The Dragon Factory

(1)

Six days later I sat in a wheelchair in a chapel outside of Baltimore. Grace Courtland had no family in England. Mr. Church had appealed to her government to let her rest here near her friends. They argued, but Church got his way.

Everybody came. I don’t know how many thousands of people showed up. Grace Courtland was probably the most famous person in the world. The beautiful government agent who saved the world from the Extinction Wave. It was headlines; it was a Hollywood dream story. Books would be written about her; movies would be made. Most of it would be a fiction cooked up by Church’s PR people. There are too many villains — the world needs a hero.

My name was left completely out of it, which was only right. Ditto for the DMS. Homeland and a few other agencies were handed the credit while Church erased all traces of our involvement from every database. The key players knew the truth, and that was all that Church needed to keep the DMS in place. No one in government would dare go after us now.

I thought about these things as I sat in the chapel a dozen feet from where Grace lay in state like some warrior queen.

The procession to pass in front of her coffin lasted for hours. The President of the United States sat on my left side. The First Lady sat on my right and held my hand all through it. Most of Congress was there, and ambassadors from over one hundred countries, and the heads of state of those nations that were targeted in the first round of the Extinction Wave. There were Presidents and Chancellors, Queens and Kings. The Air Force did a flyover with the missing-man formation.

Rudy, Bunny, Top, Redman, and the survivors of Alpha Team and as many DMS operatives as could be spared filled the whole section behind us. No press was allowed within a half mile of the chapel. I think Church asked Linden Brierly for that favor and it was done on behalf of “National Security.”

Oskar Freund, the son of Church’s murdered colleague, came and sat with us. His government had appointed him to lead an international task force to hunt down the remaining members of the Cabal. This fire may have been lit in Germany in the early twentieth century, but modern Germany was having no part in perpetuating it. They went after the Cabal with a ferocity that sometimes shocked the world press. But global public support for the witch hunt was overwhelming.

The coffin was closed at my request. If people knew Grace, they should remember her in their own way, not as some mortician painted her. Her casket was draped with the flags of England and the United States.

I don’t remember a lot of what happened after my fight with the Berserkers. Just fragments. A few words and images…

I remember Bunny coming out of the smoke with all of Hardball Team behind him. Bunny was battered and bloody from fighting his way through a pack of Berserkers.

I remember being carried aboard a helicopter. And I remember speaking into a radio, telling Church and Bug about the cancel code. I remember that the trigger device was smeared with blood. Grace’s and mine.

I remember looking out of the helicopter window and seeing waves of U.S. troops surge across the island. Someone later told me that the 164 enemy combatants were killed in the action. That included Russian mercenaries, Dragon Factory guards, and the Berserkers. Someone else told me that the SEALs cleaned up a nest of the scorpion-dogs — Stingers, as we later learned they were called. There was no attempt to take any of the transgenic guard dogs alive.

I remember drifting off into a morphine sleep and dreaming that this was all a dream. When I woke up, the hurt was a hundred times worse. Even nightmares are better than some realities.

The line of mourners kept moving and the day dragged on and on. I said almost nothing. I folded into myself. The darkness inside was welcoming.

(2)

The cancel code Cyrus Jakoby had given me was the correct one. By that point he was beyond lying. When our forces raided the Deck they found the Extinction Clock ticking down. It reached zero at noon on September 1, but the release had been aborted. It wasn’t a James Bond finish with one second on the clock. By the time Bug hacked the system and inputted the cancel code there was still over seventeen hours left. Seems like a lot of time. But it isn’t. They’ll probably change it for the movie.

The DMS worked with the State Department, Interpol, and other agencies to identify and locate the operatives worldwide who had been ready to release the tainted water and disease pathogens. There was no way to keep the story out of the press. The bigger the witch hunt became, the more leaks it sprang. When the President of the United States went on TV to make an address everyone everywhere stopped to listen. True to his form since taking office, the President was calm, clear, and candid. He told as much of the story as security would allow: eugenics, transgenics, gene therapy, pathogens made from genetic diseases, clones. Measured against the whole, even the fact that Jakoby and Otto were virtually immortal because of gene therapy was less fantastic than the knowledge that the worldwide AIDS epidemic had been deliberate.

Of course all of this brought out every conspiracy theorist and lunatic-fringe religious nut, and the news shows trotted them out continually. I stopped watching and had the TV in my hospital room disconnected.

(3)

During the raid on the Deck the DMS teams found irrefutable proof that the assassin who had killed Grace was named Conrad Veder and that he was one of four clones of a man named Hans-Ulrich Rudel, the most highly decorated Stuka dive-bomber pilot of World War II. Rudel was a king among professional killers and the only person to be awarded the Nazi Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.

