Extinction Machine

Chapter Eighty-seven

Mr. Bones sat and listened in silence while Howard Shelton had a screaming match with Admiral Xiè, the head of the experimental aircraft division of the People’s Army. Bones sipped an unsweetened iced tea and listened with total fascination.

The call had started with at least a show of civility. Compliments and respectful acknowledgments. All right and proper, all total horse shit.

Once that was out of the way — and once Howard was convinced that Admiral Xiè was alone — Howard became much more direct.

“I trust your spies have been keeping you up to date on certain events around the world?”

“There have been some reports,” agreed Admiral Xiè.

“Like the unfortunate incident in the Taiwan Strait?”

“Like that, yes.”

“What about Dugway? Did you hear about that, too?”

Admiral Xiè was quiet. “Why would you ask me about that?”

“Why do you think I’d ask you?” replied Howard.

“I do not know, Mr. Shelton. There is a tone in your voice, or is it a quality of a bad connection?”

“Seriously, Admiral? You want to play these kinds of games? Are you going to tell me that you don’t know a single thing about what happened at Dugway this afternoon?”

“I—”

“And I suppose you don’t know anything about the sightings of a black triangular craft seen buzzing through the skies near Changxing? Right where a certain testing facility is rumored to be located.”

Admiral Xiè said, “What can I tell you, Mr. Shelton? What is it you would like to hear?”

“I would like to hear that you aren’t invading U.S. fucking airspace and shooting down U.S. fucking stealth jets is what I’d like to fucking hear.”

“Are you deranged?” demanded Admiral Xiè. “Running test flights on a prototype craft is one thing, but do you think everyone here has taken total leave of their senses?”

“Don’t you goddamn lie to me, Xiè. We had a deal and—”

“And I kept my part of that deal,” the admiral fired back. “It is you who cannot be trusted to leave your toys in the toy box rather than succumb to the childish desire to play with them.”

The conversation went downhill from there. Mr. Bones spoke good enough Mandarin to appreciate the vulgar acts Admiral Xiè said were common among the female members of the Shelton family. He also liked Howard’s replies, which, though not as flowery, hit home just as solidly. He knew for certain that had the two men been in the same room they would be wrestling on the floor, kneeing crotches, spitting in eyes, and probably biting.

Somewhere in the middle of the shouting match, though, there was a bit of a sea change and it took Mr. Bones a couple of minutes to figure it out. The tenor of the conversation shifted from a straight-up mutual defamation competition to something resembling unqualified attack and unflinching defense.

That was very troubling. What he expected to happen — what Howard had predicted would happen — was that the admiral would reach a point where denial was no longer useful, convenient, or fun and then he’d go on the attack. He’d throw the truth in Howard’s face and make him eat it uncooked.

So … why wasn’t that happening?

Chapter Eighty-eight

I found Junie and Ghost where I’d left them, and I popped a flare for the Echo Team chopper to pick us up. If there were any Closers left in the forest, they steered clear.

Bunny and Lydia and Pete pulled us into the Black Hawk and we dusted off immediately. Everybody wanted to do a lot of back-slapping, but I growled for some damn quiet so I could yell at the pilot.

“Get us the hell out of range of this damn jammer. Pedal to the metal.”

The chopper rose high and turned to the southwest. Ivan and Sam were crouched down behind the two miniguns, the barrels depressed toward the forest.

Nothing and no one shot at us.

We thought we’d come through the fire.

Then we passed out of the jam zone.

I called the Warehouse. And got nothing.

I tapped over to Bug’s channel.

He was there.

He was crying.

He told me why.

Everyone was on the team channel. They all heard it.

It punched the air out of my lungs. The interior of the helo began spinning as if we were trapped in the heart of a cyclone.

“What?” I whispered. “What?”

A big sob broke in Bug’s chest. This was killing him.

“Bug … what about Rudy? What about Church?”

“Oh, Jesus, Joe,” he said, his voice breaking with pain, “I don’t know. The whole area around the Warehouse is gone…”

I spoke to Aunt Sallie, to Dr. Hu. I spoke to several other DMS officials. There was a scramble to get the staff out of every field office. Bomb squads were searching the buildings, inside and out.

No one knew anything.

There was no word about Church and Rudy, or about anyone else who had been at the Warehouse.

Auntie went over everything. Stuff I knew about, stuff I didn’t want to hear. It was all bad. The events at Dugway. The Chinese pilot who got shot down trying to make a suicide run at a carrier in the Taiwan Strait. And the thing that had appeared in both places. A massive, triangular craft that destroyed the Locust and shot down the Chinese fighter and then vanished at impossible speeds. She told me about sightings of UFOs all over the country. All over the world.

And she told me about the warrant out for my arrest on charges that I was a terrorist.

When I told her that I had Junie Flynn and that she was, for all intents and purposes, a living version of the Majestic Black Book, all Aunt Sallie said was, “Okay.”

She ordered me to go to a safe house. I told her that I had one in mind and explained where it was. Then I hung up and went back into the main cabin. We clustered around the computer in the back and listened to the news. Dozens of buildings were on fire, hundreds of people injured. The number of known dead was forty, but the newscasters couldn’t have known that the entire staff of the Warehouse had been called into work. All of them. Two hundred people.

Gone now.

I felt totally numb.

I looked at Junie, who was huddled in a seat, hugging Ghost to her chest. I looked at the shocked faces and horrified eyes of Top and Bunny and the others.

None of us spoke.

None of us could.

Chapter Eighty-nine

What do you do when your world is turned upside down?

How do you react when suddenly fate in the form of some madman’s will takes a crude scalpel and carves a hole in the skin of your world? What mechanism is there in us that prepares for the moment when dozens of people you know — friends, colleagues, employees, associates — are simply edited out of your day-to-day existence?

We shriek at the sky, demanding how this could happen. Needing to know why it had happened. What was the point?

What did it serve?

Where will it end?

These are unanswerable questions of course. After 9/11, after Haiti and the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan, after hurricanes and tornados, after wars and terrorist bombings, there are millions who have looked up to the sky or inward into personal darkness and demanded those answers. And they, too, were left bereft, adrift, unanswered and afraid.

Junie Flynn came and sat next to me. She took my hand and held it. In many ways she was still a stranger to me, and she knew none of the people at the Warehouse, but her touch was warm and alive. When you are sinking you grab any rope that’s offered. Ghost came and snuggled against me, catching the mood aboard the helicopter, whimpering softly, needing reassurance, giving comfort in closeness and with simplicity.

The pilot asked, “Where, Captain?”

I told him. My uncle Jack had a farm near Robinwood, right on the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. I called ahead, told my uncle we were coming. Told him to pack a bag and go visit his daughter in Wildwood, New Jersey. I told him it was a matter of national security. Jack Ledger is a good guy, a retired career cop. I never told him what I do for a living but his brother, my dad, has probably hinted. All he asked me was, “Are you okay, Joey?”

“I’m okay,” I lied.

Maybe the biggest lie I ever told.

Rudy Sanchez was my best friend. He was the only person who knew me. The only one who understood the mysteries of my fractured mind. He was closer to me than my brother, Sean.

I had brought him into the DMS. That meant that, however indirectly, I got that good man killed.

And Church?

Church was the ultimate good guy. He was as close to an actual superhero as this world is ever likely to have. A legendary warrior in a very old and very dirty game. Infinitely dangerous, incredibly smart and wise. If he was dead, then the bad guys had managed to score one of the biggest wins in a long time. Maybe the biggest in my lifetime.

I had nowhere to put all this in my head.

It wasn’t made to fit.

We flew on.

The “farm” was that in name only. Once upon a time it had been a dairy farm, but Jack wanted to be a cop like his brother. He and my dad sold half of the thousand acres, split the money, and my dad bought a big house in Baltimore. Jack rented out the farm while he worked as a cop in Hagerstown, and then once he had his twenty-five in, he gave it up and settled down to paint landscapes. He was very much a loner — just him and his dogs, Spartacus and Leonidas.

I sent the address via encoded text to Aunt Sallie and requested information and any tactical support that could be managed.

She texted back this message: “K”

By the time the Black Hawk reached the farm, Jack was long gone.

Where once there had been miles of grasslands for the cattle, now there was a forest of young pines and hardwoods. Beautiful, serene, and excellent cover.

We touched down behind the barn.

Bunny oversaw the removal of all our gear. Junie went into the house with Ghost. Top and I sat down on the porch while I called Aunt Sallie for an update.

“Do we know if anyone got out?” I asked.

