomited. His eyes were glazed and his face had turned a bright red. Huge spasms racked him from hair to feet.

“Let’s come back to that,” I suggested, and went over to pick the pockets of the other agents. Baldy was Benjamin Carr, Scarecrow was John Woods Duke, and the Italian-looking guy was Mark Bucci. I didn’t recognize any of the names. MindReader would get me every last detail about them, so I pocketed the IDs. I also took their guns and removed the keys from the ignitions of both cars. While I was at it, I checked the glove compartments and trunks of each vehicle and found nothing. The cars were as clean as if they’d just rolled off a Detroit assembly line. Not even a pack of gum or an owner’s manual.

The only remarkable thing I found was a small rectangular piece of metal Agent Albert had in his pocket. It was about the size of a Zippo lighter, but thinner and with no moving parts that I could see. I would have dismissed it as nothing more than a piece of junk except for the fact that he carried it and had nothing else of a personal nature. So it wasn’t a worry stone or a good-luck piece. It weighed next to nothing and was warm to the touch. I put it in my pocket.

Agent Albert was on his knees with his hands cupped around his balls, but his red face had turned gray-green. I squatted down in front of him.

“Who sent you?” I asked.

He tried to say something, but he couldn’t make coherent sounds. His lips formed the words: Fuck you.

“You’re not making this any easier on yourself, Albert.”

He didn’t respond to my use of his name. Not a twitch. His bug eyes stared at the puddle of vomit in which he knelt. People were coming out of buildings and stepping out of cars. A few began moving closer, but Ghost gave such an eloquent growl that they retreated to a minimum safe distance.

I leaned a little closer to Agent Albert. “Listen to me, asshole — I don’t know what they told you when they sent you four morons out on this pickup, but they didn’t give you enough information. You just stepped in shit and believe me when I tell you that a kick in the junk isn’t the worst thing that could happen to you today. On the other hand, if you tell me who sent you and why, I can see your luck definitely improving.”

All he did was give me a slow, stubborn shake of his head. I sighed. Twenty minutes ago I was in a warm bed with a beautiful woman. A beautiful naked woman. I’d intended on sleeping until noonish, then wake her up, romp with her some more, and afterward the two of us would go on a prowl for the thickest steaks in Baltimore. Instead, I was here. I felt like crap due to lack of sleep, residual booze in my system, a hangover that made my head feel like it was held together with duct tape and enough postconflict adrenaline to make my eyes twitch and my hands jump.

Plus there was that whole “the president has been kidnapped” thing that was setting fires in my head.

“Last chance,” I said to Albert.

Another slow shake.

I sighed. “Your funeral, pal.”

“Yo!” called someone from the crowd. “What’s going on over there?”

I got to my feet and held up my ID. “Federal agent. This is a crime scene. Clear the street.”

They milled but none of them left. Everyone seemed to be taking photos with their phones. In the distance I heard the banshee cry of sirens.

I made two quick calls. The first was to my brother, Sean, who was a detective here in Baltimore. I told him the details that mattered but nothing of what was really happening. Sean didn’t really know what I did for a living — like most folks from my previous life, he thought I worked for the FBI — but he promised to pass along word that I was to be allowed to leave the scene. He said he’d call our dad, too. Dad’s the mayor of Baltimore. Sometimes nepotism is the best grease for the gears.

Then I called Church and gave him the full story.

The sirens were really close.

“Theories?” asked Church.

“Not a goddamn one.”

“Okay, get out of there as soon as you can. I’ll handle things with Baltimore PD and we’ll see about a transfer to bring those four to a facility where we can interview them. I’ll also get Jerry Spencer out there to take samples and sweep their cars.”

“Cars are clean. Doubt Jerry’s going to get anything besides fingerprints.”

“It’s worth a try.”

Jerry was a former DCPD who now headed up the DMS forensics unit. He was damn good at it, too, though he never seemed to enjoy it. World-class grouch. No visible social skills. One of the DMS guys privately described him as “Sherlock Holmes with hemorrhoids.” Like that.

“Any news?” I asked, and he knew what I meant.

“No,” said Church.

“Call me paranoid, boss, but I find it strange that these jokers took a hard run at me today.”

“Because of this morning?”

“Maybe. Or maybe because the veep is now the commander-in-chief. Last time he was in the Oval Office he sicced the NSA on us. Could be doing the same with the FBI.”

“You think that’s likely?”

“Don’t know. Timing’s weird, though. And … the wattage is dialed up. These guys wanted to hurt me. They were drawing guns when I made my play.”

“I’ll make sure they land in our custody,” said Church in a way that was not intended to suggest that these guys were going to spend the rest of the day getting blow jobs and eating bonbons.

“Cops are here,” I told him as the first units screeched to a stop.

“Ghost — down and quiet,” I said and he obeyed. With that command he’d even let me get cuffed — if it came to that — without doing anything that might get him shot.

I stepped clear of the cars and raised my hands; one was empty and the other held my NSA credentials.

The officers pointed guns at me. They yelled at me. They manhandled me. They took my gun. I had to reinforce my orders to Ghost because he doesn’t like seeing people manhandle his pack leader.

“National Security,” I said over and over again.

Ghost growled.

One of the cops drew his Taser and pointed it at him.

“Listen to me,” I said in my most reasonable tone, “I am a federal officer involved in a matter of urgent national security. You can run my ID and do whatever you have to do, but if you Tase my dog I’m going to shove that gun so far up your ass you’ll be shooting sparks out of your nose.”

Maybe they weren’t impressed by the trash talk, but nobody fired a Taser at Ghost. For his part, my dog held his ground, though he eyed them like they were items on a menu.

The cops tried to cuff me. I’m not stupid enough to try physical resistance, but I kept trying to stall them with credentials and the National Security angle. That worked only long enough for the juice to kick in. A call came down the line that made them suddenly back off and change their attitudes toward me. Maybe it was Sean, or my dad … or, more likely, Mr. Church. They handed me back my gun. The guy with the Taser holstered his piece and didn’t meet my eyes.

The four agents I’d dropped were semiconscious. Officers were trying to question them, asking where they were hurt, who they were. The agents said nothing. Not a word.

A sergeant supervisor arrived on the scene and came hurrying over. When he saw my face he slowed to a stop, a confused half smile beginning to form on his face.

“Joe—?”

I grinned. “Hey, Tommy.”

“The fuck’s this all about?” he asked, closing in.

Tommy O’Malley was a good cop. We’d worked together at a couple of precincts — White Marsh and Essex. He took my identification wallet from one of the officers, looked at it, frowned, and handed it to me.

“I thought you were with the Feebs.”

“I am, but … it’s complicated.”

He gave me a few seconds of the “cop” look. Frank and suspicious. “Uncomplicate it for me.”

But, I shook my head. “Can’t do it, man. And I hate like hell to do this to a friend, but I have to stonewall you. This really is a national security matter and I can’t tell you anything more than that.”

Tommy was shorter than me, and he had one of those thin, freckly Irish faces that are no good at hiding their emotions. I saw the sudden shift as our relationship changed from Tommy and Joe to street cop and fed. Or, as we used to say when I was on his team, street cop and fucking fed.

I could feel him take a mental step back from me, and even after we’d hurried through the necessary steps and I was back in my car, the weight of his disapproval was heavy on my shoulders.

It depressed me. I was no longer one of that brotherhood.

Chapter Twenty-four

“Where are you going?” asked Berenice.

Erasmus Tull looked up from the suitcase he was packing. Berenice stood in the bedroom doorway. She still wore the bikini bottoms but she’d pulled on a loose white cotton shirt. His shirt. It hung open and unbuttoned. Purple shadows painted her skin and darkened the undersides of her breasts.

“I have to go to Maryland on business.”

She came in and leaned against the dresser. “I thought you were retired.”

“I am,” he said, stuffing his shaving kit into the corner of the bag. “But I take it in installments. Now I have to go back to work to pay for the next installment.”

She stepped over and removed his shaving kit from the suitcase, unzipped it and held it out. The small .22 pistol was wrapped in blue silk. She whipped off the silk and held out the pistol flat in her pam. “And so what business is this?”

Tull gently took the pistol from her. “My own.”

“Are you a criminal?” she asked, her green eyes searching his. Concern etched a single vertical line between her brows.

Outside the window a mockingbird taunted Tull in a hundred voices.

“No,” he said. “The gun is protection.”

She straightened and her features hardened. There was a small crescent scar on her cheek, a souvenir from a baby moray they’d encountered in the waters off Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea. When she was hurt or angry that scar darkened to the color of autumn wine. As it did now.

“Am I a fool that you lie to?” she demanded. “Am I some little beach bunny that you hump and dump?”

“Don’t be vulgar.”

“Why? Is it less polite than lying?”

He sighed and tossed the gun down onto his folded pants. “I thought we agreed not to talk about our pasts?”

“Easy for you,” she said. “You already know mine. Donderbus Elektronica is hardly unknown and I may be last in the line of succession to take over the company. I am still an heiress, which means that you could Google everything you need to know about me.”

Tull had to force his lips not to curl into a smile. When they’d first met, he had done exactly that. “I know, but you still agreed to the arrangement.”

“Because I didn’t think it mattered.” She indicated the pistol with a curt uptic of her chin. “Until this.”

“This doesn’t involve you — or us,” he insisted. “I’ve got a small matter to handle and then I’ll be back.”

“What is this ‘matter’?”

“It’s confidential,” he said. “I can’t discuss it with anyone, not even you. Considering what your family does, I’m sure you can appreciate the need for secrecy in some aspects of business.” He reached to take her hand. “Look, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Berenice took a step back from him.

“So that’s it? You just up and leave and to hell with me and us and everything we’ve—”

“Believe me,” he said, “I’ll be back.”

“How many times have you said that? How many women have stood where I stand now? Involved with you, in love with you, fascinated by everything that you know and all the mysteries you never shared? And then — what? Abandoned? Is that what drives you? To seduce and abandon?”

Tull laughed. “Seduce? As I recall, Berenice, you seduced me. Or as near as. You came up to me at that party in Marseilles and dropped a killer line on me. What was it? ‘I’m a lot more interesting than anyone you’ll find here. Escape with me.’ You had me on your hook from the beginning.”

The stern expression on Berenice’s face flickered momentarily. “I was only telling you the truth. We were more interesting than those inbred swine.”

“No argument. The point is, you’re not a victim of my irresistible seductive powers and I’m not the love ’em and leave ’em type.”

“Oh? What type are you?”

“Mostly,” he said, “I’m alone.”

Berenice came and sat down on the bed. The action caused her shirt to flap open, revealing a perfect breast. The nipple was as dark as her scar and fully erect. Caused by anger, he knew, but that was a form of passion, too. He busied himself with folding his shirts so that he did not stare at her.

“How long will you be gone?” she asked.

“I — don’t know. A few weeks at least. Maybe longer.”

“What am I supposed to do while you’re gone? Sit here and pine?”

“Cut it out, Berenice,” he said softly. “You define your own life and always have. That’s why they don’t like having you at board meetings. It’s why you picked me out of the crowd at that party. So, skip the guilt trip. You’re playing the wrong card.”

The mockingbird hopped onto the windowsill and regaled them with a schizophrenic diatribe.

“Will you have to use that gun?” she asked.

He picked up the blue silk and rewrapped the pistol.

“You’re not answering me?” she said. “Is it because you don’t want to lie? You’d rather say nothing?”

“What do you want from me?” said Tull. “I told you this is confidential … Can’t we leave it at that?”

“Not if you want to be able to find me when this is over,” said Berenice.

He looked at her.

“That’s what it comes down to, Tull,” she said. “We’re both adults, so if this is the end of what we had, then have enough respect for me to say so.”

“I—”

She stood up and moved in close, pressing her body lightly against his. Tull was infinitely aware of her animal heat, of the familiar curves and planes of her body, of the insistence of nipples hard enough to be felt through the fabric of her shirt and his. She looped her arms around his neck and looked up into his eyes.

“I can bear any truth,” she breathed, “but never lie to me.” She reached for his belt, unbuckled it, popped the top button of his trousers, slid the zipper down.

“I…”

His trousers fell down. Her fingers, clever and cool, slipped inside his boxers, found his hardness, squeezed it, stroked it.

Tull closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. He was breathing as hard as if he’d run up a flight of stairs. So was she, and for a moment they breathed the same breath back and forth.

“Berenice…,” he murmured.

“Please,” she whispered.

And then his lips were on hers. On her lips, on her face, her throat, her breasts.

He reached out and swept the suitcase off the bed and then they crashed together onto the sheets. Their mouths breathed fire, their hands were everywhere. The bird stood on the window sill, silent now, wise enough not to mock this.

An hour later, Berenice lay naked on the tangled sheets, the sweat still drying on her skin. Tull could see her through the open bathroom door, through the gap between the shower curtain and the wall.

When he’d left the bed to go into the bathroom, he’d taken the pistol. It lay on the closed lid of the toilet, wrapped in a towel.

Waiting.

While he and Berenice had made love, his thoughts kept drifting from the beautiful woman under him to the gun.

To its elegant lines. To its potential.

To the way in which it simplified things.

He wished she hadn’t asked him about it.

He wished she hadn’t asked him about where he was going. Or when he was coming back.

As the hot water rinsed away the soap and their commingled oils and the scent of her passion, Erasmus Tull tried to keep her in his thoughts. Only her.

But the gun was there. So close.

It never asked anything of him.

It never complicated things for him.

He closed his eyes and leaned into the spray.

And wondered what to do.

What was the right thing to do?

What was the human thing to do?

The shower pounded on his back, his head. The questions pounded inside his mind.

He ached for Berenice. To be with her. To be normal with her. To be able to be normal.

He ached for the gun and its simplicity.

In the past, when he was torn like he was now, the gun always won.

It always won.

Always.

Chapter Twenty-five

Mr. Bones left Howard with the staff doctor and went into his office to take a call. He listened to a very trusted and capable operative tell him very bad news.

Per his e-mail of earlier that morning, a team was sent to pick up Captain Joe Ledger of the DMS. They were supposed to hold him for a length of time, then release him. During the detention, agents were to collect his fingerprints for use in building an evidentiary case that Ledger was involved — or perhaps directing — the cyber-attacks. They would also drug him with one of the many compounds useful for eliciting a cooperative mental state. In such a state a subject could be asked to sign his name to any kind of document, or make simple calls, record messages, and even stand for photos. The memories and personality tics would still be in play, but the conscious control would be detached from the events. It was a lovely thing to see; something the Russians had developed a bit too late for it to be of value in the closing days of the Cold War.

The whole process would have taken Ledger out of play for an entire day, and additional drugs like some of the modern benzodiazepine variations would do that. The newest generation of midazolam was always fun for these sorts of things. Then Ledger would be returned to his car with a mild sedative, where he would have awakened to a world that had suddenly decided that he was a very bad man.

It was a simple operation. Ledger would never have been able to adequately explain his brief absence and the evidence would be ironclad. Mr. Bones had ordered variations on this at least a dozen times, never with a hitch.

Except that today there was a definite hitch. Captain Ledger had brutally beaten all four men sent to handle the pickup. Suddenly a very minor detail in a day that had much more important concerns was now a major issue.

“That is very disappointing,” said Mr. Bones.

The caller was silent. Mr. Bones let him sweat for a while.

“I will have it cleaned up, sir,” said the caller.

“Well that would be nice,” said Mr. Bones icily and disconnected.

The good news was that Erasmus Tull was on his way to Maryland. Tull would never have fumbled so easy a play as this. In Mr. Bones’s knowledge, Erasmus Tull had never fumbled anything. The worst that could be said of him was that once or twice he retreated from overwhelming odds, but that was simply good sense.

Mr. Bones activated Ghost Box and began reading updates and reports.

The air show was still on schedule. The prototype of Specter 101 had been safely delivered to VanMeer Castle, and the grandstands were already erected. Not that it really mattered, he mused. He really didn’t care about the plane, nor did Howard, who privately referred to it as the “flying red herring.” But for now, for today, all appearances must be maintained — and that was even more important if the thing in D.C. caused the air show to be postponed.

Christ, that really would give Howard another heart attack. It was a mercy that the minicrisis brought on by the news from Washington was only a “concern” rather than an “event.”

Mr. Bones clicked on to the next item.

The tech teams had managed to launch several flocks of the new pigeon-size surveillance drones. How lovely. Ten flocks in Baltimore, ten in Brooklyn, and five each in nine other locations. The drones were one of Bones’s own toys. Darling little machines. When Howard discovered him, Mr. Bones was the senior designer at AeroVironment, a nano aerial vehicles shop funded by DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. He’d been building unmanned aerial vehicles that looked like birds. The one that sold the project to the DoD was the hummingbird, which was beautifully painted and could flit and fly just like a bird — unless the observer was an expert on hummingbirds. The pigeon drones were more durable and their larger bodies allowed for the inclusion of technical packages for secondary objectives.

It amused Mr. Bones to imagine those flights of pigeons winging their way toward the Warehouse in Baltimore, the Hangar in Brooklyn, and the nine DMS field offices.

Another check mark on his to-do list.

Nice.

He scrolled through more items. More reports of UFOs. He dismissed any sightings in Washington State, Pennsylvania, Utah, Nevada, New Jersey, and New Mexico because the rubes were seeing experimental craft of one kind or another. With the air show pending, everybody in the industry was out test-flying their latest machines. That was fine. The reports from Upstate New York, Rhode Island, Iowa, Wyoming, and Central California were not as easy to dismiss. Frowning, Mr. Bones coded that for investigation and forwarded it to the field team supervisor with a request for twice-daily updates.

The minutes ticked by as he waited to hear from the doctor.

His phone rang and he saw the code word “Aqualung.”

Erasmus Tull. Odd to get a callback so soon after initiating an assignment. It was too soon for Tull to even be at the airport yet. He picked up the phone, engaged the scrambler, and said, “Yes?”

“I need a cleanup.”

“Already?”

Tull did not reply.

“Where?” asked Mr. Bones.

“The bungalow at Little Torch.”