They also found twenty-nine boys who looked exactly like Eighty-two. Rudy spent days interviewing them. Some, he said, were irretrievably psychopathic; others were borderline personalities. All were damaged. The only one who showed any signs of normalcy was Eighty-two.

Nobody calls him that anymore, though. Rudy encouraged him to pick a name, but the boy asked Rudy to pick one. Rudy named him Helmut. It’s German for “courageous.” The boy picked Deacon as his last name.

Helmut Deacon sat behind me all through that long day in the chapel.

He’s asked Rudy to appeal to Church to allow the boy to work with the Red Cross and WHO teams that are caring for the New Men. I think Church will agree.

(4)

The DMS teams on Dogfish Cay found Paris Jakoby when they broke into the Chamber of Myth. He had sustained a heavy blow that fractured his jaw and sprained his neck, and from what the field medics determined, he had still been alive when the transgenic animals in the chamber began feeding on him.

The animals that survived the battle are being kept in a secure facility until someone can decide what to do with them.

A squad of Marines found the underground cavern where the Dragon Factory staff had hidden during the fight. They were low on fresh air, but they had survived. Many of them claimed not to have the slightest clue what Paris and Hecate were doing, and for some polygraphs and psych evaluations bore out their claims. A lot of others had varying levels of knowledge and involvement.

The people at the Deck were a bit more openly involved in Cyrus and Otto’s scheme, though few seemed to know what the end goal was. Even so, the “we were just following orders” defense carried no weight at all in the trials that followed.

Those trials are still ongoing. They’ll take years.

(5)

I missed most of this. The medivac chopper took me to a hospital in Florida. I was there for eleven days. I sustained a cracked cheekbone, five broken ribs, a torn ligament in my ankle, a hairline fracture of the jaw, and a skull fracture resulting in subdural hematoma. Late the next day the scans showed a dangerous buildup of blood in the inner meningeal layer of the dura, so they wheeled me into surgery and cut a hole in my skull to relieve the pressure. The doctors warned me that I would probably have some memory loss. I wish they’d been right about that, but I remember everything. Maybe one day I’ll be happy about that.

Top Sims was in the room next to me and was recovering from surgery to repair the compound fractures. It was uncertain if he would ever be fit enough to return to active fieldwork. Bunny was treated and released, but he stayed at the hospital for almost a week. Rudy, too. Friends from the DMS brought them changes of clothes and hot meals in Styro-foam containers.

They let me out for the day so I could attend the funeral, but I was scheduled for ankle surgery the following day.

After the service, when I was back in my room at the hospital, Rudy sat in one of the two visitors’ chairs. Mr. Church came and sat in the other chair.

“How much do you remember?”

“All of it.”

“Then you know Cyrus Jakoby is still alive,” Church said.

I nodded.

“You didn’t kill him.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“When he heals, after the damage is repaired, I want him to stand trial.”

Church nodded. “They will execute him.”

“They shouldn’t,” I said.

“Why not?”

“They should put him on display. In a zoo. In a freak show.”

“Will public humiliation redress the harm he’s done?”

“I don’t know. Go ask a philosopher.”

“I’m asking you.”

I didn’t answer. What could I say?

He stood up. “We’ll talk later.”

“No,” I said. “I’m done. I quit. I can’t do this anymore.”

He adjusted his tie. “We’ll talk later.”

When he left I saw that he’d put a pack of cookies on my nightstand. Oreos.

Rudy had been silent through all of this. He said, “Do you really want to quit?”

“I… have to,” I said. “I’m ruined.”

“Your injuries are bad, Joe, but they said you’d make a complete recovery.”

I looked away. “I’m ruined.”

(6)

On a beautiful morning in mid-September they wheeled me out of the hospital. Rudy was there with a car to take me to the airport. There was no sign of Mr. Church or anyone else from the DMS. Rudy was silent for most of the drive, then, “How are you doing, Cowboy?”

I shook my head.

“The war’s over,” he said. “The soldiers have come home from the battlefield. It’s time to talk.”

It took a long time for me to pick the right words. “Why do we do it, Rude?”

“Why do we fight? We fight because someone has to—”

“No,” I said. “Why do we hate?”

“I don’t know. There are long and short answers to that. Mostly people hate because people are different from them, or because they’re the same. It comes down to fear. Our species has always been motivated by fear. We fear what we don’t know or understand, we fear differences, and the primitive in our consciousness demonstrates fear through violence. It’s what makes us so aggressive. Fear, and greed.”