“We’re still waiting on word,” she said. Auntie was an abrasive woman, given to barbed jokes and sarcasm, but not today. Her voice was as subdued as a nun’s. I had the irrational desire to give her a big comforting hug.

“Nothing from Church?”

“Nothing.”

I reminded her that Junie Flynn had the entire Black Book in her head, so in a way we had possession of it.

“We need to broadcast this on the frequency they gave us in the videos. We have to let them know that they can stop the countdown.”

“What’s your plan, Ledger? To hand over the woman?”

“Well, no … maybe they only need information from the book and…”

It sounded lame. It was lame. Auntie mumbled something about giving it a try, but we knew that this wasn’t going to save the East Coast. Whoever took the president surely wanted the actual Black Book. Which we did not have and were no closer to having than we were this morning. Maybe less so. Without Church, without my whole staff at the Warehouse. Maybe we were nowhere at all.

Auntie ended the call quickly.

Top parked a haunch on the porch rail. “How are you doing?”

I started to snarl at him, to tell him what an incredibly stupid question that was, and then I caught the look on his face. Not a noncom’s look. Not a fellow soldier’s look. It was a father’s look. Grave, aware, composed.

I closed my eyes, exhaling a big lungful of air, feeling the aches in muscle and soul, feeling the weariness that was burning like a plague through my body.

“I don’t know how I feel, Top,” I said after a while. “If Rudy was there … then I lost the best friend I ever had. And everyone at the Warehouse. I — can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I can see that.”

Again I almost barked at him, but he shook his head.

“If this was the regular army, Cap’n,” he said, “you’d be able to tell me to shut the fuck up. If we were just friends, you could do that. But this is the DMS and I’m your topkick and we’re at war. We don’t get to be like regular folks. We waived that right when we joined.”

I looked at him.

“You’re in shock,” he said. “You came straight out of a combat situation into a deep personal loss. You barely said two words on the flight here. You never introduced Miss Flynn to anyone, and most of the time you sat and stared into the middle distance.”

“I lost friends down there, damn it.”

Top got up, pulled a chair over, and sat down in front of me.

“Yeah, you lost friends down there. So did I. So did Bunny and Lydia. Even the new guys had friends down there. The pilot, Jerry, he had friends down there. But here’s the news, Cap’n, you don’t own the pink slip on grief. We’re all in this together. We’re all in it right now. You know what everyone else was doing while we were flying over here? They were watching you. They were looking to you. You are the captain. You are the leader of the team, and more than that, you are the DMS for them. Mr. Church might be dead and gone. Rudy, too, and Gus and a lot of other people who were higher on the ladder than this bunch of shooters. So, they look to you.” Top gave a soft snort, almost a sigh. “The bad news is that you don’t get the luxury of falling apart and you don’t get to let this kick your ass. Those soldiers in there have probably never been more scared than they are right now. They need to see you nut up and stand up and yell ‘fuck you’ to the gods of war.”

I stared at him.

“’Cause the war isn’t over,” he said, then he stood up and walked away.

Chapter Ninety

Before I went inside, I used my cell to make a call. I reached Gunnery Sergeant Brick Anderson at the Shop.

“Cap Ledger!” he cried. “Sweet Jesus I thought you were dead. Holy mother of—”

“Listen, Brick, we don’t have much time,” I cut in. “First, have you heard from anyone who was at the Warehouse?”

“Gus Dietrich called me a couple minutes before the place blew, said that Dr. Sanchez and the big man were on their way over — but they never got here.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, but didn’t interrupt.

“Gus sent over all the updated files, though,” said Brick. “There’s stuff coded for you. Want me to send it?”

“Yes,” I growled. “And right goddamn now. I’m running blind here.”

“Sending it now. What else can I do?”

“I need Black Bess and at least one other vehicle. I need them loaded with everything you can squeeze in, including a MindReader substation. And I need all of it right now. I’m about an hour and a half from you, up in Robinwood.”

I gave him the address.

“Give me ten minutes and then we’re on the road.” Brick Anderson was a good man who’d lost a leg in combat.

“Brick, this is getting messy out here, so you don’t have to bring it yourself.”

He hung up on me.

I put the cell back into my pocket and went inside.

They were all in the kitchen, seated around the big table. There was a lot of food on the table but it didn’t look like anyone was eating. Junie stood apart, leaning against the counter near a Mr. Coffee that was brewing a fresh pot. No one was looking at anybody, except Top and Junie, who were both looking at me.

“Coffee will be ready soon,” she said, then she cleared her throat. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay, but I have to talk to my team. Then they’re going to need to hear what you have to say.”

She nodded and pulled a stool over next to the counter and sat on it. Top turned a chair backward and sat down at the far end of the table. I stood by the door.

“We haven’t lost,” I said.

It took a moment, and one by one they glanced up at me.

“It feels like it. It feels like we got our asses kicked. We lost Hector, Red, and Slick, and that was bad. That would have been the worst day of the week for us. I wish I could say that it would have been the worst day this month, but that wasn’t true even before the bomb.”

No nods, but they were looking at me.

“We don’t know who we’re at war with. Not exactly. Maybe it’s Majestic Three. Maybe it’s someone else. Or maybe we’re caught in the middle of something. But no matter how it swings, we’re at war.”

A few nods.

“People die in war. Sucks to say it, sucks worse to mean it, but people die. Friends die. Family dies. And what really sucks is that this is worse than we think.”

Bunny looked up at that. “Worse?” he asked. “Excuse me, boss, but how the fuck can it be worse?”

I told them about Dugway and the dogfight in the Taiwan Strait.

It was Junie who broke the silence. “Wait — Joe, tell me that part again. About what the craft looked like.”

I described it exactly as Aunt Sallie had described it to me.

“A black triangle,” she said, nodding. Then for the benefit of the others she explained, “They call it a T-craft. Most of the really reliable UFO sightings don’t describe a flying saucer — what they see is a T-craft just like this. That’s the kind of craft M3 and groups in other countries have been scavenging. When President Truman initiated the Majestic Program, that’s the kind of ship he wanted them to either repair or make. The T-craft is powered by a special engine, either one made from original parts or a facsimile — a Truman Engine.”

“What are you saying, miss?” asked Sam Imura. “Are these ships aliens? Or are they ships we’ve built?”

“I don’t know. If they’re alien, then it would be the first time they’ve ever attacked us. If this is something we built — the U.S. or another world power — then it will change everything. War, the arms race … all of that is going to change.”

“Why?” asked Lydia.

“You’re soldiers,” said Junie, “so let me put it in terms you’d understand — having a working T-craft is the equivalent of bringing a nuclear bomb to a knife fight.”

“Bullshit. How the fuck would you know?” Lydia’s tone was so sharp that Junie jumped.

But Top snapped his fingers as loud as a gunshot. “Secure that shit, Warbride,” he snapped. “This lady is a civilian advisor and you will treat her with respect.”

“Yes, First Sergeant,” barked Lydia, straightening in her chair. To Junie, she said, “Please excuse my tone, ma’am.”

Junie shook her head. “No, it’s okay. I understand. To you people I’m a nonmilitary UFO freak and probably a severe pain in the ass. I get that, and I’m sorry. But Joe and your Mr. Church reached out to me because I understand this stuff. I know about the T-craft and Majestic Three and the secret arms race that’s been going on since 1947. And I want to help.”

Lydia and the others studied her and then one by one their eyes turned toward me.

I placed my cell phone down on the table. “None of us knows exactly what the fuck is going on. But here’s a news flash — each of us knows something the others don’t, and Brick Anderson just sent me the case notes from Mr. Church. This is everything that Church and our friends at the Warehouse had been able to put together, right up until they died. This is our field intel. This is what we have to go on. That — and what’s inside Junie Flynn’s head. As of now she is an official liaison to this team and will be afforded every courtesy and access. You think she’s an outsider? Think again. These motherfuckers murdered her parents to try and bury this information. That buys her a ticket to our club. That means everyone here has lost a friend or loved one.” I leaned on the table. “Does that make you mad? Does that make you want to go out and cut some heads? Good — it damn well ought to. It damn well better. But first we need a name. We need to put somebody in the crosshairs. It’s up to us or no one. We go through this material. Everyone works it. Everyone has a voice. I want to hear every theory, every possibility. And once we know who set off that bomb at the Warehouse, then we are going to go after them and show them what hell is really like. Do you hear me?”

Their eyes bored into mine. I saw rage and resentment, anger and bloodlust.

“Hooah,” they snarled.