Mr. Bones took a moment to put that together. Tull was down there with the daughter of Matthijs de Vries, CEO of Donderbus Elektronica.

“Oh, dear,” said Mr. Bones. “Has there been an accident?”

Tull said nothing.

The line went dead.

Chapter Twenty-six

I rolled past security at the Warehouse, parked badly, killed the engine and hurried over to where the squat and muscular Sergeant Gus Dietrich — Mr. Church’s personal aide and private bulldog — was waiting for me. Ghost was right at my heels.

Dietrich said, “You look like shit, Joe. Can’t hold your booze like you used to? Too many Jell-O shots out of the navel of that Italian broad you brought to the party?”

“Fuck you,” I said.

“There’s that,” he agreed.

I told him about the attack on the street.

“Well damn, son,” he said. “You okay?”

“A bit rattled, highly suspicious, and mightily pissed off.”

“Are you sure these clowns were feds?”

“I’m not sure of any-damn-thing, Gus. All I can tell you is that they weren’t friends.” I handed him four ID cases. “I doubt they’re legit, but let me know if we get anything.”

“Sure.”

“Oh, and there’s this.” I dug the small piece of metal out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Took this off the lead agent. No idea what it is.”

Gus weighed it in his palm. “Don’t weigh nothing. And it’s warm. Could be a tracker or something. I’ll run some scans. But that can wait. Better haul ass — the big man’s waiting for you.”

We piled into a golf cart. Ghost tried for shotgun but I banished him to the back. Gus got behind the wheel and we whizzed off down the halls.

“I took the liberty of calling in your whole staff, Joe,” Gus said. “Top Sims is already here, and he’s got everything in hand.”

Top was my number two. He was the smartest, toughest, and most organized noncom I’ve ever met — and that made him smarter, tougher, and more organized than just about any officer I’d ever heard of. Like Gus, Top was proof that nothing of any historical military importance has ever happened without the presence of good sergeants.

“Something came in right before you got here,” Gus said. “A video file sent by an anonymous source. Wait till you see this, Joe, it’ll blow your socks off.”

“What’s on it?”

He shook his head. “You better see for yourself.”

The Warehouse is the third largest DMS field office. The biggest was the Hangar in Brooklyn and a small step down from that was Department Zero in L.A. The Warehouse was the office whose active range covered D.C., and it was all mine. I ran four field teams out of it — Alpha, Echo, Dogpack, and Spartan — and, including technical, maintenance, and general support, I had a total staff of about two hundred. Right now the whole building was at high alert and there was nobody loitering in the halls, no one anywhere except where they should be.

Gus dropped me outside my office. Church was already there, seated behind my desk with his laptop open. Church glanced at me and Ghost but didn’t say a word. Didn’t ask if we were okay. Didn’t even offer to let me have my own chair. Apparently he forgot to bring his compassion to work today. Again.

Instead, he spun his laptop around and showed me an image. It was the president.

“This came in seven minutes ago,” he said.

“They found him?”

“No,” he said. “Watch.”

He reached out to press a button. The static image of the president resolved into a video. The president sat in a straight-backed chair. He was not visibly restrained, but he sat unnaturally stiff and straight. His skin looked bad, blotchy, as if his blood pressure was firing on the wrong cylinders, and there was a weird glazed look in his eyes.

He spoke in a monotone, without inflection or pause. A tumble of words that had no life at all in them. It reminded me of the computer voice used by Stephen Hawking.

“Rector,” he said, “I need you to do something. I need you to find the Majestic Black Book. You need to find the Majestic Black Book. You must find the Majestic Black Book.”

Then the image abruptly changed. Instead of the president’s face, the screen was filled with an image of an island somewhere in the middle of a blue ocean. There was a line of rocky ridges from some ancient volcano.

The president was back. “You need to find the Majestic Black Book.”

Another image shift, this time showing a satellite image of the whole volcano. It was situated just off-center on an island. The island was small, the volcano was big. The image shifted again to show the same island from a much higher altitude, and that allowed us to see other landmasses.

“Where—?”

Before I could ask a question the image changed once more. Instead of static images, this was a series of video clips. First there was the storm surge as Hurricane Katrina smashed its way through the levees. Then a smash cut to the president repeating: “You need to find the Majestic Black Book.” Then another cut to the tsunami that pounded Thailand the day after Christmas in 2004. Back to the president, same message. Then multiple images of a wall of ocean water sweeping across the coast of Japan. Back to the president. And then something even weirder — something scarier. The waters of the Atlantic rose up and slammed into the coastline of New York, sweeping over the Statue of Liberty, striking the docks, sending deadly waves through the streets, sweeping away cars and buses and all the people. The video clip ended and the satellite image of the volcano was back. That held for ten seconds and then we saw the president again.

“You need to find the Majestic Black Book,” he said. “You don’t have much time.”

The screen dissolved into snow.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Mark Eppenfeld looked up as his secretary entered the room. Eppenfeld’s desk was covered with books and papers on constitutional law and the process of succession in times of national crisis. Although it was right and proper for Vice President William Collins to immediately step up so that there was no gap in the administration of the country, Eppenfeld was making notes on topics he knew would come up in the endless press conferences that would commence as soon as this story was released.

“What is it, Marie?” he asked.

“Sir … I have a Mr. Alden Funke on the phone. He’s with the IRS office that liaises with Homeland. He said that he has a matter of great importance to discuss and his immediate superior is out of the country at the financial summit in Stockholm.”

“Tell him to make an appointment, Marie,” Eppenfeld said irritably. “I’m a little busy right now.”

“Sir, he says that this involves that man, Mr. Church at the DMS.”

Eppenfeld gave her a bleak stare, then nodded. “I’ll take it.”

He punched the blinking light on his phone. “What can I do for you, Mr. Frank?”

“Funke, sir. Alden Funke. I–I’m so sorry to interrupt you,” stammered the caller in a thin, nervous voice, “however, I have some information that I believe is of grave national importance and—”

“So I understand. What is that information, Mr. Funke?”

“Well, sir, we were asked to review the financial records of employees of the Department of Military Sciences…”

“Asked by whom?”

“Um, the request came from the office of the vice president.”

“When?”

“Several days ago, sir.”

Eppenfeld leaned back in his chair and began chewing on the eraser of his retractable pencil. “Go on.”

“I believe we have found something. A rather large something, to be quite frank, in the personal banking records for Captain Joseph Edwin Ledger.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

I looked at Church. “What the hell was that?”

“What does it look like?” he asked.

“If this was any other day … I’d say it was a joke.”

“I seriously doubt we are being punked,” he said. Church was a big man in his sixties who looked like someone who had spent his life doing the kind of stuff I do now. Age didn’t have its claws in him yet, and he still looked like he could give anyone in the DMS a serious run for his money. Myself included. Dark hair shot with gray, a blocky build, and calculating eyes behind tinted glasses.

Right now, though, he looked more stressed than I’d ever seen him. A stranger couldn’t tell — to anyone else Church looked like a man in complete control of every aspect of his life — but I could see the cracks at the edges of his calm.

“Who sent it to us?”

“Unknown. I’ve tried to backtrack it but MindReader keeps coming up with an error message.”

“I thought MindReader could track any e-mail or Web site.”

“So did I.”

That hung in the air for a moment, weird and ugly.

“That footage of the wave hitting New York,” I said. “That’s from a movie. I recognize it but I can’t grab the name.”

“I thought so, too. A film about the end of the world. Bug will know. I sent this to him, so we can expect his call any minute.”

Bug was the DMS computer supergeek who was also a pop culture nerd of legendary status.

“Who else has seen this?” I asked.

“I forwarded it to Aunt Sallie at the Hangar, of course, and to Linden Brierly. Otherwise, no one.”

He sent the video from his laptop to the big HD screen on the wall and we watched it a couple of times. It didn’t make any more sense the third time than it did the first time. It was equally freaky and equally frightening.

“The name the president used. Rector? That’s you, right?”

Church nodded. He had a lot of names and as far as I’ve been able to determine, none of them are his real name. Most folks in government circles refer to him as “Deacon.” I often wondered if his own daughter, Circe, knew her father’s real name. I doubted it.

“It’s a name I haven’t used in a while,” he said. “The president knows it from a matter that predates his presidency and may have chosen to use it as a code. However, if I am supposed to infer a specific meaning from it, then so far I am drawing a blank.”

“You’re going to have to show this to Bill Collins, you know.”

Church nodded. “That’s something Linden Brierly will have to manage. I am officially barred from this case.”

“Barred? Why?”

“The acting president has some doubts about my loyalty.”

“Shame I’m not drinking coffee,” I said. “This is a classic moment for a spit-take.”

He almost smiled. “Apparently President Collins variously believes me to be the villain who has been using MindReader to launch the cyber-attacks or a fool who has mismanaged access to MindReader.”

“Remind me again — I know assassination is against the law, but is there a rule against slapping some stupid off of an idiot playacting at president?”

“He is a difficult man to admire,” conceded Church.

I stared at the screen. “What’s this book the actual president kept mentioning?”

“The Majestic Black Book,” Church said, putting the full name out there.

“Which tells me nothing. What is it? What’s in it? Who wrote it? And why would you capture the president of the United frigging States to get a copy? I’m guessing it’s not available on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.”

You can’t read Church’s eyes. He wears tinted lenses for that very purpose. It’s impossible to guess what he’s thinking or where his thoughts are wandering. While he considered my question he used the tip of his index finger to trace a slow circle on the desktop.

“Until now I believed that it was an urban myth,” he said slowly. “One of those elaborate conspiracy theories that have grown up around secret governments.”

“Ah, secret governments,” I said glumly. “I never get enough of secret governments.”

“They do exist, Captain,” said Church. “Any government as large as ours is compartmentalized. Divisions, departments, and groups splinter off, sometimes because they’ve been authorized to go deep and remain off the bureaucratic grid and sometimes to pursue other less official agendas. Congress knows about some of these and provides a degree of oversight, even if buried under layers of secrecy. Others manage to function within our government but without oversight. A case can be made that America would never have become a country had not a secret society of Freemasons taken charge.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve read Dan Brown.”

Church didn’t smile. “Some of these groups believe — or claim to believe — that they are acting in the best interests of the nation. A case can be built to substantiate some of those claims, just as a case can be built that such manipulation generally has a profit-based agenda attached at some level.”

“And this Black Book? How does this tie into that?”

“To be determined. What little I know of the Black Book comes secondhand from a more knowledgeable source.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You have a friend in the conspiracy theory industry?”

“Actually, I have several,” he said, reaching for his cell phone again. This time, however, he surprised me. The image on the HD screen changed and suddenly there was Bug.

“Dudes!” he said brightly. “The Majestic Black Book? Are you freaking kidding me here? How cool is my job?”

His name was Jerome Taylor, but everyone called him “Bug.” Even his mother. He’s the only person, aside from Church, who has total access to the MindReader computer system. Bug was a former child-star computer genius who hacked his way into Homeland because he thought it would make a good senior project if he found Bin Laden. He’d been arrested and then Church hijacked him for the DMS. Even though Bug’s early attempt at taking down the head of Al-Qaeda hadn’t worked, years later when he had the full resources of MindReader at his disposal, he was largely responsible for putting Uncle Osama in the crosshairs of the heroes on SEAL Team Six. Bug currently ran the MindReader center at the Hangar in Brooklyn. The high-def screen made it look like he was right there in my office.

“Glad you’re amused,” said Church. “However, we do have a national crisis on our hands.”

“Yeah, I know. The president, end of the world. Sucks. But … the Black Book? So cool.” He beamed at us like it was Christmas morning. “Tell me we’re really going after it.”

“First things first,” said Church. “Give me your assessment of the video.”

Bug gave a dismissive shrug. “Meh. It’s poor-quality alarmist trash. Crap like that wouldn’t even get much play on YouTube.”

“Pretend it’s real,” I said.

“Oh, I have no doubt it’s real,” Bug amended, “it’s just that terrorists always make crappy videos. Kind of disappointing because anyone can buy the right software and do a decent job. It speaks to standards and—”

“Bug,” said Church very quietly.

Bug blinked in a very buglike way. A cartoon bug. “Um … right. Sorry.”

“The disaster clips?” I asked. “Are they—?”

“Most of them are real, sure. News footage. I can locate the sources, that won’t be a problem. I’m doing a search now to find the island with the volcano. Oh, and that last clip they showed was from the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Made by the same guys who did Independence Day and 2012. They got this thing about destroying landmarks.”

“Do any of those movies deal with the Majestic Black Book?” asked Church.

“Nah.” Bug screwed up his face as he thought about it. “Actually … I don’t think I’ve ever heard of the book mentioned in a movie. Well, not in a theatrical movie. Not in fiction. You see it all the time in documentaries and on TV, though. Lot of nonfic books about it.”

“Get me a list of those books and documentaries,” said Church. “And the names of any experts associated with the Black Book.”

“That’s easy,” snorted Bug. “But why not go straight to the source?”

“Source?” Church and I asked at the same time.

“Sure. Junie Flynn.”

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“She’s the one who first broke the story about the existence of the Black Book,” said Bug. “She’s on all those documentaries.”

Bug tapped keys and suddenly his image shifted so that he shared a split screen with a photo of a beautiful woman who looked like a 1960s flower child. Masses of long, wavy blond hair, sky-blue eyes, a smile so wholesome it could cure cancer, and a splash of sun freckles across her nose. The photo had been taken against a field of daisies, daffodils, and sunflowers.

“Wow,” I said.

“I know,” said Bug with enthusiasm. “She’s hot, right? She’s also one of the top experts on conspiracy theories — I mean she’s up there with George Noory and Bill Birnes and guys like that. Written like twenty books and she’s been on Nat Geo, the History Channel, Discovery, and all the others. Junie tracks all of the conspiracies. Her Web site has this great searchable database and there’s tons of stuff about the Majestic Black Book. I’m telling you, man, she’s like a hot version of Yoda.”

“Then we need to talk to her,” I said. “How fast can you get me her contact info?”

“Pretty fast, Joe, she’s right here in Maryland. She lives in that old lighthouse in Elk Neck State Park.”

“Turkey Point Lighthouse? Right at the head of the Chesapeake Bay?”

“That’s the one.”

“I thought the lighthouse was decommissioned,” I said. “They turned it into a light station.”

“No, they put it back into operation a year ago and she’s the official keeper.”

Church turned to me. “You can find this lighthouse easily?”

“You kidding?” I asked. “I know every inch of that place. I camped at Elk Neck with my family all my life. I took my nephew there half a dozen times.”

“Good,” he said. “Take a helo and go out there. If you think she’s a viable information source — and if she’s cooperative — then we’ll set up a coded video conference call with her, Bug, Dr. Hu, and Dr. Sanchez. If she stonewalls you, arrest her and bring her back here.”

“‘Arrest her’?” I asked, smiling.

“Feel free to use charm if that will work better, Captain. Whatever gets the job done. If this threat is real then we need to get ahead of it and we don’t know what our timetable is.”

Before I could even reply Church called Gus to prep my Black Hawk.

“Whoa, hold on,” I said. “Before I go gallivanting off I’d like a few answers. I mean, what the hell is this book? What’s the connection to all of those natural disasters? And why would someone go to such insane lengths as to capture the president of the United States in order to get it?”

“Are you serious?” Bug asked, appalled at my apparent stupidity. “There are people making billions off that book.”

“According to rumor and speculation,” murmured Church.

“Who’s making that kind of money?” I asked. “And how?”

“Probably half the big shots with defense contracts,” Bug said. “Anyone working on advanced stealth technology, space-based phasers, military space fleets, hypersonic technology vehicles, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, cloaking devices, antigravity drives—”

“C’mon, Bug, we can’t do most of that stuff yet.”

“You don’t know that, Joe,” said Bug. “We’re researching all of it. And, hey, that nifty microwave pulse pistol you brought in the other day? That’s the sort of thing people like this would build.”

“Wouldn’t most of that fall under DARPA’s umbrella?” I asked.

DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — is a big group within the Department of Defense. They’re the geeks responsible for a lot of major scientific breakthroughs from the Internet to combat exoskeletons.

“DARPA works with independent contractors, too,” said Bug. “GE, Shelton Aeronautics, and like that. DARPA doesn’t do all of its own research in-house, and it sure as heck doesn’t do its own manufacturing. It only has a three-billion-dollar budget. And, there’s a lot of extremely weird and highly profitable stuff being done in the private sector based on ideas either borrowed from DARPA or gotten from some other source — like the Black Book. And I’ll bet that’s where DARPA got most of its stuff, too. It’s all there in the book, man, that’s the bible for weird tech.”

“You’re talking like I should know what that book is and I don’t, Bug. What the fuck is it?”

Bug took a breath. “Okay, Cliffs Notes version. On September 24, 1947, President Harry Truman convened a special group of scientists, military leaders, and government officials — a dozen of them — for the express purpose of studying wreckage recovered from a crash site in New Mexico. This group was called ‘Majestic Twelve,’ or MJ-12. However, according to Junie Flynn, MJ-12 was only the front for an even more secret group, a deeper level of shadow government called ‘Majestic Three,’ M3. A trio of people who had been given control of an enormous black budget to study the wreckage in case there was anything of military value. Bear in mind, these were the early days of the Cold War. The international arms race was already spinning out of control. Junie says that the members of M3 created a book that was a catalog of all parts recovered from the crash. The only complete catalog, they say, with exact specifications, which makes it particularly valuable.”

“Whoa, slow down — what crash site in New Mexico? Are we talking Russian spy planes or—”

“Joe,” said Bug, amazed, “haven’t you been listening? This is the Majestic Project. The Black Book is a complete catalog of all the parts salvaged from the UFO that crashed in Roswell.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

They looked like giant insects the way they swarmed out of the stairwells at both ends of the hall. Twelve men in black BDUs with Kevlar body and limb pads, helmet-cams, and full SWAT kit. The whole unit was split into four-man teams, with two men armed with MP5s, a point man carrying a ballistic shield and a Glock.40, and one team leader with a Remington 870 pump shotgun. Despite the speed of their approach they made almost no sound as they converged on the door to apartment. There were more men in the fire towers and in the lobby and out on the street. Two FBI helicopters were in the air.