“Is that all? Is that everything that is necessary to explain monsters like Otto Wirths and Cyrus Jakoby?” Despite everything, I still thought of him by that name. As Jakoby he was a worse monster than he’d been as Mengele. “Those men loved what they were doing. They delighted in it. It wasn’t fear of other races… it was hatred.”

“It was evil, Joe. And there is no real definition of what evil is. The best we can do is try and recognize it when we see it, and then try to stop it.”

“That isn’t good enough, Rude.”

“I know,” he said.

(7)

While the records recovered from the Dragon Factory were being mined a clear link was made between the Jakobys and the Sunderland family. Harold Sunderland was arrested by police as he stepped off a plane in São Paolo. In light of his connection with the attempted mass genocide, there was no hesitation about extradition.

When FBI agents showed up at the office of J. P. Sunderland to serve a federal warrant, the senator suffered a massive coronary. He was pronounced dead on arrival at Georgetown University Hospital. A clear link was discovered between Sunderland and former deputy information analyst Stephen Preston, the man who had given the false information on which the Vice President acted. However, an exhaustive search of Sunderland’s paper and computer records could establish nothing that implicated the Vice President in any wrongdoing.

Vice President Bill Collins dodged the bullet, and nothing about his attempted dismantling of the DMS ever made it to the press. However, CNN was the first to observe that Collins and the President seemed cooler to each other than during their campaign, and Jon Stewart made some jokes about Collins being even more “off the public radar” than Dick Cheney had been.

The Vice President spent a lot of time out of Washington.

On one of his flights to his home state, the Vice President was alone aboard a small military jet. He put in his earbuds, turned on his iPod, and settled back to enjoy the trip. Twenty minutes into the flight someone reached over and turned off the iPod.

The VP woke up and started to demand what the hell was going on. But he never finished the sentence. A man sat across from him. Early sixties, tall and blocky, wearing tinted sunglasses. A slim briefcase lay on the seat next to him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Mr. Church opened his briefcase and removed a small pack of Nilla wafers. He selected a cookie and set the pack aside. He did not offer one to the Vice President.

“You’d better have a good goddamned explanation for—”

Church said, “Sunderland.”

“Bullshit,” Collins sneered. “I stand by my—”

“Shhhh,” Mr. Church said, placing a finger to his lips. “It would be better for you to listen.”

The curtain to the forward cabin opened and Linden Brierly leaned against the door frame. The newly appointed Director of the Secret service smiled thinly, but his eyes were as cold as ice.

“Mr. Vice President,” said Church, “we are going to have a long talk about your future in politics and your general health.”

(8)

Weeks later, when I could walk without crutches, I drove to the Warehouse to pack my stuff. Rudy had been taking care of my cat, but I had clothes and a lot of personal belongings in my quarters. I wanted to take it home, to close that chapter of my life.

The guards at the gate waved me through and saluted as I passed. Bunny met me at the staff door, but he could tell I wasn’t in the mood to talk, so he just held the door open for me.

I walked through the corridors of the Warehouse, past the labs where Hu and Bug worked. Past Jerry Spencer’s forensics lab. Past the office Church used when he was there. Past the conference room and firing range.

Rudy’s door was closed and I didn’t know if he’d already packed his things. We hadn’t talked about whether he was staying on or not.

I found my room and opened it with my key and lingered in the doorway.

I hadn’t been there since the morning after the last time Grace and I made love. Someone had straightened the bed, changed the sheets. Replaced the damaged lamp.

Inside I found two things. Against the wall was a stack of empty boxes along with packing tape and labels. Everything I would need to remove all traces of myself from this place. I was done with hunting evil. I was ruined, worn out, damaged beyond fixing. Rudy disagreed, but I was the one who could look inside and see only wreckage and no clear path left to take.

The second item was on the bed. A file folder.

I opened it. Inside was a surveillance photo of a tall man with an austere face. Behind him was a sign advertising a tour of the Riviera dei Fiori. The River of Flowers. A tourist spot on the Italian Riviera. Someone had used a Sharpie to draw a black circle around the man’s face. Next to it was written: “Two days ago.”

I lifted the picture. Beneath it in the folder were my passport, plane tickets, a credit card with my name on it, and other useful documents.

The man in the picture was Conrad Veder.

I sat down on the edge of the bed. I held the photo in both hands and stared into the face of the man who had murdered Grace Courtland. Then I looked at the stack of empty boxes.

Church had left the decision up to me, though he’d given me everything I needed no matter which path I chose.