Lydia stood up, grabbed Junie by the sleeve and pulled her — firmly but gently — over to the table. “If you’re one of us then you’re one of us,” she said.

I saw Top silently mouth the word, Hooah.

Chapter Ninety-one

Acting president William Collins slammed the door of the Oval Office and wheeled around to glare at Mark Eppenfeld, the attorney general.

“Where do we stand with Ledger and the DMS?”

Eppenfeld stared at him, appalled. “Mr. President … surely this matter can wait until a more appropriate time. The DMS is clearly under attack. America itself appears to be under attack. Between Dugway, the cyber-terrorism, and this terrible, terrible incident in Baltimore…”

“That’s why we need to jump on it. How much more proof do we need that Ledger has gone rogue and is waging a terror campaign against this nation? As soon as we try to execute a warrant to gain access to his office the whole place blows up. Do you want to stand there and tell me that he didn’t rig it to blow if somebody started looking too close?”

“That’s supposition, Mr. President, and I don’t think it’s the next natural link in the chain of logic.”

“And I’m saying it is,” replied the president very sternly. “How many times do I have to say that Ledger is an enemy of the state?”

“Mr. President, the money and stock certificates found at Captain Ledger’s apartment are clean. No fingerprints.”

“So?”

“Does something need to have leaves and sap before we call it a plant?”

The president sneered at him. “Don’t try to get cute, Mark. And let me caution you … some people might find your constant defense of a known terrorist like Joe Ledger to be a matter of some concern.”

Eppenfeld straightened. “Mr. President … are you threatening me? May I remind you that until you relieve me of this office or I choose to resign, I am the attorney general of the United States. Threats made against me are—”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Mark, get off your high horse,” Collins said quickly. “I’m trying to help you make the right choice here.”

Eppenfeld’s face was a stone. “And what, sir, is the right choice in this matter?”

“The right choice is to prevent this thing from escalating. As long as Joe Ledger — or anyone working with him — has access to MindReader then he will continue to pose a grave threat to national security.”

“I already informed you, Mr. President, that we do not have just cause to confiscate that computer system as it is the personal property of Mr. Church. As his body has not been identified we cannot confirm that he is among the victims of the explosion, and therefore his property rights are in force.”

“No, Mark, you misunderstand me … I’m not saying we should go after the computer. If we can’t touch it, then nobody should be able to touch it. I’m saying that we need to shut the Department of Military Sciences down. Shut it all down, and shut it down right now.” He leaned forward and smiled, then opened a blue folder on his desk. Inside was a document written on official stationery. “Every field office is on property owned outright or leased by the United States. In the interests of national security I am issuing an executive order for that purpose, effective immediately.”

He handed the document to Eppenfeld, who read it through. The AG’s shoulders slowly sagged.

“The DMS is finished, Mark,” said the president. “Done.”

Chapter Ninety-two

The October sun was a memory and darkness rose up, immense and absolute. The lingering summer heat vanished, leaving a cold mist that filled the hollows and valleys of northern Maryland.

We downloaded the case files to the laptop and began going through them. Junie sat at the other end of the table, between Top and Lydia, but she kept darting covert glances my way. I only caught them with my peripheral vision and by the time I looked up each time, she’d already looked away or bent over the material again. I wasn’t sure what kind of message she was trying to send me.

One of the first things I found were Rudy Sanchez’s notes from a series of phone calls he’d made to friends of Mr. Church — and friends of their friends. A lot of it confirmed things that Junie had already told me. T-craft. Alien-human hybrids. The Majestic Project. M3. And a long list of suspected members of that mysterious group. I took special note of the names that kept coming up most often. Then I looked at the reports on the cyber-attacks.

“Time to put all of our cards on the table and play twenty questions so we can all see what we know,” I said. “Let’s start with this: Do we believe this or not? Are we, a group of rational adults and trained special operators, going to sit here and say yes, we believe in aliens, and crashed UFOs, and all of it? Show of hands.”

I waited. Junie chewed her lip.

The first hand that went up was the one I thought would be last.

Top.

Everyone looked at him, startled. Top was a hard sell on a lot of edgy issues, and a lot of the times his doubt proved to be a steadying and sobering reality check.

Top said, “I’m not saying I buy all of it. Lot of it seems like science-fiction bullshit to me, but … there’s a sense to it. These cocksuckers are throwing a lot of assets at us to keep us out of this, and all of that started as soon as we started looking for the Black Book. If the book is some made-up shit, then why bring down all this heat?”

It was a soldier’s response, an operator’s response.

Pete Dobbs nodded. “I’ve pretty much been on board since I heard about the president. I know some guys in the Secret Service and they keep their shit tight. And we all talked about it some,” he said, indicating the rest of Echo. “We came up with four or five good ways to snatch the president, but none of them would leave zero traces.”

“Plus there’s that crop circle thing,” said Ivan, nodding. “That’s some freaky shit right there. No way you’re going to tell me that a couple of jerkoffs with flat boards and string faked that thing on the White House lawn right when the Secret Service was crashing the building. So … count me in.”

The next hand to go up was Sam Imura’s. “Not a big believer in anything up there or out there,” he said. “But … somebody’s building flying saucers.” He cut a look at Junie. “Sorry, T-craft. If it’s us, then we’ve suddenly gotten a lot smarter. Those things are way past anything we have that I’ve ever seen, and one of the upsides to working for Mr. Church is you get to see next year’s stuff this year. I don’t know what year that stuff belongs to.”

He’d used Mr. Church’s name so casually, and it chilled the air in the kitchen.

“The big man always loved having the best toys,” said Bunny softly. “Damn, I still can’t believe—”

Lydia suddenly turned in her seat and punched him in the chest.

“Hey!” she snapped. “We’re on a mission clock, pendejo. Go to the funeral later.”

He blinked at her in surprise, then his eyes hardened and he nodded. “Yeah, shit, sorry.”

“Where do you stand, Staff Sergeant?” I asked.

“I’m with the team on this, boss,” said Bunny. “If this is aliens and stuff, then it’s aliens and stuff.”

Everyone else agreed.

“Does any of this answer the question of who took the president? Is that M3? Is it the Chinese or the Russians? Or is it the aliens?”

Top, Junie, and I all said it at the same time: “Aliens.”

“Okay,” said Pete, “but why?”

“I think that’s pretty obvious,” said Top.

Junie and I nodded.

The others looked perplexed.

“If these aliens are here,” Top said, “then you got to ask yourself why they didn’t scavenge their own stuff. If these D-type components are so damned valuable and dangerous, then it seems foolish to let ’em lie around where we can pick ’em up. Maybe that’s the point. Not to belittle the human race, but there’s also the possibility that we’re part of a controlled experiment. Give the monkeys a bunch of Legos and see what happens. Maybe for most of the last sixty years we’ve been shoving those Legos up our asses, but now we’re building a set of stairs that we can use to climb out of our cage. We might have crossed that line from ‘oh, isn’t it cute that the humans are flying those quaint little airplanes’ to ‘holy fuck, they’re actually building T-craft.’”

“Or maybe they left that stuff there as an alarm,” said Junie. “As long as we play with the toys then they know we’re no threat. But now we’re figured out how their science works. Maybe that’s what triggered the response.”

I nodded again. “Might even be as simple as the aliens not knowing who was doing this research. They’re high tech, but that doesn’t mean they can see through walls. On a planet this big — and with the kind of communication gaps there have to be between them and us — maybe they needed us to step out of the shadows and announce ourselves.”

“Like flying a T-craft?” asked Bunny.

“Like flying one — and doing shit like trying to provoke a war in the Taiwan Strait and shooting down stealth aircraft. That looks the same from every angle: Someone has built a T-craft and is trying to use it to start a war. That might be the kind of alarm that might make them take steps. Like nabbing the president, like threatening big-ticket destruction. And maybe worse.” I looked around. “I think maybe the aliens have decided that they want their toys back.”

Chapter Ninety-three

Headlights flashed through the windows and suddenly everyone was instantly on their feet, weapons in hand. Ghost ran growling to the door.

“Ivan,” I said, “take Junie into the basement. Stay there until you hear one of us tell you it’s safe to come out. Everyone else, on the team channel.”

Junie did not argue. She nodded and let Ivan escort her through the cellar door, however she paused in the doorway and gave me a brief, encouraging, radiant smile.

I smiled back, but as I turned away Top was right there. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to.

“Head’s in the game,” I said quietly.

He said, “Hooah,” just as quietly.