The raid was being conducted entirely without assistance from local police. The suspect had ties to the police department as well as city government. His brother was a detective, and his father was the mayor.

The point man for the raid was Special Agent Sullivan, a twenty-year veteran with the FBI who had spent the last ten with Hostage Rescue. He was a tough, humorless man, very good at his job and totally unsympathetic to anyone who came into his operational crosshairs. When such a target was a crooked cop and suspected terrorist — well, Sullivan didn’t figure he’d lose a lot of sleep if the bad guy was home and kicked up a fuss.

The teams clustered around the doorway, close but well back from any angle where a round fired from inside could hit them. The walls were brick but the apartment doors were only wood.

A burly agent hustled up with a breeching tool — a heavy weight with a blunt end and sturdy handles. He positioned himself in front of the lock and looked to Sullivan, who finger-counted down from three.

On zero the big man swung the weight and the wood around the lock turned to pickup sticks.

“Go — go — GO!” bellowed Sullivan and the men in the black body armor poured through the door into Joe Ledger’s apartment.

Chapter Thirty

I turned to Church, expecting to see him shaking his head in denial. Or smiling. Or telling Bug to stop shoveling the bullshit.

Instead he stood there, silent, the muscles at the corners of his jaw flexing.

After a long moment I said, “Oh, come on!”

“We need to remain open to any possibility,” said Church.

Bug said, “Junie Flynn says that M3 keeps adding to the Black Book. Stuff from other crashes.”

“Other crashes?” I demanded.

“Sure. There are UFOs all over the place. It’s in the news, Joe, and lately there have been a ton of new sightings in the Southwest, all over Mexico, in Canada, Russia, Europe. UFO sightings are way up.”

“Sightings or crashes?”

“Well, okay, sightings are up, but there have been bunch of crashes since the forties. The Black Book has data on all of them, and some stuff stolen from other governments, too. We’re not the only ones doing this, but we’re ahead of the pack because Roswell was the first crash in the modern era, and the first one where they were able to recover anything of value. The Black Book has specifications, schematics, analyses of materials, metallurgic reports, weights and measures. Everything. Like I said, the Majestic Black Book is the bible, Joe, the holy grail for reverse-engineering technology from alien spacecraft.”

“No way,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe this book is packed with technological secrets but they’re going to be from pretty ordinary sources. This is weird enough now without bringing aliens into it.”

“Hey, man,” complained Bug, his face flushing, “I wasn’t the one who brought up the Black Book. The president himself just asked us to find it.”

“He didn’t say anything about little green men.”

“It’s implied, Joe, it’s implied.”

“Can we take a moment here,” I said, “maybe take a breath, return to the real world? We’re talking UFOs. We’re involved in a conversation in which UFOs are an actual thing. I know we deal with some very weird shit here in the old D of MS, but do you really think we should waste our time running down a lead like this? You want me to drop everything and go talk to a conspiracy theory nut who lives in a lighthouse?”

“Tell me, Captain,” he said quietly, “what other lead were you planning to follow?”

I opened my mouth to fire back a crushing reply, but there were no words on my tongue. Ghost gave a low, significant whuff.

To Bug, I said, “How many copies of the Black Book are there? Maybe we should send teams to every possible location and—”

But Bug was already shaking his head. “There’s only one copy. The copy. It’s supposed to be kept in this incredible safe with all sorts of booby traps and stuff.”

“Uh-huh,” I murmured skeptically. “And are there trolls and dragons guarding it?”

“I’m just repeating what Junie said. She also says that the Majestic charter does not allow the book to be photographed or copied in any way, and for anyone to see it the book has to be checked out by one of the three governors of M3.”

A knock on the door saved me from saying something that would probably have hurt Bug’s feelings. Gus Dietrich poked his head in. “Got some news about those four guys you tussled with, Joe.”

“What kind of news?” I asked.

“Bad, very bad, and strange,” he said, stepping into the room. “First the bad news — those names are bogus. Stephen Albert, Benjamin Carr, John Woods Duke, and Mark Bucci are names of dead American composers.”

“Somebody has an interesting sense of humor,” mused Church.

“Ha-fucking-ha,” I groused. “What else?”

“That’s the very bad news. They were taken to the ER at Harbor Hospital. At least that was the plan. A pair of ambulances showed up, EMTs loaded them, and they took off with a patrol car leading the way. The ambulances made a sudden left and by the time the cruiser saw them turning and circled the block to find them, the two ambulances were gone. Cops tried to radio the EMTs and got nothing. Helicopter flyovers failed to locate the vehicles. Police are searching for them, but there are a million warehouses, multicar residential garages, and boathouses in that section of town.”

Bug looked at me from the big screen on the wall. “I can put somebody on that. Lot of ambulance services have GPS units, so we can probably track them. The ambulance company might also have a remote vehicle disabling system. Lot of them do because of all those warnings from Homeland about how easy it would be to use a vehicle like that as a car bomb.”

“Gus,” I said, “send everything you have to Bug and keep me posted.”

He nodded and headed for the door.

“Wait,” I said, “what’s the ‘strange’ news?”

He turned with an enigmatic smile. “Oh yeah … that little metal doodad you found? I had the geek squad look it over. Get this … they can’t identify the material. They’re not even sure it is metal. But it might take a while for them to figure out what it is.”

“Why?” asked Church.

“Because X-rays won’t penetrate it and when they tried to run it through the MRI there was some kind of system failure. The geeks are trying to reboot the medical computers now.”

“What happened?” I asked. “Did that metal thing cause the crash?”

“That’s what they’re trying to figure out now.”

Church pursed his lips for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, Gus, keep us posted.”

But Gus lingered for one moment more. “Oh, and Joe — your bird’s smoking on the roof. You want Echo Team on deck?”

“No, this is just a pickup. We don’t want to scare our expert more than we have to. Flight crew only. I’d rather have Top meet with the cop who lost the ambulances. Tell him to spread the team out and help with a search of the harbor area. I want those vehicles found.”

“You got it.” He left, closing the door firmly behind him.

To Church I said, “We need to add more numbers to today’s weird-o-meter, ’cause that just pushed it past ‘ten.’ I got a bad vibe from those four jokers from the jump.”

His answer was a stern grunt.

“Is that connected to the president’s abduction?” asked Bug. “I mean, I’m with you on not liking the coincidence, Joe, but I really don’t see how those two fit.”

“Neither do I, Bug. All I have to go on here is gut, and my gut is telling me that there has to be a connection. Has to be.”

“Then we need to find it,” said Church. “I’ve called Dr. Sanchez and he’s on his way in. I believe he has some interest in this field and—”

I was surprised. “He does?”

“Sure,” said Bug, “he and I talk about it a lot.”

“You do?”

“I’ve participated in some of those discussions,” said Church. “It’s by no means an uncommon topic around here.”

“It isn’t? Where the hell was I when all this was going on?”

Bug shrugged. “Out shooting things, probably.”

When I looked at Church, he spread his hands. “You would probably be surprised at how the support staff manage their time while the field teams are going to or coming from the field.”

I grunted.

“My point,” said Church, “is that Dr. Sanchez will want to help and right now information gathering is going to be a primary concern. Knowing that the Black Book is our focus helps us make some decisions about which other elements of this may be related. I’ll draw up a list of useful contacts for him to call.”

“Okay, but if we get our hands on the Black Book — then what? How do we let the kidnappers know?”

“Presumably they will contact us. I don’t want to be caught empty-handed when they reach out.”

“No shit. Then I guess I’ll go and see if Junie Flynn will help us.”

I could think of twenty reasons why this was a bad idea and a waste of time.

But I was already out the door.

Four minutes later Ghost and I were in a big UH-60 Black Hawk, lifting off from the roof of the Warehouse. The DMS birds were as black as their names except for thin red lines around the doors and along the tail. The muscular General Electric engines raised the six tons of mass into the morning air and the pilot turned the nose toward the northeast. Elk Neck State Park was sixty miles away. In scant minutes we were screaming through the air at two hundred miles an hour, racing as if the tick of each fragile second was one digit less on some bomb that we couldn’t see.

The president was missing. Taken from the White House in a scenario we all agreed was impossible. Actually impossible.

A mysterious video from a source even MindReader couldn’t trace threatened terrible destruction if we didn’t obtain a copy of a book that, fifteen minutes ago, even Mr. Church believed was a myth. A book I’d never heard of. A book that, had I first heard about it on one of those cable science shows, I would have dismissed with a laugh and channel-surfed over to an old Baywatch rerun.

A book that was supposed to hold secrets.

UFOs.

I mean … seriously? UFOs? Did I have to start believing in them now?

Or was this one of those things — like the Seven Kings — where it was misinformation layered over disinformation layered over insane conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo? The Kings had wanted us to believe that a goddess was punishing human iniquity by sending new versions of the old Egyptian Ten Plagues. When all the smoke cleared, that was just another bunch of terrorists playing on human fear and paranoia in order to make a buck.

Was that what we had here? Were we catching the outside edge of another massive con game?

I actually hoped so. The alternative was …

I looked at Ghost, who was crouched down on the helo’s deck. He felt me watching him and stared up at me with big, brown, bottomless eyes.

“This is nuts,” I said.

Ghost gave me another whuff, and left it entirely up to me how to interpret it.

Chapter Thirty-one

Erasmus Tull preferred to fly his own jet. It eliminated the need for any other staff besides his longtime partner, Aldo Castelletti. Much easier for keeping secrets.

The Mustang soared over the blue Atlantic, heading toward a private airstrip in Maryland, the engine muted to a soft growl by the cabin soundproofing. Tull glanced at Aldo, who was poring over a report on his iPad.

“Jeee-zuss, Tully,” swore Aldo. “Did you read this shit?”

“I read it.”

“Did you see that video Mr. Bones hijacked from the DMS?”

“Sure.”

“Think that’s really the president?”

“Yes.”

“Christ on the cross, man.”

Tull cut him a look. “What do you think?”

“What do I think? I think this is fucked up, man. Half of me wants to think this is a big steaming load of horse shit. The other half of me wants to run and hide. The main thing is that this doesn’t make any sense.” Aldo had heavy features, a thick mustache, a large crooked nose, and Tull thought that he looked like every Italian pizza shop owner he’d ever seen on a TV commercial. The coarse features and drooping eyelids were a terrific natural disguise that hid a keen and calculating mind. Unlike Tull and a few of the other top operators among the Closers, Aldo was not part of the family. He had a real mother and father. He had been born in a hospital, had sucked milk from a breast, had gone to preschool and all of that. Tull envied him.

Sometimes Tull got Aldo on a talking jag, just ruminating about growing up in Little Italy, being part of a huge family. About being real. When Tull was talking to people — like Berenice — he sometimes borrowed those memories. They were full of rich detail. Those kinds of stories put people at ease. They never looked at you as if you weren’t like everyone else. That always felt better.

“Which part doesn’t make sense?” asked Tull.

“The part about abducting the fucking president,” said Aldo. “I mean, who in their right mind would abduct the president of the United States? Granted, that shows some heroic clanking steel balls — but what’s the point? It’s too much. It’s like showing off, you know? Does it make any sense to you?”

Tull shrugged.

Aldo waited for more. “That’s it? I ask you a serious question and you give me a shrug?”

“What’s there to say?”

“For fuck’s sake, Tully, we’re flying right into the middle of this thing and you don’t know what to say?”

“No, I don’t. We don’t have any solid intel on the abduction, so our role is a wetwork. Take out a few players, turn it over to the cleaners, and walk away. What is there to say, Aldo?”

“That’s a piss-poor answer.”

“Yes,” agreed Tull, “it is.”

“They want you to take the Deacon and his band of psychos off the board and you don’t have a comment?”

Tull gave him another shrug. “I made some suggestions to Mr. Bones, so the surveillance is already in place. Pigeon drones, that sort of thing. We have full teams on deck, satellite support, and by the time we have boots on the ground Joe Ledger will be a wanted man and we’ll be the good guys bagging a terrorist. I think they’ve planned this out so well they probably don’t need us.”

“Then why the fuck did you take this gig? Why blow off retirement?”

They flew a lot of miles before Tull answered that question. “You know that I worked for the Deacon for a while.”

“Sure. And then you split, but I never did hear why.”

Tull thought about it, shrugged, and said, “This was before Deacon formed the DMS. He was doing some problem solving within the government, hunting terrorist sleeper cells, that sort of thing. I was topkick for a five-person team. Deacon received intel that a group of Lithuanians were bringing some old Soviet implosion-type devices into the country redesigned as suitcase nukes. Nothing too big, just enough pop to level a couple of city blocks and up the local cancer rate by three or four thousand percent. Stuff that would be used at places like Grand Central Station at rush hour, Madison Square Garden during a concert, or Times Square on New Year’s Eve. It was junk from Kazakhstan, but it was something you wanted to take seriously. Only about halfway through the mission I get word from the Fixer — remember him? He was the acquisitions governor before Mr. Bones came on board.”

“Yeah, sure. He woke up with his throat cut. Chinese got him, I think. Pretty nice guy.”

“That’s the guy. Anyway, the Fixer gets in touch and tells me that the Lithuanians were not bringing in suitcase nukes. What they had were two satchels filled with debris from that old crash at Tunguska in 1908. They’d swiped the stuff from a testing lab in Siberia and were hoping to sell it to some Chinese buyers who were going to meet them up by the Canadian border. Problem was, I had four guys running with me, all of them loyal to Deacon. The kind of guys you couldn’t recruit into the Closers. Real GI Joes.”

“Yeah? So what happened?”

Tull shrugged. “What could I do. If we nabbed the Lithuanians then we’d have to turn the satchels over to Deacon. Imagine what would happen if he got a good look at actual debris. M3 has invested millions just to stay off of his radar. It was why I was planted in his group. But … the clock was ticking. If I had more time maybe I could have finessed a way out and been able to keep my cover inside Deacon’s organization.”

“What happened, man? Don’t leave me hanging.”

“Oh … I killed everyone and took the satchels, what do you think happened?”

Aldo stared at him. “Four of Deacon’s boys and the whole Lithuanian team?”

“There were only three Lithuanians.”

“Jesus, Tully, you are one cold motherfucker.”

Tull shrugged. “You have to do what you have to do.”

They flew in silence for a while. Tull was aware that Aldo occasionally cut sly looks at him.

Without looking at his friend, Tull said, “Y’know … I was retired, Aldo. A couple of hours ago I was in paradise with a beautiful and intelligent woman, with nothing to do but work on my tan, make love, catch fierce little fish, and forget that I ever did this sort of thing.”

“Sounds pretty great, man, but c’mon — you can’t change who you are.”

Tull sighed. “No, I guess not.”

“You going back to her when this is over?”

Tull reached into his shirt pocket and removed a pack of gum, popped two pieces out of the blister pack and chewed them, savoring the sugary sweetness. His eyes roved over the wisps of clouds beyond the windshield.

“I didn’t leave that door open,” he said.

Aldo studied him for a while, lips pursed, his gaze as much inward as directed at Tull.

Without turning, Tull said, “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a monster.”

“I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re thinking that I’m a coldhearted freak.”

“Hey, fuck, man, I’m not going to throw stones. I’m not welcome at church picnics, either.”

Tull cut him a sly look. “Maybe not, but you can go to confession and square it with God. Get a fresh coat of whitewash on your soul.”

Aldo shrugged. “Last time I checked that option was open to everybody. You should try it sometime.”

That made Tull laugh. A dark and bitter laugh.

“What’s so funny?” asked Aldo.

“You can’t whitewash something that doesn’t exist. I got a lot of nifty extras, Aldo, but I’m pretty sure a ‘soul’ was not part of the deal.”

Chapter Thirty-two

My cell rang seconds after the Black Hawk lifted off. I looked at the screen display and debated whether to let the call go to voice mail. Apparently of its own accord, my thumbnail hit the button.

“Joseph?” said a deliciously familiar voice.

DMS helicopters have pressurized cabins to allow for conference-quality silence. Violin’s voice was soft and hearing it filled me with a memory of her that was rich and immediate and intense. Nestled between her thighs, our hungry mouths speaking each other’s names through gasps and cries, the way her skin is always cool even at the height of passion, and how my heat seemed to flow into her and back into me as we soared over the brink.

“I’m sorry I had to leave you like that,” I said.

“Work,” she said, not pitching it as a question. She understood.

“Work,” I agreed.

“Speaking of which,” she said, “I saw a car outside as I was leaving. A black one. Crown Victoria, with federal plates. Friends of yours?” She described the men and gave me the plate number. It wasn’t one of the two cars that had boxed me.

“No idea,” I said, “but there’s a little trouble going on. I’ll call that in to my boss and they’ll send someone out to take a look.”

“Probably nothing, then,” she said.

I heard sounds behind her. People. “Where are you?”

“The airport. I caught a cab after you took off.”

“You’re leaving?”

Violin laughed. “I told you that I had a job.”

A job. A nice little euphemism for what she did for a living. When she went to work, someone died. No one I’d miss. No one the world would miss. Lately her work was focused on men who used to belong to the Red Order. And a few of the highly dangerous and incredibly creepy Red Knights. They kept trying to hide from Violin and her sisters in the group code-named Arklight. They tried, but Arklight is very good and very determined. Also, Mr. Church let them have some limited access to Mind Reader. It made Violin’s job easier.

“When will you be back?” I asked.

She was a long time answering.

“Violin?”

“Let’s not worry about when,” she said. “I’ll call you when I can, okay?”

I said that it was okay because it had to be okay. This was as close to an arrangement as we had. Probably as close to a real relationship as we would ever have. I tried hard to resent it, though. I tried hard not to let it feel like a convenience.

“Stay safe, Violin,” I told her.

“You, too, Joseph.”

She was not the kind of person to ever say I love you.

Maybe I wasn’t, either. Not anymore.

The line went dead.

I sighed. Then I called in the info on the guys outside my apartment. Bug’s assistant, Yoda, took the details and said he’d run it. Oh, and, yeah, Yoda was the kid’s name. His parents were Star Wars freaks and, much as I love a little pop culture craziness now and then, those bozos ought to be horsewhipped. Kid’s sister was Leia.

