The Ghost Ships of Arizona

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Tyler Webb was truly ecstatic. What a way to leave things with Hayden Jaye! Utterly superb. The hotel room visit had been the culmination of the current phase of stalking and now, with her wits in tatters, he intended — actually circumstances were forcing him — to take a relatively short break.

No mind. The bitch will be thinking of me every hour of the day and especially through the night. Wondering… feeling my eyes upon her… imagining what isn’t even there. Every sound, every admiring or odd look. Every turn of phrase from a stranger.

The game was set then for a grand finale. But first he had important matters to attend to. Ramses had been in touch and the great bazaar now had a date if not yet a venue. Still, Webb knew the approximate location and that he had to get his real life into gear if he was to attend. Beauregard was prepped. The components would, hopefully, be acquired without incident.

And Julian Marsh’s crazy plan was, quite literally, soon to go nuclear.

Interesting.

Webb seated himself behind his makeshift desk, still trembling with excitement. He even let out a little giggle to ease the tension. But there were jobs to do. First he organized a flight for himself and Beauregard, the jet even now being prepared on a private runway ten miles from his current location. It would fly them anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice. Then he arranged the fundamentals for the next and probably final stage of his plan — he would be moving to New York as soon as he returned from the bazaar. DC was entirely too hot right now and this backward hovel just wouldn’t do. The New York office was perfect, even loftier than his office back in DC where he enjoyed his daily scrutiny of the ants scurrying below. It would be a fitting palace from where to end the Pythians.

And it would end, he had decided. The Pythian ideal, the anti-shadow organization, did have its place — but it was just too much hard work. Webb meant to cut everything loose. But only when he could go out with a huge bang.

Of course, the culmination of the Saint Germain exercise would have the entire world chasing him. Not an enviable situation by any means. But the world would soon forget… and he would live on. The biggest thing that had ever happened in the world would make him—

A knock at the adjoining door interrupted his meanderings.

“Yes?”

A long-haired brunette entered from the room next door. “I have Nicholas Bell on the phone for you, sir.”

Webb waved. “Fine. Put him through.” He needed an update on the ghost ships anyway. Their discovery would add the funding he required to advance his plans exponentially. As he waited for the connection his mind flicked to Zoe Sheers. The newest Pythian had yet to offer up any proposal. Well, he could always send Beauregard round to accelerate her thinking.

“Hello?”

“Bell? What do you have? The ships? C’mon, man, time is short and so will be your lifespan if this doesn’t pan out.”

“Again, we believe we are in the right area, sir. Drake is on the case, actually here somewhere in this godforsaken scorch pit. And I’m told that the Sierra Nevada facility is about to be taken apart.”

Webb held on to his excitement. “Oh? Excellent. That will be three.”

“And then it’s ‘Goodnight, America’.”

“Let us hope so. The Z-boxes are of Chinese manufacture and unproven. It would not surprise me if they hadn’t programmed in a back door of their own and are copying everything we do. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if they could track the devices somehow.”

“Do you think they might alert the Americans?”

“That depends on many things — the mood of that day’s official. What meat he had for lunch. Who overtook him on the way to work. One day they cooperate the next they hack each other to death. I would not like to forecast tomorrow.”

“Then we’ll keep digging.”

“Dig harder.”

Webb hung up. Everything was coming together nicely. He called up Beauregard and told him to make ready to leave. Ramses was next.