We darkened the lights. Pete and Lydia took up shooters’ positions inside the living room and Sam ran upstairs with his sniper rifle. Top faded back and vanished through the back door. Bunny walked out onto the porch with me, weapons low and out of sight. Just a couple of farm guys coming out to see who was being neighborly. Ghost sat in the shadows behind one of the chairs, invisible and totally alert.

There were three vehicles coming along the road, but I couldn’t see anything past the headlights. Two of them were trucks, but I couldn’t tell much through the glare. As the lead truck reached the entrance to the big turnaround in front of the house, the driver flashed his brights at me. Once, twice, three times. Then the truck turned and I saw what it was.

I heard Bunny say, “Well kiss my ass.”

He was grinning as he stood up.

The lead vehicle was a big, white Mister Softee truck, but I knew that it wasn’t here to sell ice cream to kids. I caught a glimpse of the massive form behind the wheel. The second vehicle was a Ford Explorer — not mine, which would have been destroyed along with everything else at the Warehouse — but one very much like it. There were several figures behind the smoked glass.

When Bunny saw the third vehicle, he nodded and said, “Fuck yeah.”

It was Echo Team’s tactical vehicle, Black Bess.

The door to the Mister Softee truck opened and I saw a mechanical leg step out first. Sleek and alien-looking, but it was definitely local manufacture. It was attached to the formidable figure of Gunnery Sergeant Brick Anderson. Brick looked like the actor Ving Rhames, except for the metal leg and a network of shrapnel scars on his face.

The man who stepped out of Black Bess was Brian Bird — Birddog to everyone. Also tall, but not as overwhelmingly massive as Brick. Few people are. Some rhinos, maybe.

“Oh look, Gunny,” said Birddog, “I believe that’s Captain Ledger, a wanted felon.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” agreed Brick. “We should make sure we lock these here vehicles because we wouldn’t want dangerous firearms and high explosives to fall into the hands of such an enemy of decent society.”

“You two,” I said, “are invited to kiss my ass.”

I reached up to tap my earbud to tell everyone to stand down, then the doors of the Explorer opened. The driver was a man I didn’t know, and he was dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black tie.

The man who stepped out of the passenger side of the vehicle. Yeah, I knew him.

He was big and blocky, with bandages on his face and one arm strapped to his body.

Ghost leaped to his feet and began barking.

In my earbud I heard Top gasp. Bunny said, “Jesus Christ.”

The big man looked up at the house. He could not see my shooters at every window, but he had to know they were there.

“Good evening, Captain Ledger,” said Mr. Church. “I’m delighted to see that you’re safe and sound.”

I rushed down off the porch, delighted to see him alive, but with every step I became more intensely worried about the fact that there was no sign at all of Rudy.

Church waited for me. He looked awful. Covered in cuts and scrapes, stitches and bandages. Pain and loss aged him. As I slowed to a walk, he caught my eye, saw me looking past him.

“Dr. Sanchez is alive,” he said.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Alive.

“How is he?” I demanded. “Where is he?”

“The Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins.”

“What?”

“We were in a helicopter about fifty feet above the building at the time of the explosion. The pilot lost control of the bird and we went into the bay. The pilot was killed, as were two of the crewmen. Dr. Sanchez was unconscious when we made it to shore. Shrapnel from the blast and structural debris on impact with the water. He sustained some head trauma and a deep laceration across his face. The doctors are optimistic they can save his left eye. The right … well…” Church shook his head.

“God.”

“He has some fractures, cuts, and burns, of course, but they’re secondary.”

I felt stunned. It was like being kicked in the face. On one hand I was overjoyed that Rudy was still alive; but then to hear about him being so savagely injured.

“Will he live?”

“I believe so. It’s too soon to evaluate brain function.”

I closed my eyes.

Church pitched his voice to a confidential one. “I … have not contacted Circe yet. However, Aunt Sallie has agents en route to pick her up and bring her to Johns Hopkins.”

“Did anyone else get out?”

“No. The estimated body count is one hundred and sixty-nine DMS personnel. Seven of the eight FBI agents who came to serve a warrant on you, Captain. Two NSA agents who were with them. Sixteen civilians from the surrounding buildings.”

“Gus?” asked Top.

Church’s face was wooden. “No.”

“Ah, jeez…”

Gus Dietrich had been with Church for years. He was the big man’s personal assistant, bodyguard, aide, and friend. A good friend of mine, too.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Gus was a good man.”

Church’s eyes were black metal orbs. “Gus was family.”

“Yes.”

“They were all family.”

“Yes.”

“And we are going to hunt down the people responsible for this,” he said softly. “We will hunt every last one of them down and we will kill them.”

Chapter Ninety-four

We gathered in my uncle’s den. Echo Team, Junie, Ghost, and Church. Brick and Birddog stood like tall bookends at either side of the fireplace. Church sat very straight and very carefully in an overstuffed chair. I later learned that he had two broken fingers, a separated shoulder, dozens of small cuts and over forty stitches. The bandage wrapped around his forehead hid a deep gash made by the same piece of broken metal that had nearly blinded Rudy. His tinted sunglasses were gone and I got my first real look at his eyes. They were so dark a brown that they looked black, and there was no mercy at all in them. He had to be in tremendous pain, but he endured it with grim stoicism.

“What about Mr. Bug?” asked Junie. “And the other man who was on the video conference. Dr. Hu?”

“They’re in New York,” said Church. “I’ve ordered all field offices evacuated. Staff has been moved to secondary locations while bomb teams are doing thorough inspections.”

“Why didn’t Auntie or Bug tell me you and Rudy were alive?” I asked.

“For the same reason I did not call ahead to tell you I was on my way. Given the timing with everything that’s happened today, I think it’s a safe bet that one or more of the DMS communication channels has been hacked. The very fact that a team was sent after you quickly enough to have arrived within a half an hour of you reaching the lighthouse makes that much clearer. The DMS is radio silent for now. I had Birddog bring one of the new prototype mike systems for you. You’ll swap that for your old stuff.”

Birddog used the toe of his boot to tap the equipment case on the floor. “Got you covered,” boss.

“What about the bomb?” asked Lydia. “What kind of explosive did they use?”

“Unknown. Detective Spencer and his team are coordinating with state and federal investigators to answer that question. There is a curious lack of residue. No nitrites, no radiation. No chemical signature of any kind that they have so far been able to detect. It may be that this is a new form of explosive.”

Church told us what happened. His voice was flat, dispassionate.

“Sir,” began Bunny, “do we know anything of substance?”

That question ignited a spark in Church’s eye. A small, cold flame. “We do not yet know who ordered the hit, though I suspect we are close to a name,” he said, “but we know who set off that bomb.”

Everyone came to point, eyes narrowing, mouths drawing tight into feral lines of undisguised hate.

“Who?” I said in a fierce whisper.

“He used to be a field agent,” said Church. “One of mine. One of the very best. He was already highly trained when I recruited him into a group I was running prior to the formation of the DMS. We brought him to a higher level of skill, but that statement doesn’t do him justice. He quickly became the go-to operator for any operation that required unparalleled combat and technical skills. Had things gone another way I have no doubt that he would have become a senior team leader. I would almost certainly have given him leadership of Echo Team during the seif al din matter … but he was gone by then.”

“What happened?”

“You cannot serve two masters,” said Church. “I think it’s safe to say that he was steered in my direction with the goal of my providing him with more advanced training than his true masters had been able to provide. It’s likely that he became a trainer himself.”

“Let me guess,” I said, “the Closers?”

“It would be my guess. Tull called me directly before triggering the bomb and—”

“Wait,” interrupted Junie. “What did you say? What was his name?”

“Tull,” said Church. “His name is Erasmus Tull.”

Junie made a sound. It was almost a gasp, but there was more to it than that. It was as if everything she was suddenly tried to jerk backward out of the moment. Everyone turned to her. Junie’s face was as white as paste. Her eyes were wide disks filled with an impossible amount of naked fear.

“Tull…,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”

She slid out of her chair and thumped to the floor, half unconscious from shock. I was up and across the room in a shot. I knelt beside her and took her by the shoulders.

It took effort. It cost her in ways I couldn’t immediately understand. She raised her face and looked at me, then at the others in the room, and finally at Rudy and Church. Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes and then broke, rolling down her cheeks.

“He’s my older brother,” she whispered.

Chapter Ninety-five

Howard Shelton grinned like a happy uncle and held his arms wide as Erasmus Tull came through the door. There was a lot of laugher and back-slapping. Aldo drifted along in Tull’s wake, and Mr. Bones stood politely to one side.

“My boy,” Howard kept saying. “Well done, my boy.”