That done, I sat back against the cushions and stared at the walls on the inside of the helo and on the inside of my brain. Before I could sink too deeply into glum musings, my cell rang again. Rudy. The last time I saw him he was dressed in black socks and boxer shorts, covered in Silly String, and drunker than anyone I have ever even heard of. No, we didn’t trick him into any naughty intrigue with hookers, but we staged a bunch of faked photos to make him think we did. Those photos were on my cell, but I hadn’t yet found the right moment to send them to him.

“It lives!” I said into the phone.

Rudy gave me a deep, protracted groan that was equal parts shame, anguish, physical pain, and moral outrage. “Believe me when I say this, Cowboy, I will find a way to kill you.”

“Hold on, I’m about to faint from sheer terror. No … no, that was just gas.”

His next comment was in Spanish and it insinuated that my ancestors frequently and enthusiastically fornicated with livestock.

“Where are you?” I asked once his tirade wound down.

“On the toilet,” he said grumpily.

“You’re calling me from the toilet?”

“Over the last few hours I’ve become quite found of this toilet. We’ve shared so much. Now I seem to develop separation anxiety of a very unpleasant kind if I get too far away from it.”

I laughed so loud Ghost woke from a doze and barked at me.

“You are not a very nice man,” said Rudy.

“I don’t call people while I’m taking a deuce, Rude.”

He told me where to go and what to do when I got there. For a cultured man, he had a nasty gutter vocabulary.

“Circe home yet?” I asked.

“Not until Wednesday.”

Rudy and Circe shared a very nice place in the Bolton Hill section of Baltimore. Right now, though, Circe was at the end of a book tour for her latest bestseller, Saving Hope: The Seven Kings and the Face of Modern Terrorism. When she’d heard about the bachelor party, Circe extended her trip by a few days. I think she wanted to clearly separate herself from the indefensible antics of men she otherwise respected as professional colleagues. Rightly so. We were very, very bad.

“Wednesday, huh? Well, maybe you’ll be out of the bathroom by then.”

Rudy gave another groan. “Last night was…”

“Fun? A romp with the guys? A last blast for the single man?”

“An inexcusable descent into the worst kind of excess. My liver may never recover.”

“That’s only because you’re getting old. The old Rudy would have matched me Jell-O shot for Jell-O shot.”

“Believe me, this Rudy is very old.” He sighed. “Oh, with everything you inflicted on me, I never got to tell you about what happened when I met Mr. Church yesterday. You may not believe this, Joe, but it was the father-of-the-bride talk.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Sadly, no.”

“What did he say?”

And he told me …

Twenty-four hours ago

“Come in, Dr. Sanchez,” said Mr. Church. “Close the door behind you.”

Rudy Sanchez entered the conference room, closed the door, and looked around. The room was empty except for the two of them. Most of the lights were out except for a single table lamp with a green globe whose glow barely illuminated the cut-glass carafe of water, two elegant glasses, and the plate of cookies. The only other object was Mr. Church’s laptop, and as Rudy sat, Church consulted the screen, tapped a few keys, and closed the computer.

Church poured them each a glass of water and handed one to Rudy.

“I hear that Captain Ledger is throwing you a bachelor party,” said Church without preamble.

“That is my understanding,” said Rudy after only the slightest pause.

Church sipped his water and set his glass aside. Even in this gloom he wore tinted glasses.

There was no sound in the room. No clock ticked on the wall, no faucet dripped, no exterior sounds intruded. Rudy sat and waited.

After almost a full minute, Church selected a vanilla wafer, bit off a piece, munched it quietly, and set the rest of the cookie down atop his closed laptop.

“Doctor,” said Church, “you know that Circe is my only living relative.”

He made it a statement, but Rudy responded, “Yes, of course.”

“You know that I keep the nature of our relationship confidential.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

Then, “There are many people who would give a lot to have a lever they could use against me. If they knew that Circe was my daughter, then they would have that lever.”

“I—” Rudy began, but Church held up a finger. It was a small gesture, the index finger lifted an inch.

“In a different kind of world, Doctor, this would be the point where I, as the father, would have a frank and open discussion with the man who wanted to marry my daughter.”

“I suppose,” agreed Rudy. “Yes.”

“A discussion filled with advice and cautions.”

“Yes.”

Church picked up the cookie, tapped some crumbs off it, and ate it slowly. He had a sip of water. He ate another cookie. He had some more water. Seconds passed with infinite slowness. Then minutes.

Mr. Church ate a third cookie. He did it slowly, taking small bites, chewing thoroughly, washing it down with sips of water. Five minutes passed.

Ten.

In all that time there was no sound in the room except for the faint crunching of the cookies. Rudy did not move. He did not reach for a cookie. He sat and watched Mr. Church, who sat and looked at him. Behind the barrier of tinted lenses, Mr. Church’s eyes were almost invisible and totally unreadable.

After a dozen minutes had burned to cold ashes, Mr. Church stood up.

“I believe we understand each other,” he said.

And quietly walked out of the room.

Leaving Rudy there. Confused, bathed in sweat. More than a little terrified.

“Dios mío,” he breathed.

Now

I couldn’t stop laughing.

“It’s not funny,” insisted Rudy, but he was laughing, too.

Then we both got calls at almost the same time.

“Mr. Church is calling me,” said Rudy. “You don’t suppose he was listening?”

“No, you paranoid freak. Something’s up. He’ll fill you in. But Bug’s calling me. Catch you later, brother.”

Before Rudy disconnected he asked, “Is everything okay, Joe?”

“Is it ever?”

Chapter Thirty-three

“Hey, Tully, we’re getting something,” said Aldo. “An update from Bones. He says that they managed to put a bunch of those pigeon drones on most of the DMS offices. He forwarded this clip from the Warehouse in Baltimore. One of the drones is on the ledge outside of the Deacon’s office window.”

He turned up the volume and replayed a series of audio clips. They were conversations between the Deacon and various individuals. The Ghost Box voice recognition software pinged the other parties as Captain Joe Ledger, Dr. Rudy Sanchez, Secret Service Director Linden Brierly, and computer expert Jerome Taylor. They listened to all the calls.

Most of it was intel they already had, but Aldo replayed one section over again. Jerome Taylor — the geek they called “Bug”—was telling Church and Ledger about a UFO expert living in a lighthouse.

Aldo’s face went pale. He switched the audio files off and turned to Tull. “We are in some deep shit, son.”

Tull grunted. “Why do you say that?”

“Didn’t you listen? Ledger’s going after Junie Flynn.”

“Why is that a problem? She’s a civilian.”

Aldo gaped at him. “Are you serious? She’s way too dangerous to—”

But Tull shook his head. “You’re looking at this the wrong way, Aldo. You always look at these things like piecework. You need to step back and look at all of this as one project, not a bunch of items to be checked off a list. Junie Flynn is dangerous, no doubt, but she’s only as dangerous as M3 wants her to be.”

“Bullshit, Tull. They should have let me clip her when she first started talking about the Black Book.”

“Why?”

“Why? Why? Dude, if it wasn’t for her nobody outside of the Project would ever had even heard about the Black Book, that’s why.”

“And that is exactly why the governors gave a no-touch order.”

“That doesn’t make any kind of sense,” groused Aldo.

“Sure it does, but not from close up. You have to step way back and look at it from a distance. M3 see things from a big-picture perspective.”

Aldo eyed him suspiciously. “How do you know about this stuff? Since when are you that far into this that you know the inside track?”

Tull laughed. “I was born into it.”

That shut Aldo up for a few seconds. Then he said, “So what do we do about this? This Ledger character’s on his way to pick her up.”

“Hey,” said Tull, “we’re quarterbacking this thing, remember? You and me. What do you think we should do?”

Aldo considered. “Big picture?”

“Yes.”

“I’m leaning toward a scorched earth approach, man. I don’t want to engage these cats hand-to-hand. Not that I’m turning into a pussy in my old age, but I’ve read the reports. I don’t need that kind of grief.”

Tull reached over and patted Aldo’s thigh. “You see, now you’re getting the idea. That, my friend, is a big-picture way of handling things.”

“You agree?”

“Absolutely.”

Chapter Thirty-four

Acting president William Collins closed his eyes and smiled as he listened to the detailed information being shared with him by the attorney general. There was an almost orgasmic flush sweeping through his body in hot waves. Each word, each detail, each amount, brought him closer to an actual physical response, he could feel it in his loins.

When Mark Eppenfeld, the attorney general was finished speaking, Collins had to clear his throat and take a sip of water before he trusted his voice to speak.

“And all of this is verified?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” said the AG. “Once I got the tip I had it verified by three separate sources.”

“What are the chances that this is a frame job?” asked Collins. “Could these funds have been placed in Ledger’s account?”

“If the money just appeared there, sir, I would say yes, but I have printouts of Ledger’s banking records going back fourteen months. There is a clear pattern of deposits. As you know deposits of ten thousand dollars or more are reported by banks, so what we’re seeing are multiple deposits in smaller amounts of three to six thousand, but there are a lot of them, and they’re spread out over a number of accounts. Plus there are purchases of IRAs, bonds, and other products that establish that Ledger has been trying to hide some of the money, or keep it off the IRS radar. We got his tax returns for last year and more than ninety percent of this money was never reported. And, sir, that doesn’t even take into account money paid into his brother’s bank account, and the rather large sums that appear to have been sent to numbered accounts. We’re going to have to get subpoenas for that, though the Cayman Island banks will stonewall us.”

“How much, Mark? Give me a ballpark figure.”

Eppenfeld sighed heavily. “It’s bad, Mr. President. Adding in the bank accounts, guesses on the offshore deposits, the certificates, and bonds, we’re talking just shy of four million. But that might be the tip of the iceberg. We have Treasury and FBI at Ledger’s apartment now and they’ve found paper records of cash purchases.”

“What kind of purchases?” asked Collins, feeling that throb deep in his groin.

“Real estate. Five properties, paid for in cash.”

“Jesus. And this is all legit? None of this is planted? I need to know that we’re not being handed a live hand grenade here, Mark.”

“I don’t think so. We’ve run down two of the Realtors so far and they’ve identified Ledger from photos. No … he’s dirty.”

Collins gripped the phone so hard the plastic case creaked. “Why would he be this clumsy about it?”

“He’s not being clumsy,” said the AG. “We didn’t know about this until Funke at the IRS picked out some anomalies in banking records being matched against government employee tax returns. Otherwise, Ledger might have flown under the radar for at least a few more months, and who knows what he would have cooked up by then to hide this. If he was even still in the country. With his knowledge and resources he could go off the radar at the drop of a hat. He still might if we don’t move on him quickly.”

Collins swiveled his chair around to stare out the window. The White House lawn never looked so clean and bright and beautiful before.

“And Deacon?”

“Well,” said Eppenfeld heavily, “that’s a different kettle of fish. By executive order all of his records and personal information are sealed.”

“How do we unseal them?”

The attorney general was slow to answer. “That’s problematic, sir. Mr. Church has a great many friends in Congress and if we push too hard or too fast and it turns out that he is not involved in Ledger’s criminal activities, then we lose those people.”

“You’re afraid of Church?”

“I … respect who and what he is.”

“Who and what he appears to be, you mean.”

“No, sir,” said Eppenfeld. “I respect Mr. Church and even now, with all this about Ledger coming to light, I find it extremely difficult to believe that he is involved in any criminal misconduct.”

That took some of the joy out of the moment. “Ledger is the Deacon’s pet shooter. How can Ledger be crooked and Deacon arrow-straight?”

“I can’t act on supposition, Mr. President. We do not have anything on Deacon. Nothing. And, I believe it is in our best interests to approach him about this as soon as possible.”

“No,” said Collins firmly. “No damn way.”

“May I ask why not, Mr. President?”

“MindReader is why not.”

“Sir?”

“That goddamn computer system is at the root of all this. Ledger is clearly being paid — and paid well — to use MindReader to carry out the cyber-attacks on the defense contractors.”

“I … don’t know that we can draw that conclusion, sir. We know that Ledger has been receiving large sums of undeclared money. We have no evidence as yet about its source or the reasons for which he was paid.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Mark. Why else would Ledger be taking that kind of money?”

There was a pregnant silence and when the attorney general spoke again there was frost in his voice. “With all respect, Mr. President, I—”

“Oh, Christ, Mark, I apologize. Forget I said that. This situation has me on edge.”

“Yes, Mr. President, I understand.” The frost was not totally thawed.

“Can we get a warrant to confiscate MindReader?”

“No, sir. That is the private property of Mr. Church, and as I said—”

“Can we get a warrant for a thorough search of the Warehouse?”

The AG thought about that. “I can issue a warrant for search and seizure of anything in Ledger’s office.”

“What if there is a MindReader unit in his office?”

“Then, yes, we can take that, his laptop, and anything else that is either Ledger’s property or that is included in the inventory of his office.”

“Do it.”

“What about Mr. Church?”

“If he interferes in any way I expect you to arrest him for obstruction of justice. Unlike you, Mark, I don’t believe that the Deacon is lily-white. I think he’s dirty and he runs a dirty shop, and I’m damn well going to see him taken down.”

Chapter Thirty-five

The screen display on the ringing phone said “Jerry Spencer.” Mr. Church punched a button to put the call on speaker.

“Go,” he said.

“I’m at the car stop scene,” said Spencer, the former Washington police detective who now headed the DMS forensics unit. “I went over the two vehicles used to box Joe. They’ve been wiped pretty clean.”

“So we have nothing?”

“Did I say that?” asked Spencer with asperity. He was a gruff and unsociable man most of the time, and this morning was even more irritable for having a hangover. He’d been at Dr. Sanchez’s bachelor party, too. “I said it was wiped pretty clean, but nobody wipes down every single inch.”

Church waited for the details, choosing not to provoke Spencer by prodding him.

“I pulled two prints off the underside of the gas-cap release, flash-scanned them and ran ’em through MindReader. Got an instant hit. Prints belong to a Thomas Erb. Former Marine Force Recon. Did a two-year knock for giving a Taliban drug convoy a free pass. Got out twenty-two months ago and has been working for Blue Diamond Security ever since.”

“Blue Diamond,” mused Church. “Now isn’t that interesting.”

“I matched his prison ID to the phony credentials Joe got and it matches one of the guys.”

“That’s excellent work—”

“I’m not done. You want all of this or should I just go fuck myself?”

“Of course,” said Church carefully, “please share whatever you have.”

“MindReader pulled his tax returns for me, and he draws his paycheck from a local Blue Diamond office here in Baltimore. Payroll for that shop says there are twenty-four active operatives. Bug hacked their database for me and pulled up the IDs of the others. We pinged the others Joe danced with.”

There was a long silence.

Then Spencer said, “You going to say anything or do I just stand here with my dick in my hand.”

“Excellent work, Detective. I’ll roll Echo Team on the Blue Diamond office.”

“Sure, fine, whatever.”

Spencer disconnected the call. Church punched the in-house line for Gus Dietrich.

Interlude Two

The craft was there, right in front of him. Sleek, dark, massive, and absolutely immobile.

Admiral Xiè bent down, his knees creaking under his ponderous weight, as he attempted to peer under the craft.

“So!” he breathed in wonder and delight. There was an unobstructed view all the way to the far side of the bay. The only limit to visibility was a very faint distortion, like a heat shimmer. Otherwise, nothing. No wheels, no support framework, no landing struts. Merely a faintness of disturbed air. Xiè held out a hand to his aide, who helped him up.

To his left, six officers in crisp uniforms stood to attention. Caps perfectly squared, pressed trouser seams as straight as sword blades, eyes staring into the middle distance with equal discipline and affected obliviousness to everything around them. Xiè would expect the same expressions if fire imps appeared or if orangutans appeared out of nowhere and began copulating on the floor. These men were the very cream of the People’s Army. None of them wore a name tag, unit patch, medals, or other identifying insignia except a single number stitched onto the front of their hats and the sleeves of their left arms. They were known only by these numbers. Even Xiè did not know their names offhand. He would have to access classified documents and open sealed files.

And it did not matter. These men were never going to rise further within the People’s Liberation Army Navy than they were now, and they were never going to find comfortable seats in any history books. They had signed away those rights, and all others, in exchange for the honor of being part of this project. And, Xiè mused, for some financial considerations for families they would never again see.

Xiè turned to the six officers and they immediately saluted. He returned their salute and walked over to them with his aides in tow. Even when he tried to make direct eye contact with them, the men stared into nothing.

Very good, he thought. Like machines.

For Xiè, the measure of military discipline was how well an individual or group of soldiers acted like parts in a greater machine. Well oiled, perfectly designed, carefully maintained. To think of these men as men would be to invite empathy and compassion, and that was a short path to weakness and self-doubt. These were parts to be added or replaced as needed. That these particular parts were of the highest standard merely meant that the machine could run at a new level of productivity. And how lovely a thing was that?

After a few long moments of study, Xiè turned to his chief aide. “Now,” he said.

The aide barked a terse order and the six men turned smartly and began trotting in unison along a metal catwalk, heading for the nose of the craft. If “nose” could even apply to so improbable a design. The front of the craft was whichever direction it was pointed. The cockpit, as such, was in the center — six sunken chairs arranged in a ring, facing out toward a larger circle of curved screens that allowed a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree exterior view. Additional screens above and below them combined to create a nearly perfect spherical view, and the cockpit was positioned on gimbals to allow it to turn in any direction. The design philosophy was lovely, elegant, and limited only by the fact that pilots — even top fighter pilots like these six — were never truly adapted to spherical thinking. Ten years in zero-gravity flight simulators, however, had pushed them far out onto the edge. Perhaps the next generation of pilots, the ones raised in a world where this craft was part of everyday reality, would be better suited. That jump in perception and mental processing would come. Everything comes in time.

As the pilots reached the end of the catwalk, a panel slid open on the side of the craft and a short boarding ramp extended. The pilots entered the ship, the plank retracted, and the door slid shut.