Then Howard turned and offered his hand to Aldo.

“And well done to you to, Mr. Castelletti. Fine work.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Aldo, a bit awed. He had met Howard Shelton once before, but the man intimidated the hell out of him. It was like meeting Donald Trump. “It was Tully’s call. I was there to tote barges and lift bales.”

“Aldo pulled his own weight,” said Tull generously. “Don’t let him tell you different.”

“It’s a shame that the teams sent to retrieve Junie Flynn and dispose of Captain Ledger were less successful.”

“‘Less successful’?” snorted Mr. Bones. “Ledger damn near wiped them out.” He cocked his head at Tull. “You trained that team, I believe.”

Tull gave him a long, unsmiling look. “What about it?”

“This must come as a crushing blow. The fruits of your labors being so easily stepped on. What was the total body count? Seventeen men and two helicopters? Only three survivors?”

“If you have a point, Mr. Bones, go ahead and make it,” said Tull.

“All right, all right,” growled Howard, “everybody stop pissing on each other and put your dicks away. Who gives a damn if Ledger is alive? The point was to keep the DMS occupied and on the run until we were ready to make our move. Done that, Mr. Bones, wouldn’t you say?”

Bones said nothing, but he wore a totally false smile.

“The DMS isn’t a factor now. It’s going to take them weeks or months to recover from losing the Deacon. We have a new set of challenges facing us.”

The other three men turned to face him.

“What challenges?” asked Tull. “The air show is tomorrow and—”

“The air show is canceled. That’s done.”

“What about Specter 101? All the work you’ve put into it? Is that all scrapped now?”

Mr. Bones said, “My dear Tull, you are horribly out of the loop. I think it’s fair to say that the world has changed since you woke up this morning.”

Chapter Ninety-six

“Erasmus Tull is your brother?”

“Yes,” said Junie. “And … no. It’s complicated.”

Top Sims leaned forward and put his forearms on his knees. “Miss, I would appreciate it if you would uncomplicate it for us. That man killed a couple of hundred people that I used to know.”

The room was dead silent. Junie looked around at everyone. At me. I hoped that the things I was feeling in my heart weren’t showing in my eyes. I knew the Killer was watching her.

“We were a year apart, but in the same orphanage,” she said, and immediately Church raised his good hand.

“Miss Flynn,” he said calmly, “credit us with some intelligence. We researched your history. You were never in an orphanage. Not in this country, and not under that name.”

Junie swallowed.

“That’s … only partly true,” she said. “I was in an orphanage until I was six years old, in Group Eight. Erasmus Tull was in Group Seven.”

“‘Group’?” said Bunny. “What kind of orphanage are you talking about, lady?”

Junie looked deeply frightened. I think that if there was a way out of that room she would have bolted and run. Instead, she took a big breath, forced herself to make direct eye contact with Mr. Church, and said, “I belong to a very specific group of children who were born and partially raised at a facility in Nevada. The site has no official name. The building I lived in was called Hive Two. There were ninety-six children in that facility, and there were at least ten facilities exactly like it.”

“Um…,” said Bunny, “are we talking clones?”

“No, of course not,” said Junie with a trace of a smile.

“Good, because I—”

“I’m pretty sure I’m an alien-human hybrid,” she said. “Just like Erasmus Tull.”

Chapter Ninety-seven

Bunch of people, mostly killers, sitting in a room.

Looking at the pretty lady, the civilian.

Who just said that she might be related to the man who killed the entire staff at the Warehouse.

Who said that she might be part alien.

All of us, sitting there with that painted on the air in front of us.

“That’s it,” Bunny said. “I quit. I’m going home.”

Mr. Church nodded to Junie. “I know.”

You could actually hear the sound of every head in the room whipping around from staring at Junie to gaping at Church.

“What?” I croaked. “You knew?”

Church nodded. Pain flickered on his stern face. “I read through all of Dr. Sanchez’s interview notes on the way here. Several of the experts mentioned the alien-human hybrid initiative, indicating that without an acceptable biological interface these T-craft cannot fly. A certain percentage of alien DNA is necessary, and so to ensure the success of their vehicle-design program, Majestic Three would have had to be ready with pilots who had that DNA signature. Hybrids.” Junie nodded, and he continued. “Among those persons who claim to be hybrids or who are suspected of being such, there is a high percentage of savantism. In some cases it is prodigious savantism, with deep memory and awareness of multiple areas. Math and numbers are common, but there are other areas as well. Many of these people have exceptional hand-eye coordination. And there is the issue if having both eidetic memory and hyperthymesia. The instances of that are so rare in the general population that to find it in any contained population suggestions a connection. I know for a fact that Erasmus Tull has those qualities. It’s part of what made him such an exceptional operator. Show him a building blueprint or let him read a mission case file and he has it all stored. Expose him to a language, a combination, a cypher, and it’s stored in his head.”

“Just like the Majestic Black Book,” I said.

“Yes,” said Junie.

“Holy mother of shit,” said Lydia.

“Wait, wait,” said Pete, “can we go back to the part where you two are related?”

“It’s an ugly thing,” said Junie. She took a tissue out of her sweater pocket and wiped her nose. “You’ve heard about all of those alien abductions? You know, people taken out of their beds and subjected to all sorts of tests? Well, as far as I know most or all of that is faked. It’s M3 using hallucinogenic compounds and some mind-control tech they developed. They implant a false memory using drug-enforced hypnosis.”

“That sounds military,” said Ivan. “I mean … I know guys in psi-ops who do that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” said Church.

“After the people are abducted,” continued Junie, “they are used as part of a breeding program. Early on they tried to get the abductees to mate. They even used date-rape drugs like Rohypnol, gamma-hydroxybutyrate, Ketamine, and even Ambien — because it had both sedative and amnesiac properties. But there were too many behavior problems associated with forced sex, and because it required the time and expense of monitoring the pregnancy after the abductees were returned. And, of course, kidnapping the child if he or she demonstrates useful qualities. There are some real horror stories associated with that, and the program began tripping over itself. So they changed tack and decided to harvest eggs and sperm instead. That way they can cut the parents totally out of the picture and raise the babies under controlled conditions.”

“Like the facility in Nevada?” asked Mr. Church.

“Yes. That was my home as a baby. There were nearly a hundred of us. We weren’t clones or anything like that. Each of us came from a human egg and sperm via in vitro fertilization. I was in the eighth batch of viable fetuses. Group Eight.” She paused and a shadow passed across her face. “There were problems with the previous batches. The first few were awful. I saw photographs. Birth defects of the most horrible kinds. That’s when they were trying to determine how much alien DNA to introduce, and at which point of fetal development.”

“Christ,” whispered Top. He was the only member of Echo Team with kids. His eyes were filled with sickness and anger. “What happened to those kids? The ones with the birth defects?”

Junie shook her head. “They were considered failed experiments. The same with the next batches. It wasn’t until the batch before mine, Group Seven, that they began getting an acceptable yield. There were still some problems, but they … allowed most of them to grow up.”

“Erasmus Tull was in Group Seven?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Did he have any ‘problems’?”

She nodded. “Behavior problems. He was brilliant and he had all the qualities they needed for the pilot program — enhanced coordination, perfect memory, total calm in high-pressure situations. But — he was hard to control at first. He was very violent, but in a strange way. He never picked a fight, but if someone else started one, his reactions were way over the top. Once a little boy shoved him in the playroom. Erasmus got up, walked over to the toy box, picked up a heavy net bag of building blocks, walked back over to the other boy and started beating him with it. By the time the staff heard the screams and came in, the other boy was dead and Erasmus was completely covered in blood.” She paused. “Erasmus was four years old.”

My mouth went dry.

“They put him through a battery of psychological tests, and he passed every one. After a while they determined that it was an aberration, a one-time event. Until it happened again. Seven months later two boys tried to beat Erasmus up because they were afraid of him. They caught him in the boys’ bathroom.”

“What happened?” asked Birddog, whose face had gone as pale as everyone else’s.

“He killed them both.”

“So,” said Bunny, working it through, “are you saying that he was born without a conscience? Or he is too alien to understand right and wrong?”

“I really don’t know. I’m not sure if the people at M3 know either. However, they must have learned something from all the tests they did on him, because he wasn’t terminated for having birth defects. Erasmus and a few others who were a lot like him were removed from the program shortly after the incident in the bathroom. Actually a lot of us were taken out of the program and assigned to families.”

“Like Jericho and Amanda Flynn?” suggested Church.

“Yes.”

“Did they know where you came from?”

Junie gave me a brief guilty look. “Yes.”

“So, all that stuff you told me about your father was bullshit? Winning those science fairs, getting hired by DARPA … that was all crap?”

“No,” she said quickly and reached out to touch my arm. “Most of it’s the absolute truth, but…”

I pulled my arm away. “How about the whole truth? How about you stop fucking with my head?”

She nodded as tears rolled down her face. “What I said about my father was true. He didn’t know about any of this until long after he was working inside the Project. Even then he still thought he was working on a DARPA-sanctioned project. It’s where he met my mother. She was a developmental psychologist and … she was a key member of M3’s breeding program. She helped tie my father to the program. Did she ever really love him? I don’t know. Maybe, toward the end. I don’t know. But she grew me in a lab, Joe. All the adoption papers were handled by her. My father was in love and he was work-obsessed, so he believed everything his wife told him.” She paused and dabbed at the tears on her cheeks. “He was a good man, Joe. I think maybe he had some issues of his own. Asperger’s, perhaps. He was always focused on work and never really that connected to other people. He didn’t know where I came from or what I was. He tried to be a good father to me, but when it was clear that I didn’t want to follow his career path, we drifted. That’s when I started acting out. I tried to tell him about the ‘orphanage,’ but he wouldn’t listen. He thought they were silly stories. Until I told him about a kid I knew named Erasmus Tull.”

“Why did that change things?” I asked.

“Because Dad knew Erasmus Tull,” she said. “By the time I was in college, Erasmus was around the lab all the time. He’d become part of the team that was searching for new components, and he was apparently very successful at it. He kept getting promotions even though he was so young. Hearing about Erasmus — someone I could not possibly know — seemed to do something to Dad. That’s when he began making copies of everything related to the Project.”

“Including the Black Book,” said Church quietly.

“Yes. Dad had been such a company man that they never thought he’d betray them. But loyalty has to cut both ways, and when he realized that the Project was built on lies, he turned against them. Dad was a patriot, Joe. When they found out that he’d copied the Black Book, they had him killed.”

“But your mother was killed in the same rigged accident,” I said. “Why? Whose side was she on?”

“My mother was still very much with the company … and there’s a pretty good chance she’s the one who turned Dad in.”

“So why’d they kill her?” asked Lydia.

Junie gave her a long, hard look. “You should ask Erasmus Tull that question. Maybe it was easier to manage the hit that way. Or maybe he was running out of time.”

“I have one last question,” said Church. “When you began your podcast and published your books on M3 and the Black Book, those people had to suspect that your father told you crucial secrets. Why didn’t they come after you?”

“They did, once. A car bombing in Egypt that was blamed on terrorists. And a close call with what the police called a ‘failed abduction-rape.’ It failed because half the football team came stumbling out of a bar just as two men in black clothes tried to pull me into a van.”

“No,” said Sam, “those were close calls, but someone like this guy Tull could have taken you out with a bullet or one of those microwave pistols. And you’ve been living all alone at that lighthouse for how long? Not to offend you, miss, but you should be dead a hundred times over.”

“Which means they don’t want you dead,” said Top. “Now why would that be?”

“I think it’s obvious,” I said. “For whatever reason, the governors of M3 want the world to know about the Majestic Black Book. Maybe they’re planning a big event, a reveal, and this is part of a plan to pave the way.”

“That sounds thin,” said Pete.

“It’s not,” countered Church. “Our government does that all the time. We leaked information on the stealth program before we rolled the first ships out. It cut down on wild speculation from eyewitnesses who thought they were seeing UFOs. This is a standard policy, like a valve that lets off steam. It makes the reveal less of a staggering drama.”

“Iran did that with their nuclear program,” I said, and he nodded. “Which means that Junie’s podcasts and books could be part of a limited and very selective disclosure process.”

“I think you’re right,” she confessed. “Besides, before last night they probably thought I only knew bits and pieces of the book. After all … I sat on the information for years. I was afraid to do anything with it. My life hasn’t exactly taught me to trust anyone. Family, governments … you wonder why I write about conspiracies? My whole life has been in the heart of one of the biggest conspiracies of the last century, and that’s not a theory.”

“And last night you told the whole damn world that you had the Black Book and were going to share it with everyone,” said Bunny. “No offense, but … why not just paint a bull’s-eye on yourself? You had to know they’d move heaven and earth to pop a cap in you.”

She shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

“Why not?”

She was a long time answering. Ghost caught something, some emotion, and he whimpered and leaned against her. Junie bent and wrapped her arms around him, burying her cheek against the soft white fur on the top of his head.

“Gene therapy is still largely experimental. There are always unexpected side effects,” she said, her eyes distant and her voice very soft. Then, she took a long, ragged breath, reached up, entwined her fingers in her wild blond hair … and pulled it off. Beneath the wig she was totally bald, her smooth skull unmarked except for the small blue tattoos the radiology techs put there to mark the spot where the tumor is. Then she looked up, looked at each of us.

“They don’t need to kill me,” she said. “They already have.”

Chapter Ninety-eight

They stood in a row, staring through the glass at the massive vehicle.

“Well,” said Aldo quietly, “now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

“Actually…,” said Howard, but let the rest hang.

“And it works?” breathed Aldo.

“Yes indeed.”

“But I thought there were all sorts of problems…”

“Ah,” said Howard, “you’ve been in the field too long, my boy. We are no longer throwing all of our efforts into trying to build a Device or a Truman Engine. We have built it. You see, we were doing things backward. We kept trying to assemble the ten components of the engine first and that always led to disaster. It didn’t appear to make sense. Then we stepped back and reevaluated the process of sympathetic gravity. When certain conditions are maintained the ten D-type components remain inert; but when they’re allowed to enter into close proximity, the engine assembles itself. It’s wonderful, almost magical if you didn’t know that it was science.”

“Right, but then it blows up.”

“Yes and no,” said Howard. “It only blows up if there is nothing to balance the energetic discharge at the precise moment when the components form the complete engine. We kept trying to do only that. Then we realized that this isn’t how the original builders of these craft did it. They clearly kept at least one part in stasis — much like you and Tull did with the miniatures today. Those parts needed to stay in stasis until the eleventh component was in place. Or … perhaps we should more appropriately say that we were aware of components one through nine and component eleven, but we never realized that there was a component missing from the complete engine. We kept trying to build it without that crucial tenth piece.”

Tull got it first, and he nodded.

“The pilot,” he said. “The pilot has to be in place before the engine can be allowed to complete itself.”

“Clever boy!” Howard cried out in delight and patted Tull on the cheek. “You were always the smartest one in your group. Yes, that is exactly what needs to happen. Once the pilot was in place, he could then allow the eleventh piece to slide into place, thus completing a true biomechanical engine.”

“Son of a bitch…,” Aldo said with real admiration. He grinned from ear to ear. His joy was so infectious that even Mr. Bones smiled. “So it doesn’t take a full alien to run these things.”

“We didn’t know that at first,” said Mr. Bones. “At first all we could determine is that a dead alien wouldn’t work. We tried that once and got the same big bang. That’s what really kicked the hybrid program into top gear. After some very costly and very, um, unfortunate tests, we managed to quantify how much of the organic material needs to be alien DNA and how much can be ordinary human. Turns out it’s not a lot — eighteen percent — but it has to be the right eighteen percent. That was thirty years’ worth of disasters, lab accidents, and collateral damage before we figured that out.”

“How many pilots do you guys have?”

“Oh, there are plenty,” said Howard, “but ‘pilot’ really isn’t the right word. Any hybrid can form the basis of the biomechanical engine matrix. That person does not have to be the one to fly the ship. So, in a pinch any hybrid will do, as long as there is a way for us to control the ship. Remote-control science is booming — the entire military drone program is a side effect of our research into remote control over these ships. And as for the hybrids … and there’s no shortage of the hybrids out there. We seeded them into the general population in the hopes that they’ll breed. The more the merrier, because we keep track and we can always grab what we need. They can’t really hide — they’re all too exceptional for that.”

Mr. Bones smirked. “The folks in the New Age community call them ‘indigo children,’ they think that the human race has suddenly taken an unexpected evolutionary jump. There are thousands of them out there now. Almost half a percent of all the children adopted in the United States since 1985 are hybrids. We know which ones are from which batch. Just as we know which ones are specials. Like our dear Erasmus Tull. Twenty-two percent of his brain is alien. Makes him special in a lot of ways. His IQ in unchartable, and he has so many nifty gifts.”

Tull glanced at him. “Do I know any of the real pilots?”

“Some. There are a few from your group, but most come from Group Eight.”