Admiral Xiè moved to the handrail and leaned on it, eyes narrowed to study the craft. So much was riding on this. The seven previous craft, though successful in one way or another, had also been spectacular failures. Whole laboratories had been destroyed, there had been test-firing side effects of catastrophic proportion, the loss of valuable staff, and the waste of so much money. After the first debacle in Tangshan, Hebei, back in 1976, the whole project was nearly scrapped. Back then the creation of the Dragon Engine was deemed a fanciful waste of time and resources. Only the scope of the disaster itself was the thing that saved the project from termination. That one prototype engine had exploded, causing the single largest earthquake of the twentieth century.

That was power.

It demonstrated a potential that was unlike anything previously guessed. If it could be harnessed, there would be none of the suicidal clumsiness of nuclear power, none of the slow process to enrich plutonium. No radiation, no contaminated waste to be hidden somewhere. The Dragon Engine, for all of its terrible destructive force, left no chemical or energetic signature behind. This was the true face of clean energy, and it eliminated the threat of mutually assured destruction, leaving in its place only the destruction of the enemies of the People’s Republic.

It meant that for the first time since the dawn of the age of superpowers, a global war could be fought and won, with a guarantee of life on a living planet afterward.

That kind of power could not be ignored, and so the program continued. So did the disasters. The Kunlun earthquake of 2001, Ruichang earthquake of 2005, and the Sichuan quake of 2008. All failures of prototype Dragon Engines.

Of course, the very fact of that kind of power made everyone in Xiè’s division curious to the point of paranoia. How close were the Americans or the Russians or the British? Was the Haiti earthquake of 2010 a natural disaster, or the spectacular failure of someone else’s own prototype engine? One of Xiè’s spies even worked up a credible paper to suggest that the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 was an early attempt to fire an engine. Xiè believed that report. It fit the estimates of where the Americans were at that time. And it explained why their progress had been stalled for so long after that.

His aide stepped forward to be noticed. When Xiè nodded to him, the aide said, “The pilots report that they are ready, Admiral Xiè.”

“Tell them that they may proceed.”

The aide hesitated. “Admiral Xiè, perhaps you would be more comfortable in the telemetry room?”

That room was in a reinforced bunker on the other side of the island. A quick trip by underground air car. Xiè shook his head.

“We will all witness it from here,” he said.

The aide nodded and stepped back. He, too, was trained not to let his emotions show on his face. Xiè was faintly amused.

The craft remained perfectly still. Although there were lights all around it, there was no glow from its metal skin. The entire ship was coated in nonflective polymers. On a dark night, with the running lights off, the ship would be invisible at a hundred yards. Against a night sky, it would vanish entirely except where it passed across the moon or a star cluster. There were plans in research phase now for the new generation of cloaking technology that had been developed by the Americans. Thousands of tiny cameras on the upper surface of a craft fed real-time images to LED panels on the bottom so that a ground observer would see what he expected to see when he looked up at the sky. The American Locust bomber program was being used to test the latest generation of that technology, and Xiè’s team would have those results and all related science within a few weeks.

That was part of a barter whose specifics had taken many years to work out. The American government was not involved, of course. Xiè dealt with Howard Shelton for such matters. That man — that reptile of a person — was sometimes willing to throw scraps to Xiè and thought that his generosity gave him a clear window into the status of the Dragon Engine project. The view Xiè provided, however, was very much a window display. Shelton had no idea what the true status of this project was. Or so Xiè told himself, hoping that his intelligence was accurate.

As Xiè waited, his eyes flicking over the craft, he tried to discern the exact moment when its main drive systems went online. There was supposed to be absolutely no exterior signature. No heat bloom, no shudder as the engine went from its station-keeping mode to full operation. If there was so much as a tremble, Xiè was going to have someone shot.

After three long minutes, Xiè turned around to glare at one of the scientists.

“Am I to stand here all day?”

“Admiral Xiè,” said the scientist, a sweaty little stick-bug of a man, “if you please.”

He gestured to the ship. Xiè sighed heavily and turned around.

To see nothing.

The ship was gone.

That fast, that silently. Gone.

Xiè’s mouth hung open.

When he could speak, when he could command himself enough to form a thought and put it into words, he stammered, “W — where is it?”

The scientist indicated a large status board mounted high on the wall to the left of the bay. Everyone turned toward it. It showed a satellite image of the Shanghai area, with Chongming at the top and the midstream islands, Changxing Island and Hengsha Island, lower down. There were two red lights glowing on the board. One indicated the laboratory here on Changxing. The other identified the craft. As they watched, the second light moved away from Changxing at incredible speed. It flew high, paralleling the G40 Hushan Expressway toward the mainland. Within seconds it was moving toward the heart of Shanghai. And this, Xiè knew, would be the ultimate test. It was a cloudy night and the sky would be a featureless and uniform black. Even so, Shanghai was the most populous city on Earth, with twenty-three million people, and so many of them with cell phones and cameras. If there was one picture, one clip of video, then the great secret would be out.

The craft kept going.

And going.

As he watched, Xiè thought of who he wished he could tell about this. No, not tell … Xiè thought about whose nose he would like to rub in this. It was easy to conjure an image of the man’s sneering face and superior smile. Shelton, who loved to brag about how far along the M3 Project was … and offer false sympathy for the many setbacks in the Dragon Engine’s development. Xiè would have given much to see Shelton’s face at the precise moment when he discovered the truth.

Well, he mused, now the worm has turned. And in turning, revealed itself to be a dragon.

Xiè was not a man much given to profanity, but there were moments for everything. As he held the image of Shelton in his mind he murmured, “Cào n zzng shíb dài.”

Fuck your ancestors to the eighteenth generation.

Admiral Xiè closed his eyes and took a nice, long, deep breath of perfect contentment.

Chapter Thirty-six

“So,” said Top to the five members of Echo Team, “that’s what we got so far. Questions?”

They were in a mission briefing room and Top had brought them up to speed on the president, the Black Book, the video, and everything else that had happened.

“UFOs?” said Lydia Ruiz, the only woman on the team. “Holy shit.”

Bunny had a pair of Oakleys pushed up on his head, a mouthful of pink bubble gum, and an expression of profound indifference on his face. “We are not alone. Got it. What’s the big?”

The others looked at him.

“Um, dude,” said Sam Imura, the team’s new sniper, “aliens and all? That’s kind of big, wouldn’t you say?”

Bunny shrugged. “After all this shit we’ve seen you guys are actually surprised that this was going to happen at some point? Wait till you cats have rolled with the captain a couple of times, Sam. Aliens don’t even seem that bad. I mean, on my first gig with Echo we did zombies.”

“Read about that,” said Sam. “Zombies. Jee-sus. I wish I could tell my little brother, Tom. He’s a total Night of the Living Dead freak.”

“I did genetic supersoldiers when I was on Hotrod Team in Detroit,” said Ivan Yankovitch, a lantern-jawed piece of granite who had transferred to Echo right after the Red Order mess in Iran. “A Russian kill team that had twenty percent more muscle and bone mass. The smallest of them could bench six-fifty. That was some serious mad scientist shit.”

“Well that’s my whole damn point,” complained Bunny. “I mean, after all that stuff, if they told us the op was taking down radioactive cockroach ballerinas I’d just lock and load, but I wouldn’t get my panties in a bunch. I am officially not surprised by anything.”

There was a ripple of laughter, but it all sounded a bit forced. Top said nothing, letting them absorb it and deal with it in their own way.

“But,” continued Bunny, “we have an even longer list of stuff that wasn’t anything at all. ’Member that thing in May, when Al-Qaeda said that Bin Laden’s ghost was advising them? Fricking stooge dressed up as Bin Laden. And remember how everyone panicked when we got a report that there was a seif al din outbreak in Times Square on New Year’s Eve? Turned out to be a flash mob dressed as zombies doing the Thriller dance. More than half the stuff that comes onto our radar is bullshit. We get all worked up, teams get scrambled, and half the time we find out that our supervillain du jour is some toothless hillbilly cooking meth in a cave.”

“My little Bunny’s got a point, Top,” said Lydia. “Do we even know if this is real? I mean, how do we know if the shit is about to hit the fan or if somebody just farted in a draft?”

“We don’t know,” Top said, “but, to paraphrase Mr. Church, do you really think we have the luxury to wait and watch?”

Sam shook his head. “No, First Sergeant, we do not.”

Ivan cleared his throat. “What’s the status? Are we at DEFCON One?”

“We’re in an elevated alert state,” said Top. “The official status for the military is REDCON-2 as part of an unannounced training exercise. The DMS status is FPCON Charlie.”

There were five levels on the Force Protection Condition scale. FPCON Charlie was the fourth level, one used in situations when intelligence reports that there is terrorist activity imminent. Similarly the military had its Readiness Conditions. REDCON-2 had all personnel on alert and ready to fight, but they had not yet kicked the tires and lit the fires on the fighter jets.

Top added, “All of this was initiated when the president went missing because it was presumed that terrorists had somehow infiltrated and therefore compromised White House security. The joint chiefs advised the acting president to maintain that alert for now, at least until we have some confirmation that there is no immediate threat.”

“What kind of confirmation they lookin’ for?” asked Pete Dobbs, a shooter recruited from an ATF team working the drug wars in the Appalachians. “ET hanging ten on a monster wave rolling up Pennsylvania Avenue?”

No one laughed.

The phone rang and Top took the call, listened, said, “Yes, sir.”

As he hung up he grinned at Echo Team.

“Turns out the thugs who pissed off the cap’n this morning work for Blue Diamond Security.” He saw sour and hateful expressions blossom on their faces. Like their chief competitor, Blackwater, Blue Diamond was a global security company, which is a polite way of saying that they provided top-of-the-line mercenaries to power players in American politics and big business. They were the go-to company for everything from protecting U.S. oilmen in Iraq to serving as “advisors” for commercially inconvenient political uprisings in third world countries.

“Mr. Church would like us to go have a few words with them.”

All five of them grinned liked wolves.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“Hey, Bug,” I said into the phone. “We anywhere yet?”

He told me what Jerry Spencer had found out about the Blue Diamond connection. “Top’s heading over there with Echo Team.”

“Great, they get to have fun while I heroically sit on my ass in a helicopter.” I sighed. “Look, what can you tell me about this Junie Flynn character? Why’s she so obsessed with UFOs and that stuff? She see a flying saucer once?”

“Not that she’s ever claimed. In fact I bet she’d give a lot to see one. She’s very harsh with people who claim to have seen craft but who Junie thinks are faking it.”

“Why would someone fake a claim like that?” I asked.

“Why do people claim to have seen Bigfoot, Joe?”

“There’s that.” I scratched Ghost between the ears. “Is the Black Book her only message or is she a general interest conspiracy nut?”

“She’s not a nut, Joe. Junie’s one of the most lucid speakers I’ve ever heard. But … to answer your question, the Black Book and Majestic Three are pretty big with her, but she also talks a lot about the need for disclosure. She keeps throwing challenges out to the U.S. government to ’fess up and admit that there are aliens and that we’ve recovered crash vehicles.”

“Good luck with that.”

“She’s been leading up to something. She’s been talking about something she’s going to reveal to the world this week. I think it was on last night’s podcast. I have it taped.”

“Dude, don’t you think we should already be on that?”

“Sure, but you wouldn’t believe how many things the big man has me on right now, just related to the president. Besides, her podcast is like three hours long, so I have to find the time to go through it.”

“Find the time.”

“Yeah, yeah. Oh, and other areas she hits a lot — alien-human hybrids.”

“Really? What’s that all about?”

Bug laughed. “Jeez, you really are clueless.”

“I have that on my business cards. C’mon, Bug, hit me.”

“Okay, Junie says that the reason we haven’t figured out how to make maximum use out of the alien tech is that it requires a biological interface. Now I know you know about that because we sat through that lecture.”

“That was DARPA, not Plan 9 from Outer Space.”

“Junie says that DARPA is only one group working on a way to develop technology that will allow a human being to bond with an aircraft on a biomechanical level. Maybe on a psychic level, too. That way a craft will move with the speed of human thought and without the lag time between thought and physical action on, say, a joystick or any other instrument.”

“So how does that involve alien-human hybrids?”

“She said that bodies were recovered from some of the crashes, and that we’ve been trying to do gene therapy with alien DNA so that an alien craft would recognize the pilot and respond according to how the ship was designed. Junie said that the hybridization program began in the seventies and viable hybrids were born or grown or whatever in the mid-eighties. The hybrids were supposedly raised in labs and trained in special camps, but some of them were seeded into the human population so scientists could study how well they blend in.”

“I’m really sure I saw this movie.”

“Just telling you what she says on her podcasts.”

“Sure, but, since you believe in this stuff, Bug, what do you think about all this?”

“If I tell you are you going to make a snarky comment?”

“Snarky? Me? You wound me, Bug. Wound me, I say.”

“Joe — I’m being serious here. This is something that matters to me.”

And there it was. I really liked Bug. He was a true innocent and definitely one of the good guys. He was also way too easy a target for a barbarian like me, who tended to throw stones at everyone.

“My word, Bug,” I said. “Serious business.”

That seemed to mollify him. “Well, yeah … I think there are aliens and I think they’ve visited us. Consider the math, Joe. There are somewhere between one hundred and four hundred billion stars in the Milky Way. That’s a lot of wasted real estate if there’s nothing out there.”

“Lot of empty space in Antarctica, too. Not a lot of life.”

“Tell that to the penguins. Besides, there’s all sorts of bacteria and viruses frozen there, and some of it is viable when thawed.”

“You’re beginning to sound like Dr. Hu.”

“Bite me in an ugly place,” said Bug. He and I both hated William Hu, the DMS science director. “Look, Joe, there are some things to consider. In 1976, the Mars landers detected chemical signatures indicative of life. The following year, the radio telescope at Ohio State University detected a very weird thirty-seven-second-long signal pulse of radiation from somewhere near the constellation Sagittarius. The signal was within the band of radio frequencies where transmissions are internationally banned on Earth, and natural sources of radiation from space generally cover a wider range of frequencies. Now, understand, the nearest star in that direction is over two hundred million light-years away, so this was either a massive astronomical event that was not visible to any other telescope, or an intelligence with a very powerful transmitter created it.”

“Oh,” I said.

“And there’s those Martian fossils they discovered in meteorite ALH80041, which was from where? Oh, wait, was that Antarctica? Oh no!”

“Wasn’t that disproved?”

“Challenged,” corrected Bug, “not disproved. Also, back in 2001 some brainiacs did a serious upgrade on the Drake Equation, and—”

“The what?”

“Did you skip every science class?

“I was very hormonal and all the hot girls were in art class.”

Bug snorted. “Uh-huh. Well, back in the early sixties this astronomer Frank Drake came up with an equation to try and estimate the number of planets in our galaxy that could reasonably host intelligent life and also be potentially capable of communicating with us. His estimate was that there had to be at least ten thousand earthlike planets.”

“Okay … wow.”

“It gets better. In 2001, scientists applied new data and theories about planets that could be in the ‘habitable zone’ around stars, where water is liquid and photosynthesis possible. They now believe that there are hundreds of thousands of worlds that could support life as we know it. And that’s just life as ‘we’ know it. What about life that exists outside of that range? After all, penguins can live in Antarctica. There’s a bacteria that thrives in the hot springs at Yellowstone — an environment where the waters are near the boiling point and acidic enough to dissolve nails. There’s another bacteria that lives at the bottom of an almost two-mile-deep South African gold mine in one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit. It fixes its own nitrogen, and eats sulfate. There are microbes thriving off the acid runoff from the gold, silver, and copper mines on Iron Mountain in California, and other microbes that live in the stratosphere miles above the Sahara. And there are some insanely complex ecosystems in utter darkness and under intense pressure way at the bottom of the ocean. I’m not talking fish, I’m talking about tube worms living in volcanic undersea vents, thriving in sulfur-rich waters. Down there you got the worms, all sorts of microbes, barnacles, mussels, and shrimp, in an environment that, prior to its discovery in the late seventies, scientists swore could not support life. Now, step back for a moment and let’s look at the red color of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. One of the leading theories is that the color comes from frozen bits of bacteria. Joe … you can’t be a rational person and tell me that there’s no chance at all that we’re alone in the galaxy.”

I said nothing, digesting the implications.

“Besides,” continued Bug, “over the past decade a slew of reputable scientists have begun making a case for the likely existence of extraterrestrial life. Guys like Stephen Hawking and Lachezar Filipov, director of the Space Research Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.”

“Wait, Hawking actually said he believes in aliens?”

“Oh, yeah … and he’s gone as far as strongly urging against any attempts to engage them. He was on one of those Discovery Channel documentaries, and he referred to aliens as ‘nomads looking to conquer and colonize.’ That’s some heavy shit from a guy who everybody considers to be one of the top brains on the planet. You want to call him a fruitcake, or ask him if he wears aluminum-foil hats?”

“Stop kicking me in the shins here, Bug. You’re making your point.”

“Let me toss this in your lap, then. There was a theory advanced a couple of years ago by Arizona State University physicist Paul Davies, who said that he believed that some microbes on our planet may be derived from alien civilizations. Right after that, Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor at Cardiff University, claimed there was new research showing that human life started somewhere other than the planet Earth. You see, a lot of this new interest in the possibility of alien life is growing out of the new technologies that are enabling a more thorough search for other habitable zones in the galaxy. You watch, Joe, as this movement keeps gaining momentum from the top minds, then we’re going to see skepticism about UFOs shrivel up and die.”

“Maybe,” I said grudgingly, “but you’re talking about guys who are taking a careful approach. Are any of them saying that the aliens are actually here now? Are any of them talking about technologies looted from crashed vehicles? Or even saying that they believe that we’ve already been visited?”

“Some,” said Bug, “but you’re right — they’re careful. They have to be, because they’re with universities and stuff like that, and one whiff of anything questionable and they lose their grants or their chair. This is why Junie Flynn is building such a strong case for full governmental disclosure. She wants our government to do it and if we do then others will follow suit.”

“Not a chance,” I said with a laugh.

“You don’t think they should?”

“If it’s true? Maybe. But, I don’t think they ever will. C’mon, Bug, if flying saucers crashed and we actually did recover the wreckage we would never—ever—admit to it. We’d study that stuff in secret in hopes of building advanced craft, new weapons systems, and anything else that would put us out in front in the arms race.”

There was a significant silence.

“Bug…,” I said slowly, “tell me you didn’t just trick me into making your point for you?”

“How’s that shoe taste, Joe?”

I laughed again. “Okay, okay, you sneaky bastard, I can see the shape of it. I can build a good case for us creating secret R and D divisions to study this stuff, if it exists. That’s a logic exercise based on an understanding of how paranoid all governments are and how the military mind-set works.”

“Uh-huh,” he said.

“Doesn’t mean that there is actually something to disclose. Your Junie Flynn could be yelling in a windstorm.”

“Or maybe she’s onto something.”

“If she is, no matter how loud she yells it’s not going to make the government disclose. And maybe they shouldn’t. Imagine public reaction to the existence of aliens. You know what that would do to organized religion?”

“Prove that the universe is a bigger and more wonderful place than people give it credit for?”

His innocence was a wonderful thing. I think we need a lot more people who not only see the glass as half full, but half full and a waiter is coming with a pitcher. Most of the rest of society is so cynical and jaded that they think the glass is always half empty and filled with bacteria.

“Where does the Black Book fit into the disclosure equation?” I asked. “Why does Junie Flynn rant about that? What set Junie on this path? What made her an evangelist for this particular cause?”

“I really don’t know,” said Bug, sounding surprised. “She came onto the scene with a bang and she never talks about herself. She always keeps it about the message, about the need for disclosure, about how we need to believe the truth, and how the Black Book will set us free.”

“Set us free? How?”

“I don’t know that, either,” Bug admitted. “All I know is that she’s been building up to something lately. Whatever it is, it’s supposed to be big. She says that soon the governments of the world won’t be able to keep us in blinders and they won’t be able to hide the truth anymore. Or words to that effect. Maybe it was on her podcast last night. I’ll go through it.”

“Okay, let me know what you find out. And, Bug? About this UFO stuff?”

“Yeah?”

“I do want to believe,” I said. “I just don’t yet.”

“‘Yet’ is a pretty significant word, Joe.”

He disconnected.

Chapter Thirty-eight

When Black Bess rolled off the AM General assembly line in South Bend, Indiana, it was a Humvee intended for use by the United States Army. This particular vehicle was purchased as part of a fleet by Mr. Church and turned over to Mike Harnick, the head of vehicle maintenance. Now she had extended shock-absorbing crash-plate bumpers, a reinforced frame, and her already considerable fifty-nine hundred pounds was amped up to sixty-eight, most of which was the result of a retractable cannon platform for launching TOW missiles or a M134 Minigun. The sides were heavily armored and the advanced ALON window glass could take sustained fire from a fifty-millimeter heavy machine gun.

Black Bess was neither a very fast nor highly maneuverable vehicle, but it was as close to a tank as Harnick could make it without putting an Abrams on the street. Black Bess also had faux spinner hubcaps, a vanity plate that read GAMER, and lots of decorative chrome. It looked like a big, expensive toy for a slacker who’d made some money.

Sam Imura was behind the wheel. Top Sims sat beside him. Ivan and Peter were in the backseat. Bunny and Lydia were already on the far side of the Blue Diamond compound.

“Call it, Top,” said Sam.

The regional office of Blue Diamond Security was a short block away, a squat one-story box tucked behind a security gate with a barrier bar. Behind it, massive tower cranes lifted containers from cargo ships and stacked them into multicolored mountain ranges.

A thermal scan of the building showed where everyone was. Most of them were clustered in neat rows in what was probably a mess hall. A few others were scattered around the building. No one in the receptionist office on a Sunday morning, and no one in the rear loading bay. Eighteen men in all.

Top tapped his earbud for the team channel. “Okay, kids, we’re going in softball. Nobody dies but don’t take any shit. Combat call signs from here out. Hellboy, you’re on street sweep.”

“Copy that,” said Ivan. He slipped out of the car and ducked down behind a parked Honda.

“Prankster, as soon as we’re inside make some noise.”

Pete Dobbs said, “Rock and roll.”

“Okay, Ronin, let’s bust down some doors!”

Sam Imura — Ronin — kicked down on the gas and Black Bess rolled forward, slowly at first, but as her mass got into motion the ponderous vehicle picked up speed. By the time it hit the drop-bar barrier at the front gate Bess was cruising at sixty. The barrier disintegrated into splinters. Two guards threw themselves out of the way, landing hard, rolling awkwardly, rising to their feet in shock but still reaching for their guns. Ivan dropped them both with beanbag rounds from his combat shotgun. Each round was a small cloth pouch filled with number-nine birdshot. They went down hard.

“Green Giant,” growled Top, “knock loud and knock hard.”

There was a five count of silence and then a huge whump shook the whole building as Bunny’s blaster-plaster blew the back door off its hinges and hurled it twenty feet into the loading bay.

Black Bess was racing at her top speed of seventy-five miles an hour when she slammed into the front of the building. The double doors exploded inward across the empty reception office, smashing the desk flat against the far wall and then punching all the way through into the main room beyond. This room was a large empty training hall, with a walled pistol range, taped-off combat circles, free weights, and racks of practice weapons. Sam jammed on the brakes and spun Bess around so that she slewed across the gym in a big turn that destroyed equipment, vending machines and the outer wall of the shooting range. Then he threw it into park and he, Top, and Pete piled out.

Pete pulled flash-bangs from his harness as Top yanked open the door to the next room — a crowded mess hall. The flash-bangs arced over the tops of the long mess tables. Men tried to dive out of their chairs, to turn and run, to crawl through each other.

In all those things, they failed.

The flash-bangs exploded with massive booms, filling the mess hall with blinding white light.

Men screamed and fell, pawing at eyes, pressing hands to ears, temporarily blinded, deafened, and shocked.

One man clung to the frame of the doorway, dazed but still on his feet as he clawed for his holstered pistol. Top drew his sidearm, an X26-A multishot Taser, which had a three-shot magazine with detachable battery packs. Top shot the man in the chest and immediately the battery sent fifty thousand volts into him. Top then released the battery pack to allow his gun to automatically chamber the second round. The dropped battery was still connected to the target by silver wires and would continue to send a maintenance charge through the flachettes until the twenty-second battery ran dry. As the man fell, Top saw that the back door of the mess hall was open and Bunny and Lydia were already rushing in to join the fun.

Bunny grabbed one man by the sleeve and hair and whipped him around in a half circle, giving the swing a vicious upward tilt so the man left the ground and crashed into two of his colleagues. Then Bunny grabbed one of the big mess tables and with a growl like an angry bear upended it atop men who were trying their best to get out of his way.

But Lydia was there. She was lightning fast, firing beanbag rounds as fast as she could pump, but when that ran dry she didn’t bother reloading or switching to the Taser. She waded in with wickedly precious kicks to calves and knees and groins, and used crosscutting palm strikes to wrench necks and smash noses.

“Warbride,” Top called to her, “on your six.”

She whirled to face a big man with a steak knife in his fist, but Top sat him down with the Taser, and took out a second man who was swinging his pistol up. Those were the last two charges of his Taser, so Top dropped it and drew a short black rod holstered at his hip. With a flick of his wrist it snapped down to the length of a baton. It was made of durable sponge rubber over a tight spring. The rubber kept it from being lethal, but it was not a toy. Bones broke and men screamed.

One of the Blue Diamond men managed to get off a single shot, but suddenly he pitched back and out of the corner of his eye he caught Sam Imura leaning in through the window, a smoking shotgun in his hand.

Counting the two men at the gate, there were eighteen Blue Diamond guards to Top’s six-person team.

Eighteen wasn’t enough. The flash-bangs had changed those odds, and the brutal efficiency of Echo Team had skewed the math in their favor. When the last man fell — Ivan head-butted the man; Ivan wore a helmet, the other man did not — the room dropped into sudden silence.

“Cuff ’em,” snapped Top, and everybody pulled out fistfuls of plastic flexcuffs.

Some of the men were conscious and very vocal, threatening legal action, threatening worse. One, a shovel-jawed bruiser with a gray buzz cut and a livid bruise in the shape of Lydia’s fist over one puffed eye, seemed to be in charge.

Top directed Bunny to bring the man into what was left of the other room. The man wasn’t yet trussed up, so Bunny hauled the man to his feet, screwed a pistol into his ear and said, “This one’s loaded with hollowpoints, dickhead.”

When they were in the adjoining room, Top kicked a chair toward the prisoner and Bunny shoved the man down into it.

“What’s your name?” asked Top.

“Fuck you.”

“Well, Mr. Fuck-you, would you like to tell me why four of your people thought it was a good idea to pull a car stop on a federal agent this morning?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, Tupac, but I’m going to hang your balls from my rearview mirror.”

“Is that a genuine fact?” asked Top, raising his eyebrows as if interested. “Bunny … why don’t you go in the other room. Mr. Fuck-you and I are going to sort out a few talking points. I believe he wants in his heart of hearts to tell me who ordered a hit on Captain Ledger.”

Bunny looked from Top to the seated man, then he smiled and left.

Top was smiling, too.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Mr. Bones knocked quietly and came into Howard’s bedroom. The old man was awake, sitting propped up, a Ghost Box on his lap and open file folders scattered around everywhere.

“So much for resting,” said Mr. Bones, arching an eyebrow.

“I’ll rest next week.”

“It’s Sunday, it is next week.” Mr. Bones dragged over a heavy hand-carved wooden chair, flopped into it, crossed his ankles, and laid his heels on the edge of the bed.

Howard waved a hand. “You know what I mean. The doctor said it was stress and exhaustion. Big surprise. Said all I needed was some rest … so I’m resting.”

“How are you feeling? No bullshit.”

The old man took off his reading glasses and tossed them onto the bed. He rubbed his eyes and sighed. After a moment he said, “I know this is what I wanted,” he said. “I know this is what I’ve worked my life for … but sometimes getting what you want is such a goddamn pain in the ass.” He cut a look at his friend. “No, don’t say it: It’s like a man complaining because he has to count every penny in a heap of treasure he found. This isn’t something that’s going to take me off the path. I’m not going to come to my senses and devote the rest of my life to charity and good works. I’m a monster, Bones, and I like being a monster.”

“But it’s still a pain in the ass to count all that treasure,” said Mr. Bones softly.

“It is. Am I weak for saying that?”

“You’re human. And I’ll bet every hero and every conqueror in history had these moments. Alexander the Great probably needed to hang out in his tent, get drunk, fart, read some trash scrolls.”

Howard nodded. “They should show that in the history books. Downtime of the rich and powerful.”

“We can fund a reality show,” said Bones, “Kicking Back with Kings.”

They laughed about it. Quietly, respecting the needs of the moment. And then they sat in companionable silence for a time, listening to the drifting music from the speakers mounted high in the corners of the room. A playlist of old blues. All covers of Willie Dixon tunes.

“We could bag it,” said Mr. Bones, and when Shelton looked at him in surprise, he continued, “We could. All of it. We could let the air show be just an air show. We’ll have everyone here to fly their planes and we’ll be affable hosts. We could let Yuina continue to do what she already thinks she’s doing. We could stop the cyber-attacks and let Ledger and the DMS dig their way out from under without any further interference from us, we could call off the Closers and tell Tull to go back to trying to be a person.”

“What about the Chinese? I can’t help feeling that they’re closer than we think.”

Mr. Bones shrugged. “We initiate the tapeworm and turn their project to junk, and let the rest of the world go back to the arms race they think they’ve been running since the Cold War ended. We could do all of that, Howard.”

They both nodded, thinking about it. It wasn’t the first time they’d had some version of this conversation. It wasn’t the tenth time.

Howard said, “What’s wrong, Bonesy? Nervous there at the wobbly end of the high dive?”

“Of course. No matter how many times we run the math, there’s still a chance this could all go flooey.”

“‘Flooey’?”

“Flooey,” agreed Mr. Bones. “There might be something we haven’t thought of, some X-factor that makes it all go wrong.”

“There isn’t.”

“That’s what we believe, Howard, but we can’t know everything. No one has ever done what we’re about to do.”

“That’s what makes being the first so much fun.”

“What if the joint chiefs and the DoD suits won’t be bullied? What if we lay it all out and give them our terms and they call our bluff?”

“We’re not bluffing,” said Howard.

“What if they force our hand?”

Howard Shelton lay back and stared at the ceiling for a few moments. “I said I wanted to get out of the fast lane for a few minutes, collect my wits, get my second wind. I never said that I wanted to lose the race.” He closed his eyes and smiled. “No fucking way.”

Chapter Forty

My cell rang again. Church.

“Dr. Hu has watched the video,” he said, “and he’d like to share some thoughts.”

I thought that I probably didn’t want to hear anything else. The day was already sliding downhill, but I flipped open my tactical laptop and the screen showed Mr. Church with a Chinese-American man in his mid-thirties. William Hu was an awkward, ungainly man with an incredible brain filled with deep knowledge in a lot of areas of science. A genuine supergenius, which is why Church hired him. Church doesn’t employ many second-stringers.

When I first joined the DMS, Hu and I had failed to bond on an epic level. He regards me as a mouth-breathing semiliterate Neanderthal and I think he’s a heartless prick who would improve the world by stepping in front of a bullet train. Neither of us pull any muscles trying to play nice.

“Okay, Doc,” I said, “what’s your take?”

Hu wore an X-Men T-shirt — vintage Dave Cockrum — and thick glasses with bright red frames. He removed them and polished the lenses thoughtfully on his shirt. “The president looks doped,” he began. “Not drunk, nothing like that. He’s too rigid for sodium amytal or scopolamine. Maybe amphetamines of some kind, considering the way he kept running his sentences into one another. Could also be one of the compounds that Ukrainian guy, Keltov, was playing with a few years ago. Whatever it was, the president appears to be acting according to chemical coercion.”

“Could be more than that,” I said. “Some of his nervousness could be from the fact that he was abducted, and his captors could have threatened him.”

Hu gave a derisive snort. “No way. You can’t bully someone like him.”

“You can threaten anyone,” I said. “Especially if the threats aren’t directed at him. He’s a husband, a father.”

Hu shook his head. “I don’t buy it.”

“Says the man who lacks the compassion to reach for a fire extinguisher if his own family was on fire,” I said.

Hu ignored that. “I’m drawing a blank on the Majestic Black Book, whatever that is.”

Church did not yet elucidate. Nor did I.

“The rest of it’s pretty clear, though,” said Hu.

“Clear?” I asked, and he gave me a pitying look.

“Obvious to anyone with half a brain, sure. They showed a series of natural disasters and each time they cut to the president telling us that we have to find this book. Simple enough, find the book or bad things will happen.” He smiled at me. “You didn’t get that?”

“Yes, I got that,” I lied. “But you said it yourself, they were ‘natural’ disasters. How can you threaten someone with that? Last I heard Mother Nature wasn’t taking contract hits.”

Hu rolled his eyes, just like a thirteen-year-old girl having to explain an iPhone app to her Luddite maiden aunt. “That’s why they showed us the volcano.”

Church gave a small nod; apparently he was right there with Hu.

“What about the volcano?” I asked.

“Well,” said Hu smugly, “the short-bus version is that either we get this book or they’ll arrange a disaster for us. We have all sorts of toys that could simulate a natural disaster. Hence the movie footage at the end. Speaking of which, I don’t recognize—”

“The Day After Tomorrow,” I supplied.

“Oh. Right.” Hu looked annoyed that I’d known that. I didn’t mention that Bug had told me. “And before you ask, they used fake footage because we haven’t had a tsunami hit the U.S. yet. They wanted to drive home a point, make it personal.”

Though it galled me to admit it, he was right. That was exactly the message and I could see it now. “At the risk of getting a demerit from Professor Snootypants,” I said, “is it really possible to engineer a tsunami?”

“Sure,” said Hu. “An artificially induced earthquake could do it. Drop a nuke in a volcano, or detonate some underground device on a fault line. Maybe hit the exterior wall with nonnuclear cruise missiles. Couple of bunker busters at the right spot might do it. But, artificially induced or not, that volcano could definitely do it. No question about it.”

“Why that particular volcano? Is it active?”

“It doesn’t need to be,” said Church.

Hu nodded. “Absolutely. That volcano, even cold, is a disaster waiting to happen.”

“How do you know? Did Bug find it for you?”

“No, I recognize it,” said Hu smugly. “It’s Isla de La Palma in the Canary Islands, and the volcano is Cumbre Vieja.”

“So?”

Hu traced the edge of the volcano with his forefinger. “See that ridge? It’s a known scientific fact,” he said, leaning on the word “known” as if everyone of even marginal intelligence was in on this, “that a failure of the western flank of Cumbre Vieja could cause a mega-tsunami.”

“What kind of ‘failure’?”

“Like I said, an eruption would do it,” said Hu, “but if you wanted to guarantee the right effect, then you’d need an application of explosive force at the right point so you’d break off the western half. We’re talking something like five hundred cubic kilometers of rock falling in a massive gravitational landslide and smashing down into the Atlantic Ocean. Local amplitude of the resulting wave would have to be about six hundred meters — two thousand feet for those who haven’t learned their conversion tables.”

“Bite me,” I said quietly.

“So there you are with a six-hundred-meter-tall wave going hell-bent across the ocean at — what? — a thousand klicks an hour. That’s—”

“Six hundred twenty-one miles per hour,” I cut in. “Like I said, bite me.”

He grinned. “That’s your basic mega-tsunami rolling outward from the drop point at the speed of a jet aircraft.”

“Ouch,” I said.

“Likely damage?” asked Church.

“Shit,” said Hu. “You’d lose the whole African coast in the first hour. Southern England a couple of hours later. And then in five, six hours it would hit the eastern seaboard of North America. Mind you, by then it would have diminished to, say, thirty to sixty meters, but that’s more than enough to wipe out Boston, New York, maybe as far inland as Philadelphia … all the way down to Miami. Call it fifty million people wishing that evolution hadn’t taken away their gills.”