Tull made a face. He did not approve of the candidates from the groups that came after his. They were too emotional. Many of them were so unsuited to the Project that they were kept on the periphery, allowed to live because they were useful breeding stock, but kept in the dark about who they were or that they were part of anything besides a foster family. With Group Nine and beyond, the kids were raised in facilities that more closely approximated orphanages. Easier to cycle them into foster families that way. Fewer questions.

Technicians crawled all over the triangular machine, making adjustments, checking the fuselage for the tiniest imperfections.

“There are still openings in the pilot program,” mused Howard. “Not too late.”

“Don’t start that again.”

Aldo looked at him. “Really? You telling me you had a chance to fly one of these things and you passed? Are you out of your fucking mind? I’d give my left nut to fly one.”

“Tull washed out of the program,” said Mr. Bones cattily.

“You’re shitting me,” said Aldo.

“Not at all. He was in one of the first groups of pilot candidates, but our Mr. Tull had a problem with the commitment to the program.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Tull shook his head. “He’s screwing with me, Aldo. I quit the program because in order to fly the ship you have to let the ship do most of the work. It … reads you. It does all the work. You sit there like meat in a chair.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Howard. “The biomechanical interface requires—”

“Hey,” snapped Tull, “can we just drop it? I don’t want to be a pilot, not like that. We all know where I belong in the Majestic Project. I think I proved that this afternoon.”

Howard chuckled and patted him on the back. “Yes, you did, my boy, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

“And yet Junie Flynn is still out there with a complete copy of the Majestic Black Book,” said Mr. Bones dryly. “Probably memorized, considering her talents. Yes, your fellows killed a lot of the bad guys, but let’s not forget that the destruction of the DMS was intended as a distraction. I believe that prioritizing that over killing Junie Flynn was a poor strategic choice.”

Tull turned to him and smiled a killer’s smile. “You know, Bonesy, you’ve always been kind of a dick. Are you aware of that?”

“Hey now,” warned Howard. “Mr. Bones is a governor of—”

“I know exactly what he is, Howard,” said Tull. “He’s a toadie. Without you, he’d be nothing.”

“Attacking me doesn’t change the fact that you let Junie Flynn slip away,” said Mr. Bones, unperturbed.

“Did I?” He fished in his pocket and removed a small tracking device that was part of the Ghost Box unit. “I know exactly where she is.”

“What?” said Mr. Bones, startled.

“As soon as I took charge of this mission I sent a whole flock of the pigeon drones to Turkey Point. When Ledger’s team picked Junie and Ledger up, the drones clamped on to their Black Hawk. I’ve been getting continuous feeds all day. Right now they’re at a farm in Robinwood, Maryland. Guess who owns that farm?” Tull did not wait for them to reply. “John Allen Ledger, aka Jack Ledger, our boy’s uncle. And, according to satellite photos, the Black Hawk is parked behind the barn and there are three vehicles at the place. I think Ledger’s using the farm as a bolt-hole, gathering anyone we didn’t clip at the Warehouse. I’ll bet you Aldo’s right nut that Junie Flynn is right there. Safe, sound, and in our crosshairs any time we want her.”

Chapter Ninety-nine

I was floored. I felt like the biggest horse’s ass in the world. And I felt a stabbing sadness that drove its wicked point all the way through me.

“Junie, I—”

She put her fingertips to my mouth.

“Please,” she said. “There’s not a lot to say. I’ve been over the shock of it for weeks. I’ve made my peace and I know that once I transition out of here then a lot of things will be better for me. No more pain. No more fear.” Her eyes were bright with tears, and with calm dignity, Junie put her wig back on and adjusted it. She gave me a small smile. “It’s really my hair,” she said. “I had it cut off and made into a wig before I started the radiation. Vain, I know, but we all have our flaws.”

“There are no medical records…” Church began.

“I know. I have friends all over. One of the perks of being a player in the conspiracy theory field is you get to meet a lot of people who know how to keep a secret. I pay cash for all of my treatments and there’s a place in Philadelphia where I can get those treatments without using my real name.”

I closed my fingers around her hand, pulled it away from my mouth but didn’t let it go. She allowed me to hold her hand, and even gave me a small reassuring squeeze. That nearly broke my heart. She, this woman with a horrible past and no future at all, giving me reassurance.

Into the staggering silence, Mr. Church’s phone rang. He looked down at the display. “Linden Brierly,” he said. No one spoke. Church said very little, thanked Brierly, and disconnected. Then he placed a call to Aunt Sallie. “Auntie, Brierly said he already called you, so you know where we stand,” he told her. “I’m initiating Protocol Seventeen.”

He disconnected and placed the phone on the table next to his chair. We waited in silence while he gathered himself. I’ll bet he was aching for a vanilla wafer.

Mr. Church said, “By executive order, as of oh-eight-thirty Eastern Time the president of the United States has officially revoked the charter of the Department of Military Sciences. All field offices are to be closed immediately. We are to cease all activities, abandon all cases, and vacate all premises associated with the DMS. We are to return all weapons, equipment, and credentials provided by same. All personnel are hereby suspended with pay from government service pending notification of status.”

We stared at him, totally dumbfounded.

“The executive order further states that anyone acting contrary to the letter or the spirit of this order should be considered a threat to national security and an enemy of the state.”

Mr. Church picked up his teacup and sipped it.

“Well,” said Top, “at least they’re still paying us.”

There were a few smiles. No real laughs.

Bunny looked down at the papers spread out on the table. “So, basically if we keep trying to save the country and maybe the world from a bunch of murderous assholes with outer space weapons, then we’re the bad guys?”

“In a nutshell,” said Mr. Church.

Bunny looked around the room, then shrugged his big shoulders. “Then, hey … let’s be bad guys.”

Chapter One Hundred

“You knew all of this and you’re content to just leave them there?” demanded Mr. Bones.

“Not exactly,” said Erasmus Tull. “I didn’t come here to get a pat on the head as a good dog, Bones. I wanted to talk this over with Mr. Shelton. And, yes, with you. I know you guys used Junie to seed the ground for the eventual reveal of Specter 101 and that whole generation of superspeed aircraft, but if she really has memorized the Black Book, why not bring her in and — I don’t know—file her away somewhere. Great reference book.”

“Nice looking, too,” agreed Aldo.

“She’d never cooperate with something like that,” said Mr. Bones.

“‘Cooperate’?” said Tull, amused. “You really don’t get out of the lab much, do you? If we want her to ‘cooperate’ then we just apply the right pressure.”

Howard pursed his lips. “That’s not bad. Her use as a free agent is pretty much done. Let’s bring her in.”

Mr. Bones snorted. “She’s with Joe Ledger. Are you going to send more of your Closers in to do the pickup? How many are you willing to waste on that little project?”

“No,” said Tull. “I’ll do it.”

Howard shook his head. “I want you here. We have important guests coming in the morning. You don’t want to miss the demonstration.”

“When?”

“Eight thirty. I convinced certain key members of the DoD, including some very important generals that Shelton Aeronautics has something in late-stage development that might provide a response to the attack at Dugway. Everyone I called is very interested. So, instead of a big reveal at the air show, which is moot anyway, we’re going to have a private screening, so to speak.”

“Eighty thirty.” Tull looked at his watch. “Robinwood’s about four hours from here. It’ll be tight, but we’ll be back before the show. Even have time to take a shower and put on a tie.”

Chapter One Hundred One

“Great plan,” I said to Bunny, “and what exactly is our band of ‘bad guys’ supposed to do? Who should we go and rough up?”

“Um,” said Bunny. “yeah … there’s that.”

“Do you have a suggestion, Captain?” asked Church.

“Maybe,” I said. “There’s one name that keeps coming up in this. In the cyber-attacks, in the field of radical weapons and technology … and on the list of possible M3 members Junie put together. Well, guess what, Rudy made a bunch of calls today to UFO experts and one question he asked everyone was who is most likely to be a member of M3. People threw a lot of names around, but there’s one name that appeared on over eighty percent of the lists. Anyone want to take a guess?”

It was Junie who answered.

“Howard Shelton.”

Mr. Church nodded.

“Howard Shelton,” I agreed. “He was even there when your father — or whatever he was — was winning the prizes that got him recruited by DARPA.”

“Wait,” said Ivan, “how could it be Shelton? Those cyber-attacks slammed him. All those dead people at Wolf Trap? The attacks on his computers…”

“If we were discussing someone who was well balanced,” said Mr. Church, “I would be inclined to agree that Mr. Shelton is an unlikely candidate. But I can see where Captain Ledger is going with this. Shelton could be making himself bleed in order to prove that he is a victim and not the attacker. There are a lot of cases of that kind of pathology.”