I gaped at him. “Are you fucking kidding me here?”

“No,” said Church. “He isn’t.”

“How do people not know about this?” I demanded, appalled.

“People do,” said Hu. “How do you not know about this? Don’t you ever watch Nat Geo?” He cocked his head to one side then snapped his fingers. “Actually, now that I think about it, this wouldn’t actually be the first mega-tsunami to hit America. There was one in Alaska. Lituya Bay, I think, back in 1958. Five-hundred-meter high wave stripped trees and soil from the opposite headland and swamped the entire bay.”

“How many people were killed?” I asked, aghast.

“Only two. It was nothing. Boring. Wrong location and time of year for anything interesting.”

“‘Interesting’?” I echoed.

Hu shrugged again, unabashed by his delight in the subject. “If our bad guys can knock down Cumbre Vieja then things would get really interesting really fast.”

He looked delighted at the prospect. I wondered how long I would have to punch him before I felt better. “So … who would do this?” I asked.

Hu shook his head. “I have no idea.”

We stared at the image on the screen. Seconds burned themselves to cinders around us as the strange implausibility of this warred with the terrible implications. Hu replayed the video and we watched the president with his glazed eyes and dead voice repeat his warnings over and over again.

There was a question that had to be asked. No one wanted to put it out there, so I did.

“Is this really going to happen if we don’t find that book?” I asked. “Guys … do we believe this?”

Church and Hu looked at the screen, at each other, then at me.

“What choice do we have?” said Hu.

“Oh,” said Church, “it gets worse.”

“‘Worse’?” I said. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m half a bad decision away from jumping out of the helicopter right now.”

Hu grinned at the prospect.

“A few minutes ago Linden Brierly sent me a series of photographs taken in the Rose Garden,” Church said. “The pictures are of something that Secret Service agents discovered on the lawn minutes after the president went missing. There are some additional details,” he said, “but right now I want you to look at the pictures and tell me what you think it is.”

Hu and I exchanged a look. It was clear he didn’t like this kind of lead-in any more than I did.

Church sent the picture to our screens. There were twelve photos, all from different angles and heights. After cycling through them, Church took the clearest one and expanded it to fill the screen.

“Brierly’s people took exact measurements,” said Church. “It is a little over three meters across.”

I was no whiz when it came to conspiracy theories or UFOs, let’s all agree on that, but even I’ve seen this sort of thing before. Clearly, so had Hu. I saw the expression on his face. This image twisted him into an entirely new mental state and all sorts of expressions warred on his features. Denial, anger, shock. Fear.

He said, “No fucking way.”

I was having a hard time with this myself. “Okay, I’m throwing a flag down on this play. Are you trying to tell me that there’s a goddamn crop circle on the White House lawn?”

“Apparently so,” said Church.

So, I said, “Okay, then tell me how in the hell it got there?”

“No one knows,” said Church, and he filled us in on how the circle was discovered.

Hu kept shaking his head in denial, but at the same time he leaned close and peered at the pattern. “Wait a damn minute … you said that this was a little over ten feet. Did they do an exact measurement?”

An enigmatic little smile curled the edges of Church’s mouth. “As a matter of fact,” he said softly, “I anticipated that question, Doctor. After seeing the image I requested that they take a new set of measurements. I asked them to be as precise as possible. It is ten feet and three point six eight inches across. Or, to put it another way, it is three point one four one five nine meters across.”

“Wait,” I said. “Why do I know that number? It sounds familiar.”

“It should,” said Hu, “if you ever stayed awake in math class. It’s the value of pi.”

Church nodded to the image. “Doctor … what does the pattern itself tell you?”

“It’s pi,” he said, his voice dull. “It’s all pi.”

“Be a bit more specific.”

“This is bullshit.”

“Doctor, I would appreciate a little focus here,” said Church mildly. “Please give us an analysis of the image.”

“Okay, okay, damn it,” snarled Hu. He began jabbing his fingers at different parts of the pattern. “This is basic math. Those radial lines corresponded to a grid dividing the circle into ten equal slices. The grooves in the circle spiral outward with orderly steps at various points. Each step occurs at particular angles, and the circle itself is divided into ten equal segments of thirty-six degrees each. If you start at the center, you can see that the first section is three segments wide; then there’s a step and underneath this step is a small circle. That’s the decimal point. The next section is one segment wide and then there’s another step. The next section is four segments wide, and so on until the final number encoded is three point one four one five nine two six five four. Pi.” He paused, then added, “Fuck me.”

“And how long after the president vanished did this appear?” I asked.

“Minutes,” said Church.

“Made by little floating lights,” I said. Just saying it. Putting that on the wall for us all to look at.

“Fuck me,” repeated Hu.

Chapter Forty-one

Tull brought the Mustang down out of a clear sky and landed on an empty runway in a deserted airfield. Except for Aldo seated beside him, the world could have been completely empty of people. There were no cars at the airport, no other planes taking off or landing. Only the Mustang. Tull taxied it toward the lee of the tiny airport’s main hangar.

Tull debated letting this all go. He could pull a gun on Aldo, force his friend off the plane, and then take off again. He had enough fuel to get to West Virginia or Pennsylvania, find a place to refuel and then vanish off the grid. Tull had enough identities prepared, accounts in a dozen names, safe houses and bolt-holes. Even some friends in low places who could help him get so far off the radar that even M3 couldn’t find him.

Would that do it? he wondered. If he cut all ties with the Project, with Majestic Three and the Closers and all of it, would that be enough to allow him to change who he was? Would it allow him to finally be human in every sense of the word? Most of him already was, maybe the rest was buried somewhere, like junk DNA waiting for the right trigger to activate it. If M3 was totally out of his life, would that give him a life?

And … what would that feel like?

Most of him yearned to find out, ached to know.

A smaller part of him cringed back from that thought. What if becoming fully human meant that his conscience would try to catch up on all of the sins he’d committed? He wondered if taking Aldo’s cue and confessing to a priest would really save him from the agony of feeling something about what he’d done.

What if he got away and then every time he closed his eyes he relived that last moment with Berenice? Even now, when he thought about the surprise and doubt and sudden horrible understanding in her eyes as she stared past the barrel of his pistol and into his eyes, there was some flicker of something deep in his mind. Was that a nascent conscience fearing to be born?

“Yo,” said Aldo, and Tull realized that it wasn’t the first time his friend had spoken. He blinked his eyes like a reptile and then he was back in the present moment.

“What?”

“Earth calling Erasmus Tull. Where the hell’d you go?”

Tull sighed. “Getting my head in the game is all.”

Aldo gave him a curious look, but said nothing.

As they unbuckled and gathered up their gear, it occurred to Tull that if he did try to run from M3, the governors would almost certainly send Aldo after him. It saddened him. Not that his friend would accept the hit, but the thought of killing Aldo. Tull had no other friends.

They opened the door, folded down the stairs and deplaned. Tull was pleased to see a car waiting for them when they descended from the Mustang. It was three-year-old black GMC Yukon. Clean but not gleaming, with visible wear on the bumpers and some scuffing on the sidewalls. Bumper stickers on the back from half a dozen family resorts where fishing was an attraction. Strip across the back window that said their kid went to Morgan State University. Trailer hitch. The kind of vehicle no one would look twice at.

Tull nodded his approval.

The key was in a magnetic box under the rear fender. They stowed their gear on the rear seat and went to the back. The spare was a fake and it opened on a hinge to reveal a flat steel safe. Aldo punched in the code and opened it to uncover the first layer of goodies. Two Sig Sauer pistols and multiple preloaded magazines, two microwave pulse pistols with one extra battery each, various small electronic gadgets, a spare battery pack for the Ghost Box, and leather wallets with ID, cash, and credit cards in six different names each. They lifted out the top layer and poked at the devices snugged into carefully molded foam-cushion slots.

Aldo whistled. “Holy rat shit fuck. They weren’t joking about the clean sweep.”

“Be prepared,” said Tull. “A million Boy Scouts can’t all be wrong.”

They replaced the top layer and studied the weapons. Tull had his personal .22 pistol strapped to his ankle, but he selected a 9mm Sig Sauer, dropped the empty mag that had been put in place for transport, worked the slide to make sure there was no bullet in the chamber. He removed a full magazine of hollowpoints, slapped it into place, set the safety, and snugged the gun in a shoulder holster. Aldo did the same.

They stuffed several gadgets into their pockets, closed the false tire into its compartment, and shut the rear door.

After they climbed into the cab, Aldo said, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, why?”

“You’re making a face.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“What kind of face?”

“I don’t know. A face. Like something’s grabbing your balls. You sweating the fact that we have to take a run at your old boss?”

“No, it has nothing to do with that.” Tull gave him a short, bitter laugh and clapped Aldo on the shoulder. “I just think that it would be better for everyone if I’d stayed retired.”

“Yeah,” said Aldo, eyeing him dubiously, “well life’s a kick in the nuts sometimes.”

“Yes it is.”

“You really out after this?” asked Aldo. “For good, I mean. No more farewell tours.”

“Definitely. What about you?”

Aldo looked up into the dark blue sky. “You’re gonna laugh, but I always wanted to open a barber shop. Not a hair salon, nothing faggy like that. I mean a real barbershop. Old school, Brooklyn style. Two, three chairs. Red and white pole outside. Maybe me and my two cousins cutting hair and talking shit all day with the wiseguys.”

Tull stared at him. “Really? You want to retire and cut hair?”

“Better than cutting throats for a living.”

It was said as a joke, meant as a joke, but neither of them laughed, and the truth behind Aldo’s words darkened the day.

“If I had a time machine,” said Aldo, “maybe I’d go back and do that instead.”

“And miss out on serving your country?” Tull asked in a voice heavy with irony.

“Serving my country.” Aldo shook his head. “Man … I don’t even think I know what that means.”

They smiled at each other. One of those moments where what they were saying aloud was substantially different than the conversation they were actually having.

Then Aldo stiffened. “Shit — look.”

A bright blue jeep had just rounded the corner of a hangar a hundred yards away, between them and the exit. Even at that distance they could see the white shield on the hood.

“Security patrol.” Aldo looked at his watch. “Somebody screwed up. These jokers aren’t supposed to be here for another half hour.”

“And yet…,” said Tull with mild exasperation. He jerked the door handle and got out, waving to Aldo is stay where he was. “I got this.”

Tull waved at the security patrol. He shoved his hands into his back pocket and began strolling slowly toward the approaching jeep, smiling a broad amiable smile.

The blue jeep rolled to a stop sideways to Tull and about eight feet away. Two uniformed guards stepped out. Aldo rolled down his window to try and hear the conversation. He needn’t have bothered. All he heard was the first guard say, “Is there a prob—?”

Tull stepped forward and from four feet shot them each twice in the head.

It was so fast that Aldo never saw Tull reach for his piece. The two guards lay slumped in their seats and the breeze blew the gun smoke away.

Tull looked from them to the gun in his hand. He sighed, turned and climbed in behind the wheel.

“Okay, brother,” said Tull, “let’s go save the world.”

He put the car in gear and spun the wheel. In seconds the airport was empty and as still as death.

Chapter Forty-two

I stared out the window of the helo as we hurtled toward Elk Neck State Park. I don’t like Dr. Hu, but I respect his knowledge. Seeing how badly this stuff rattled him made me depressed and more than a little scared.

As if this was all possible.

As if it was real.

Once the call ended the image on my laptop defaulted to Junie Flynn’s pretty face.

“I hope you have some answers, sister,” I said.

Chapter Forty-three

Colonel Betty Snider touched the lucky coin in her pocket. The face on the coin was nearly worn away from the frequent rubbing of her thumb, a habit Snider fell into when things got dicey. Lately things were more often dicey than not.

There were twelve congressmen seated on bleachers erected under a canvas awning to protect them from getting their congressional brains scrambled in the unforgiving Utah sun’s glare. The rest of the bleachers were crammed with officers of every wattage, from captains on the rise to generals who wanted to catch a last dose of reflected glory before they mothballed their uniforms. And there was a moody little contingent of snooty-looking men in off-the-rack dark suits who perched like a row of pelicans. Defense department bean counters.

In an ideal world, Colonel Snider would have had three or four more months to run her shakedowns before a party like this, but Senate appropriations committees got to call these shots. Not officers like Snider who had risen to her rank quickly twenty years ago but had since managed only a lateral slide

Even if today’s test was successful, it wouldn’t step her up to a star. She’d retire a full-bird colonel and that was that, thanks for your service.

She cut a look at the gathered faces and stifled a sigh.

Fucking bureaucrats, she thought. Best thing for the whole country would be to have the jet crash into the stands.

Maybe that would get her that star.

Down on the field the jet was beginning to taxi past the stands. The Locust FB-119 was on the very cutting edge of stealth aircraft. It was the first generation of jets to use a radical new design philosophy that did not use faceted surfaces like the earlier stealth craft. Instead, the Locust could disguise its infrared emissions to make it harder to detect by heat-seeking surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. It also had fast-adapting cameras and display panel so that the skin immediately changed its underbelly colors to match the skies through which it flew, with a lag time of point zero nine three seconds. The design would put all existing stealth craft to shame, and very likely steal the thunder from tomorrow’s air show at the Shelton estate.

This test flight should have happened eighteen months ago, but the original testing facility out at Area 51 in Nevada had been totally destroyed along with all six prototypes, a victim of the Seven Kings terrorist campaign. The setback was tragic in a lot of ways, but the silver lining was that it allowed the design team to make some important tweaks and add a few new features.

A young lieutenant came hustling over and snapped off a salute. “We’re ready, Colonel. The spotter planes report all clear and the wind is down to two knots.”

“Very well,” she said. Snider held out a hand for a walkie-talkie and accepted it from the lieutenant. “Captain Soames, we’re green to go. Make us proud.”

“Roger that,” was Soames reply.

Colonel Snider turned and gave a short address to the audience that was part hype and part sales pitch. They’d all heard it before, but they listened with varying degrees of interest, especially now that the engines on the Locust were spitting flame.

“I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen,” concluded Snider, “that you will see something you have never seen before.”

The flagman on the runway gave the signal and the Locust began rolling forward.

The jet did not look particularly aerodynamic. It was roughly triangular, with only a slight bump to indicate the cockpit. The surfaces were painted flat black and the engine roar was muted by a series of internal baffles — part of a hushed engine design that reduced burner noise by 67 percent. That alone, Snider knew, should have made the bean counters reach for their checkbooks — or would have if any of those pencil necks had ever worn a uniform.

The engine gave its soft, deceptive growl and the Locus began rolling faster down the runway. Again, this was deceptive. Because the tarmac was painted flat black and so was the plane, it was hard to judge its ground speed.

Then bang!

The jet’s nose lifted and as if shot by a cannon, the massive fighter-bomber bounded up and away from the ground, accelerating smoothly. Snider knew that by the time it leveled off at ten thousand feet it would already be at Mach 1.

“Go, baby, go…,” Snider said under her breath.

There was a sonic boom as the jet broke the sound barrier. Then the pilot put the pedal down and Locust seemed to fade into a blur that was too fast for the eye to follow.

Snider heard the first gasps from the crowd and wondered how much of her budget it equaled. Probably 10 percent. But that was okay, because the rubes hadn’t seen anything yet.

The Locust rose high and did a wide, fast circle around a big chunk of the eight hundred thousand acres that comprised Dugway. The broad, flat expanse of the proving grounds was bordered on three sides by mountains that created a lovely backdrop for the test flight.

Snider lifted the walkie-talkie. “Captain Soames, give me a low, fast pass. Take their hats off, son.”

“Roger that.”

The Locust came out of its turn at the far edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, turned its blunt nose toward the bleachers that could not have been more than flyspecks to the pilot, and turned up the heat. The jet dropped low, scorching above the deck at one hundred feet, but punching through the still air at three times the speed of sound. It was far from the bird’s top speed, but this close to the stands it would be supernaturally fast to the spectators. Gasps turned to cries as the Locust ripped past at what appeared to be an impossible speed.

“Okay, Captain,” said Snider, “go high and go away.”

The jet rose and rolled and made an improbably tight turn. That was another of Shelton’s design breakthroughs — a combination of inertial dampeners and internal gears that allowed sections of the ship’s mass to pivot on gimbals in a way that sloughed off the stress. Snider had a masters in physics and it was voodoo to her, but damn if it didn’t work. In a high-speed pursuit, the Locust would be able to shake the tail and then whip around behind with the kind of dogfighting agility not seen since the days of the old P-51s in World War II. Agility was not considered possible for craft as big or as fast as the Locust.

Snider turned once more to the audience.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “we just scrambled four Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs to pursue the Locust. For those not familiar with the F-35s, they are single-engine, fifth-generation multirole fighters designed to perform ground attack, reconnaissance, and air-defense missions with stealth capability. In short, these birds are capable of stopping anything with wings and they’ll do it with style and an awesome grace.”

She paused, watching confusion and doubt play over the faces of the bean counters and politicians.

“We’ve asked the F-35 pilots to pursue the Locust and get a missile lock. Naturally no missiles will actually be fired. Everyone is carrying dummy warheads today anyway. Now … statistical probability gives the Locust a six percent survival rate in a four-to-one confrontation with the Raptors. Lieutenant McMasters will be happy to take your money if anyone wants to bet on the outcome.”

There were a few smiles. Not many.

Fine, you humorless fucks, thought Snider, maybe I should take a bet on how many of you shit your pants in the next five minutes.

She raised the walkie-talkie, switched the feed to the main speakers so everyone could hear, and said, “Ground to Lightning One. Go get ’em, boys.”

Suddenly a flight of dark gray jets came screaming over the mountain ridge like a swarm of monstrous wasps. Snider was taking a bit of a risk using four combat-ready craft that had a flyaway cost of nearly two hundred million each. But she needed a lot of money to put the Locust into mass production. The Air Force had sixty-eight of the F-35s, with contracts pending for ten more. Snider wanted to piss on that contract and see Shelton Aeronautics get the big money for the next ten years’ worth of stealth fighters. If the F-35s were generation five, Snider personally regarded the Locust as an evolutionary leap forward. Generation ten at least.

The four F-35s tore across the sky, then split into two pairs, with one group flying a direct intercept with the Locust — which was coming out of its long circle — and the other group rising to come above and around for a drop-and-kill.

The Locust flew straight toward the first group and Snider heard the murmurs begin in the stands. Maybe they thought that the Locust pilots were so busy trying to figure out how to fly their new plane or maybe they thought the pilots didn’t realize the exercise began, but Snider overheard several derisive comments. The gist was that the audience thought this was going to be a very short exercise and one that was, in its way, every bit as much of a disaster as what happened at Area 51.

The four F-35s closed in like the snapping jaws of a crocodile. So fast, so hard, so certain.

“Lightning One to Ground,” began the team leader, “I have a missile lock on—”

And the Locust vanished.

It was there one moment and then it was simply gone.

Everyone in the stands gasped. They all froze for a moment and then jumped to their feet. The F-35 pilots all began jabbering at once.

“Lightning One, do you have the target on your scope?”

“Lightning Three, who has eyes on—?”

And on like that. The four F-35s split apart, turning and rising to check the four quadrants of the sky. One of them circled low to drop almost to the deck, looking for the Locust on the desert floor.

It was not there.

Then a voice shouted out in alarm. “Lightning Three, who has a missile lock on me? Who has a damn missile lock on me?”

There was a burst of squelch and then another voice said, “Locust One to Lightning Three. You’re dead, baby.”

Far above, there was a shimmer and suddenly the Locust was there. It seemed to melt out of the sky, shedding the dark blue like a chameleon stepping off a leaf. The Locust shot past the F-35 and did a neat little roll. A “fuck you” roll, thought Snider.

Lightning Two and Four abruptly angled down, driving toward the Locust with a renewed pincer attack.

The audience yelled and pointed.

At nothing.

The Locust vanished again.

The F-35s burst through empty air and parted, rising up and away to try and find their target.

Then Lightning Four’s voice broke from the speakers. “Showing a missile lock. Goddamn it…”

The Locust blipped into view again, right on Lightning Four’s tail, six hundred yards back, lined up for an easy kill shot.

“Sweet dreams,” laughed the Locust pilot. Then he was gone again.

The crowd was yelling now. No, Snider realized, cheering.

Two F-35s in under two minutes. It was so beautiful it was horrifying. Even the bean counters were grinning like kids at a World Series game.

The two “destroyed” F-35s flew out of the test area, and Snider could swear she saw their wings droop with frustration and disappointment. These pilots were combat pros who had seen action in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. They were the kind of pilots who killed what they hunted and always came home without a dent in the fender. Now they would have to put this on their résumé. The only consolation was that these were the kinds of pilots who might be in the first full class of Locust pilots. They would want that. They would burn for that.

The remaining F-35s were watchdogging each other, changing formation, doubling back, making random turns to shake pursuit. This part of it would sell the maneuverability of the F-35 to even a hardened skeptic.

But then Lightning Two announced that there was a missile lock on him. It sounded like the words were being pulled out of his mouth with rusty pliers. The laughter of the Locust pilot did not soothe his feelings one little bit, and the Locust appeared again, momentarily switching off its chameleonic disguise. One moment it was invisible against the far mountains, the next moment it was there doing its cocky little victory roll, and then it was gone again.

“Son of a bitch,” said a voice and Snider saw that it was the senator who was the chairman of the arms appropriation committee. “Son of a goddamn bitch.”

Snider picked up the walkie-talkie. “Locust One, come out of the closet and go head to head.”

“Roger that, Ground.”

The Locust appeared again and in a part of the sky where it should not have been, clear evidence of its ability to turn and accelerate. The pilot of the last of the F-35s, Lightning One, growled something that sounded like, “You’re mine, asshole.” Everyone laughed.

The two jets were three miles apart and high above the desert, flying toward each other at incredible speeds. This would be over in seconds.

The crowd was cheering, stamping their feet, waving hands and shaking fists. The Locust screamed toward its prey.

And suddenly the sky was filled with fire.

The blast was silent for a moment and then the shock wave of an incredible BANG punched its way down out of the sky and slammed into Snider and all the spectators. They staggered, some fell. Snider stumbled backward and would have gone down had not the young lieutenant leaped forward to steady her. Then the two of them froze, staring upward at the fireball. Flaming pieces of metal fell slowly down toward the desert. There was one piece that did not look like debris. It looked like a person. A man. Burning as he fell.

The Locust was gone.

The F-35 peeled off and angled away from the burning cloud.

Snider snatched up the walkie-talkie and screamed into it. “Ground to Lightning One — what the fuck have you done? Who gave you permission to go weapons hot? My God!”

The pilot responded at once and his voice was clearly shaken. “Lightning One to Ground, that is a negative engagement. Weapons are off-line, repeat, weapons are off-line.”

“Then what the hell just—?”

“Ground, report hostile at eleven o’clock.”

“Identify, identify!”

“Hostile is … holy God…”

But now Snider could see the hostile. Everyone in the stands could see it.

The craft was larger than the fighters. Sleeker. Triangular.

There were no visible wings.

No visible markings. No windows. No rocket pods.

No one spoke. They stared. They pointed. They covered their gaping mouths.

For a long, terrible moment the hostile just sat there in the sky. Unmoving, gleaming like a drop of molten silver.

“Ground, permission to engage,” called Lightning One, “permission to engage.”

“Engage with what?” murmured Snider. The F-35s had flown with dummy missiles and unloaded guns. All to prevent any chance of a mistake.

The F-35 to flew as tight a circle as its design would allow, turning to meet this craft, determined, at least, to do a close flyby. Maybe catch some identifying marks. Maybe to …

To what? thought Snider.

Then the hostile moved. Not merely away from the jet that screamed toward it. The bogey rose straight up.

Straight.

Up.

Five miles above the sand, it changed direction without slowing and shot away toward the west. It moved so fast that the eye could not follow it.

All of this in front of eighty-one witnesses and twenty-six high-definition video cameras.

The last of the burning wreckage of the Locust crashed to the salty sand, sending up a dust plume that looked like a mushroom cloud.

“Colonel,” said the lieutenant in a child’s frightened voice, “what was that?”

Snider didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Everyone there at Dugway, in the stands, in the control booth, and even the pilot up in the F-35 knew what it was.

No one wanted to say it, though.

Because this was the U.S. military, and the U.S. military does not believe in flying saucers.

Chapter Forty-four

Mr. Bones and Howard Shelton sat side by side on the couch in one of the small salons in VanMeer Castle. One wall was dominated by a massive plasma screen on which was the feed from a discreet high-quality camera clipped to the lapel of the senator from the great state of Arizona. A man whose entire political career had been financed by Shelton money. A man who understood without reservation on which side his bread was buttered.

Right now they could hear that same man panting like a nervous dog on a stormy night, the gasps interspersed with small protestations and prayers.

Not that Bones or Howard were really paying attention to those cries. They were making almost identical sounds as they watched the flaming wreckage of the Locust bomber drop in improbably slow motion toward the unforgiving desert below.

Even that, even the wreckage did not dominate their minds.

All they could really see was the craft.

Or the empty sky where the craft had been.

The impossible, impossible craft.

Mr. Bones turned very slowly to Howard Shelton. He tried to say something, but words utterly failed him.

Interlude Three

The five of them met in a lovely little house on a quiet street. Green trees cast soft shadows during the hottest part of the day, and there were always songbirds hiding among the leaves. Children played on the lawns. They were well behaved, well dressed, and their games were innocent. Small feet kicking footballs, a make-up-the-rules-as-you-go version of cricket, adventures with ornate dolls.

Erasmus Tull saw all of this through the sheer curtains. Behind him, Tull heard the chink of ice on glass as his employer built another drink. His second since they’d arrived. Tull did not like that his employer drank while they were on a meet, though he had to admit, however reluctantly, that it had never seemed to interfere with the man’s ability to negotiate.

“Anything?” asked Howard Shelton.

Tull was about to say no when a white Land Rover turned the corner and drove slowly up the street.

“They’re here,” he said.

Behind him Howard knocked back the second Scotch, sighed and said, “Let the games begin.”

The driver parked the Land Rover outside and four men got out. The driver remained with the car — Tull evaluated him and discounted him as a significant threat. Two of the others were different. They were small but very fit young Nepalese men with clean-shaven faces and the erect postures and expressionless faces of former Gurkhas. Considering the buyer — a slippery man named Sheng — these two were probably from the Gurkha contingent based in Singapore. Tull’s appreciation for the buyer went up a notch. Gurkhas had a centuries-old reputation as fierce and efficient warriors who were also intensely loyal and disciplined. Although they would willingly die to protect anyone in their charge, they would also very likely pile up a hill of bodies on the way down.

The Gurkhas flanked a waddling fat man. Sheng. Half Chinese and half German, though his looks clearly favored his Asian side. His personality, however, favored that of head lice. This was the third time Howard had met with the man to barter goods for goods. The last two times Sheng had been accompanied by a pair of former Yakuza from some Japanese slum, but the grapevine said that last March one of Sheng’s buyers in Cambodia turned out to be with Interpol. Some creative mayhem ensued. Sheng escaped with his life, and everyone else managed to die. Now Sheng had an upgrade in personal protection.

At the soft knock, the governor sank into a chair and Tull answered the door.

One of the Gurkhas stood between Tull and Sheng, dark eyes suspicious and alert. He struggled with the English translation of the code phrase.

“We are looking for the home of Mr. Patel.”

Tull pulled the door wider. “Mr. Patel is on a call. Would you like to come in and wait?”

The Gurkha gave a single sharp nod and entered as Tull faded back, keeping his back casually to the wall. The Nepalese glanced around the room, then turned and said something very quick and rapid to Sheng in bad Cantonese.

Sheng beamed a great smile as he waddled into the room. “My friends,” he said in passable English. “So good to see you again.”

Howard did not stand to shake hands. No one offered to shake hands, not even Sheng. Nor did he bow. The smile was all the cordiality that this encounter was likely to have, and that was false.

“Feel free to make yourself a drink,” said the governor, waving a hand toward the wet bar. There was a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of gin, and a bottle of tonic standing next to a tray of cheap glasses and an open plastic bag of ice cubes. Everything was disposable. Howard wore latex gloves. Tull did not, but aside from the doorknob he hadn’t touched anything in the house, and he’d deliberately smeared his fingerprints on the knob. If, for some reason, he didn’t have the time to properly wipe the door, then the residual prints would be useless.

The six Styrofoam containers lined up on the coffee table would not take a fingerprint; and Tull had been careful not to touch the tape that sealed each container.

Sheng looked at them with interest. His Gurkha guards stood on either side of him, but well back, hands clasped lightly in front of their lower abdomens, feet wide apart. Tull noted that they kept their bodies tilted slightly forward so that their weight was balanced on the balls of their feet. The posture looked moderately casual, but these men were ready to spring into action. Tull approved of it.

“I see you have brought some presents,” said Sheng.

“As agreed,” said Howard.

“And … how many were you able to obtain?” asked Sheng, eyebrows arched, mouth smiling.

“There are three in each container,” said Howard. “Eighteen in all. And if we like what you’ve brought us, we’ll give you the key and location of a cold storage unit where you can find the other eighty.”

“So many! How wonderful. And the, um, provenance…?”

“They were donated.”

“By?”

“Local laborers who signed release forms and who were paid. Twenty-five hundred per.”

“That is a good price,” said Sheng. And Tull knew that he was doing the math. Eighteen kidneys from healthy donors at a per-unit cost of $2,500 meant an investment of a quarter million. Sold locally, the kidneys would bring in at least double that, probably triple. In certain places — Europe, for example — they would fetch as much as five times that amount. A broker as clever as Sheng would opt for the better market, which made a million and a quarter easy money for someone like him.

It would all be pure profit, Tull knew, because he knew for certain that Sheng did not pay a dime for the item he planned to trade for the organs. Sheng would barter with the devil himself, and probably come out at least even on the deal.

Sheng went over to the first of the Styrofoam containers, slit the tape with a thumbnail, opened it, waved aside the dry-ice vapors and studied the contents. Then he nodded to himself and closed the container.

“Where is this cold storage unit?” he asked, his voice very casual. Like someone asking the time of day.

Howard smiled. “Somewhere in India. We give you the location and the key once we see what you’ve brought us.”

Sheng’s smile momentarily flickered, and suddenly Tull understood the play, and why Sheng had brought the two Gurkhas with him. Sheng had no intention of making a swap. Or, at least he hoped he didn’t have to. Which brought up the ugly question of whether Sheng had brought the thing he promised.

“Do we have a deal?” asked the governor, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs.

Sheng licked his lips. “Of course, of course.”

Howard nodded, his smile as false as Sheng’s. “Then let’s see it. This is already taking too long. I’ve shown you mine, now you show me yours.”

For one fragile moment Tull thought Sheng was going to go for it. The man’s eyes flicked from the row of containers, to the door, then to the nearest of his guards. But, ultimately he gave a heavy sigh, as if having agreed to sell his virgin daughter into slavery, and barked out a command to the Gurkha closest to the door. The man nodded and opened his jacket.

That fast Tull had a gun in his hand and the barrel screwed into Sheng’s left temple.

“No,” he said.

The Gurkhas froze in postures of near-attack, their hands caught in motion toward their concealed weapons.

“No,” Tull said again. Very quietly.

Sheng hissed something at the Gurkha by the door. Tull didn’t know the language but whatever Sheng said it sounded vile. The Gurkha winced a little and colored.

In English, Sheng said, “Slowly and with care.”

The Gurkha nodded, bowed slightly to Tull, and used two fingers to very gingerly pull back the flap of his jacket. There, tucked into the waistband of his trousers back near his hip bone, was a small parcel wrapped in green silk. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly at Tull.

“Like the man said … slowly and with care.”

The Gurkha used two fingers of his other hand to remove the parcel. It was about the size of a paperback book, though narrower and a little longer. The green silk was bound with red cord.

“Put it on the chair,” said Tull, indicating an empty easy chair with an uptic of his chin. “Good. Now step back and stand by the door. Hands in plain sight.”

The man did as instructed and backed away.

Sheng said, “You are denting my head.”

He tried to make a joke of it, but his voice trembled too much.

“Sir?” said Tull, and Howard uncrossed his leg, leaned over and picked up the parcel. He weighed it in his hand.

“Feels light as balsa wood.”

“Better make sure it’s what we’re paying for.”

“It is,” insisted Sheng. “It is exactly what I promised to bring. I am not cheating you. No one here is cheating you. Please, let us all be calm about this.”

“Sure,” said Tull, though he didn’t move the gun away.

Howard unwrapped the parcel, peeling back the layers of silk with great care and delicacy. Inside was a second wrapper, this one of tissue paper, and Howard peeled that back as well, revealing a piece of metal that was nine inches long and four inches wide. The metal was a dull gray, flat, and unremarkable. The governor picked it up and turned it over in his hands, studying it from every angle and holding it up to the light to look for scratches or pits.

“It’s perfect,” he said, and his voice was now filled with wonder and passion. “God, Tull, it’s fucking flawless. Not a scratch on it.”

“It’s real?” asked Tull. “Not a phony?”

Howard removed a small device from his pocket, activated it with his thumbnail, and ran it along the side of the device. A tiny digital meter showed a series of colored lights that fluctuated for several seconds before turning all green.

“Oh, it’s real. Holy shit, Sheng.” He looked up and grinned at the broker. “Holy mother of shit. You weren’t lying. You delivered the goddamn goods.”

Sheng’s eyes kept darting nervously sideways toward the gun. “As promised,” he said, “Sheng delivers. Now … if you please…”

The governor began rewrapping the bar. “You got any more of this stuff? Tell me you can get me some more.”

“Alas, no,” said Sheng. “That is the only specimen to have come into my possession.”

“You’re sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“You can’t swing some deals and get me something else? This is only one component, there are others that—”

“I am quite familiar with these items, sir,” said Sheng. “And if you had approached me last spring we might have been able to do considerably more business. But those other items have moved on, and although the demand is very high, the market is quite threadbare.”

“Who bought the other pieces?” demanded Howard.

“Oh,” said Sheng, contriving to look pained, “as a businessman of some reputation I could not possibly tell you that.”

“My man still has a gun to your head. Doesn’t that put you in a mood to share?”

“I…”

Howard suddenly laughed. “Sorry, I’m just fucking with you. We know you sold one piece to North Korea and two to China.”

Sheng’s face went pale.

“It’s all cool,” said Howard. “It’s all about business.”

“Of course,” said Sheng. “Business is—”

Erasmus Tull shot him through the head.

The Gurkhas were shocked for one fraction of a second and then they moved. Tull shot the one by the door in the face. The second one managed to whip out his kukri knife and Tull had to danced backward to keep from losing his gun arm. As it was the deadly blade struck the pistol barrel with such force that the weapon was torn from Tull’s hand. It hit the carpet with a heavy thud as the Gurkha lunged at Tull.

Tull was unarmed against a Gurkha — one of the fiercest warrior classes in history. The man was a master of that blade and he came at Tull with blinding speed and terrible precision.

Erasmus Tull took the knife away from him and cut the Gurkha’s throat. He stepped aside to avoid the spray of blood.

The whole thing had taken less than four seconds.

Howard stood up and smoothed his trousers. He looked down at the three dead men and wrinkled his nose at the mingled smells of cordite and fresh copper. Gunpowder and blood.

“Messy,” he observed.

Tull shrugged. Howard carefully rewrapped the component. His eyes held an almost erotic glaze

“We made a good start,” said Tull as he began wiping every surface they may have touched. “We’re nearly halfway there.”

“Halfway is a long way from actually being there,” grumbled Howard. “The frigging Chinese are going to beat us to the finish line if we don’t put some topspin on this.”

“You think they’ll actually recover from the setback in ’seventy-six?” asked Tull. “They lost eight components in one day. Eight.”

“Sure, but now they have four and we only have five.” Howard hefted his precious bundle. “Halfway is nowhere at all. C’mon, let’s get the fuck out of here.”