“Pretty elaborate way to establish an alibi,” said Ivan.

“And pretty effective,” I said. “Especially if the areas taking the cyber-hits were important — but not important to his plans with M3 and the T-craft.”

“Hold on,” said Pete, “I don’t know a lot about Shelton. Who is he?”

Bunny tapped some keys on the MindReader substation and a picture of a man’s face appeared. “Meet Howard Shelton, grade-A scum-sucker.”

The face on the screen was a professional portrait of a sixty-something man with warm brown eyes, silver hair, strong jaw, straight nose, and perfect teeth. He looked like the kind of actor who played the older, wiser doctor on soap operas. He exuded warmth and confidence. The photographer even contrived to suggest the barest hint of a twinkle in his eyes.

“Run him down for us, Junie,” I said. “Why’s he at the top of our list?”

“He’s a billionaire from Pennsylvania,” she said. “Mostly old money, but a lot of it. His family’s been tied to politics since Teddy Roosevelt but none of the Sheltons have ever held office. Shelton’s companies hold defense contracts to the tune of sixteen billion.”

Mr. Church said, “Shelton is also a principal stockholder in Blue Diamond Security.”

“Okay,” asked Pete, “but how does that tie Shelton to UFOs and stuff?”

Junie recapped for the team what she’d said during the video conference, about companies that made fortunes off unexpected and radical design leaps. “If you look at companies that have made more unusual and varied breakthroughs, and you trace outright ownership or significant stock ownership, then again you have a short list of names, and Shelton’s name is always on the list.”

“How much of this do you know,” I asked, “and how much is guesswork?”

“It’s all guesswork,” she said. “No, let me correct that — the financial picture based on radical patents is real. The connection to the DoD and DARPA is real. The connection to every new generation of stealth technology is real. The guesswork is that he’s tapping alien tech as the source. And that he’s a member of M3.”

“The kicker for me,” I said, “is the controlling interest in Blue Diamond. I think if we scratched the surface of these Closers we’d find that most or all of them work for Blue Diamond.”

Pete made a face. “I don’t know if I buy it. I mean, when it comes to big business, how can you tell the difference between someone who really believes in doing what’s right for the common good and someone who does it to make a profit? A lot of industrialists have profited off every war, that doesn’t make them bad guys. And not to sound corny or anything, but there’s still that whole Constitution thing.”

“There is one more factor,” said Church. “Something that Bug found, but it’s not really proof. More a lack of proof. There is no official record of Howard Shelton ever being investigated. Not by a congressional committee, not by the FBI or the DEA. You know that when MindReader exits a system it erases its tracks? Most computers can’t do that at all, and even the very best ones leave a bit of a twitch in the software. Like a scar. However, when Bug looked for any trace of official investigations into Howard Shelton, all he could find were scars in those places where case files or even case numbers should be.”

“So he’s managed to expunge his record?” asked Junie.

“Expunge it and clean it up so well that all anyone — even MindReader — can do is find smudged fingerprints. That has Bug very worried. No known system should be able to do that, which means that there is an unknown system out there. Something that operates very much like MindReader.”

I snapped my fingers. “And that’s how they’re doing the cyber-attacks!”

“That would be my guess,” agreed Church. “With a system like that it would be relatively easy to shift blame toward the DMS. Bug tells me that the system may, in fact, be so harmonious that it’s allowed them to hack MindReader.”

We all turned to stare at the computer.

“Frightening, isn’t it?” said Church.

I reached over to turn the computer off.

“That won’t be necessary, Captain,” said Church. “Bug has introduced some aggressive new software into the anti-intrusion system. He believes that MindReader is protected now.”

“Believes or knows?”

Church merely smiled.

Junie looked around the room. “What happens now?”

I stood up. “We get some rack time, and then by dawn’s early light we go and pay a call on Howard Shelton.”

“How? Do you just bust in?”

“Sadly, no. Pete’s right, there’s a constitutional issue. If there’s even the slightest chance Shelton is innocent, then I’m not willing to destroy him because I made a bad call. No, we’ll go in and ask some questions. Like … are you a member of M3? Do you have the Black Book? And did you just kill two hundred of my friends? Questions like that.”

“God, whether he’s innocent or guilty he’ll throw you out.”

“He is welcome to try.”

Chapter One Hundred Two

The meeting broke up.

There were two full bathrooms at Uncle Jack’s, so the showers were in constant use. As was the kitchen. Bunny and Lydia volunteered to “walk the perimeter.” Right. Brick and Birddog were out there, too, but they were actually working, transferring gear from the Mister Softee truck — which was a rolling arsenal — to Black Bess and the Explorer.

I tried to catch a moment alone with Junie, but she slipped away, vanishing upstairs.

Eventually the only ones left in the den were Church, Ghost, and I.

I dragged a chair over and sat next to him.

“How are you?”

He ignored the question. Instead he nodded toward the chair where Junie had sat. “That is a remarkable young woman.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Some people suffer adversity and become victims of it for life,” he said. “It colors everything they do. In a sense it pollutes their potential.”

I said nothing.

“While others refuse to break. They never allow themselves to be defined by their hurt. Those people are rare and they are precious.”

“She’s dying.”

Church shook his head. “She has cancer,” he said. “But I have seldom met someone more truly alive than her.”

I looked at him.

“Unless I am very much mistaken, Captain, you are acutely aware of that.”

He rose and moved over to the couch, kicked off his shoes, laid down, and appeared to go to sleep. Ghost went and sprawled on the floor in front of the couch. When he looked at me for approval, I gave him a wink.

Chapter One Hundred Three

I found her upstairs in a small bedroom on the third floor. It had a single bed and big windows that looked out over trees. Pale moonlight painted the room in blue-white softness. She sat on the window seat, knees pulled up against her chest, arms wrapped around her legs. I knocked gently on the door frame.

She didn’t turn to see who was there. She made no specific move and yet there was a feeling of invitation. Or, at least I seemed to sense that. I came in and stood by the window. Moonlight has a way of making everything, no matter how ordinary, seem charged with magical potential — a forest doubly so.

“I love the world,” she said, a propos of nothing.

I sat down on the edge of the window seat.

“No matter what’s happening there’s always something beautiful. I don’t know when I became aware of it, but the first time it really struck me was in Egypt, after the bomb went off. I was hurt, dazed, bleeding pretty badly, and I thought I was dying. I was on my back and all I could see was the sky above me. There was a bird up there, way high, coasting on the thermal currents, hovering almost perfectly. It looked so peaceful, so in tune with what it was and in harmony with its place in the universe. I mean, I knew that it was probably a vulture looking for a dead animal, but that’s part of life, too. Everything dies. If nothing died, then the world would never be renewed, so death is part of a continually unfolding of beauty.”

“Junie, I—”

She leaned against me. Maybe it was an unconscious act, a primal need for closeness deep in the night of an ongoing war. Or maybe it was a very conscious choice. Either way, her body was a solid warmth against mine. I knew she was dying, but the reality of her was so vital. So alive.

I put my around her and she made a small sound of acceptance, or allowing, of pleasure.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” she said.

“No,” I said. “You had no reason to trust me. After all that you’ve been through, I’m kind of surprised you can trust anyone.”

We watched the moonlight.

After a long time I asked, “Are you afraid?”

“Of dying?” Her voice was a pale whisper. When I looked at her I saw tears glittering like jewels on her lovely face. “No. There’s always a light in the darkness.”

She turned to me then, and took my face in her hands and kissed my lips.

“I’m cold, Joe,” she said in that whisper of a voice. “Keep me warm.”

I stood up and drew Junie to her feet and we kissed. It was the softest, sweetest kiss I’d ever experienced. Then we undressed each other with sudden urgency, stripping away the stained and ragged clothes and all their proofs that a harsh world existed. Her body was ripe and lithe and ghostly pale. I drew her into the warm circle of my arms and we stood there and kissed by moonlight for a few scalding moments, and then we were in the small bed. Our bodies moved together with a familiarity and comfort as if we had known each other for years, yielding and receiving, offering and taking, sharing and plunging into that river of sweetness that has flowed since the dawn of time and will flow on until the stars are dark cinders. She buried her mouth against the hollow of my neck to muffle a scream of delight that was not the little death but an affirmation of life. I cried out, too, both of us wordless but articulate in the message we shared, in a statement that we are still alive. For now, in this moment, we are still alive.