The King of Plagues

Chapter Twenty

Mr. Church’s phone rang. He looked at the screen display and saw that it was his aide. Sergeant Dietrich knew that he was in a meeting with Barrier and the Home Secretary and would never interrupt unless it was an emergency.

Church excused himself and stepped into the hall as he thumbed on the phone.

“Boss,” Dietrich said in a fierce whisper, “Lucky Team and Echo Team have been hit.” He quickly told Church about Area 51.

“God Almighty,” whispered Church. “Is there anything to indicate that this is a Seven Kings event?”

“Not so far, but we don’t have investigators on the scene yet. I called the Casino. They’re pretty rattled, but they’ve scrambled some choppers.”

“Notify all stations to go to Level One Crisis Alert.”

“You want me to come get you?”

“Yes, but then we have to pick up Captain Ledger. The situation in Scotland looks like it’s going south on us.”

“Christ. What the hell’s happening, Boss? Three Level Ones in twenty-four hours?”

“The Seven Kings are making their move.”

“But what move?”

Church didn’t answer. Instead he gave Dietrich a string of orders and then hung up.

Church stood in the empty hallway for two minutes as he worked it out in his head. Then he made several calls. The first was to the President of the United States. The second was to Aunt Sallie at the Hangar to apprise her of the situation.

Then he dialed the number for Hugo Vox.

“Deacon?” said Vox. “You get a break on the London thing?”

“We have a new situation, Hugo,” Church said, and quickly outlined the problem.

“Ah … Christ! Is this more of the Seven Kings bullshit?”

“Too soon to tell, but it seems likely.”

“What can I do to help?”

“Has your think tank come up with anything?”

“Nothing useful, but they’re hard at it. Bug’s been feeding us intel, but no one’s come up with a good reason why that hospital should have been targeted.”

“I was hoping for more by now, Hugo.”

“I can go beat them with chains, Deke … but it won’t make them think any faster. We need more data. Can I tell them about Area 51?”

“Yes, but if you do then the team has to be sequestered for the duration of the crisis. That could be hours, days, or weeks.”

“They’re not going to like that.”

“Imagine how much I care.”

Vox snorted. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Yes,” Church said. “Is Circe still at T-Town?”

“No, the good Dr. O’Tree is in London. I’ve had her working on security for that silly boat ride thing for the last couple of months. Goddamn waste of resources.”

“You disapprove of the Sea of Hope?”

“Of its intent? No, of course not, but they’ve asked for so damn much security that every agency is coming up short and my own crew is spread pretty thin. Bad damn timing for all this other shit to hit the fan.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“And with the Hospital attack, the Brits are not only not thinking of canceling it; they’ve asked for more security. Shit, Deke, the Chinese army couldn’t penetrate that thing. And it’s only rock and roll.”

“It’s an opportunist’s dream hit. It’s the Prince of England and a lot of other celebrities.”

“It’s celebrities’ kids. Inbred offspring of the rich and famous. The Paris Hilton crowd. Fucking bunch of privileged silver-spoon—”

“Really, Hugo? We have time for this?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. It’s a sore spot with me. There’s just too much going on in the real world for me to want expend any consideration for stunt events.”

“Message noted. Now, back to matters at hand. Where’s Circe?”

Chapter Twenty-one

“Captain Ledger!”

I turned to see Detective Sergeant Rebekkah Owlstone hurrying along the bystreet toward me. Owlstone was the coordinator for the team to which I’d been assigned. We were doing background checks on the Hospital staff and I was coming out of a house where the family of a dead nurse was lost in the horror of shared grief. The day was bitterly cold, with a raw wind that smelled of salt water and ash. Owlstone waved me toward the lee side of a parked delivery van. It was about a degree warmer out of the wind.

“What is it?” I asked.

Owlstone, a petite and pretty brunette from Hampshire, pitched her voice in a confidential tone: “We have a situation, sir. A pair of our lads — Constables Lamba and Pettit — have been interviewing the families of the janitorial staff, and they found something very curious taped to one of the apartment doors. Lamba took a photo of it with his phone and e-mailed it to me.”

She produced her BlackBerry and pressed a button to bring up a picture of a standard apartment door: beige wood with metal numbers. A crooked sign read: HAPPY CHRISTMAS. Garland and lights framed the door. Owlstone pressed the “plus” button to enlarge the image to show a white index card taped just under a length of bright green plastic garland. A finger, presumably the constable’s, held the garland back so that the note could be read.

In shaky block letters it read:

“Christ! Have they entered the scene?”

“No,” she said. “They notified me straightaway. I called it in and they told me to fetch you. Everyone else senior is too far away.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

We climbed into her car, with Owlstone crammed next to me and both of us crowded by my hulk of a dog, and drove the three blocks to the apartment building. A constable was outside erecting sawhorse crime scene barriers. The apartment was on the top floor. Most of the doors in the hallway were decorated for Christmas, and more than half of them were ajar, with concerned and curious neighbors looking out at all the policemen in the hall.

A constable, with PETTIT on his name badge, stepped forward to intercept us.

“No one’s touched the door, Detective Sergeant,” he reported. “But the card fell down and there was something behind it that you need to see.”

“What is it?” asked Owlstone, but I looked past the officer and I could feel the Warrior inside my head tense for fight or flight.

Someone had used red and black felt-tip pens to leave a message on the apartment door. A message, or a signature, no larger than a silver dollar. A number 7 overlaid atop the word “KINGS” and encompassed by a bloodred circle.

Son of a bitch.

“Captain,” gasped Owlstone, “is that—?”

“Yes, it damn well is. Evacuate the building. Now!”

Owlstone hadn’t been told to take orders from me, but she didn’t argue. She spun and began shouting orders to the other bobbies.

I dug out my phone and called Church.

He said, “Seal the building. I’ll tell the authorities here and advise that they certify this as a D-notice situation. We don’t want that logo in the press; otherwise gangbangers will tag it on every wall in the country. And I’m sure Barrier will roll a team out to you.”

“I don’t want to wait that long.”

“Then do what you have to do. I’ll clear it so you’re in charge of the crime scene until Barrier takes over.”

Owlstone closed on me and lowered her voice to an urgent whisper: “What the hell’s happening, Captain?”

“Call me Joe, and I think we just caught the first break in the London Hospital case. Barrier is on its way, but I’m in charge until then. Orders to that effect are being cut right now. Call in if you’re uncertain; otherwise let’s get to work. You okay with that?”

There was a flicker on her face that suggested she wasn’t completely okay with it, but she nodded. A lesser person might have tried to fight that, because this was likely to be a career-making moment. Owlstone was too much of a good cop to play politics, and that elevated her several notches in my book.

“Floor’s clear!” called Pettit from the other end of the hall.

I took a digital camera from my pocket and snapped off twenty frames, catching the symbol, the door, and the surrounding hallway. Then I bent and made a close no-touch examination of the door. I had Ghost sniff it, too, but he didn’t give me the signal for a bomb. He did, however, give a quick double bark that he was trained to use when he was searching for missing bodies. Search and recovery dogs are trained to sniff out cadaverine, a foul-smelling molecule produced by protein hydrolysis during putrefaction of animal tissue. In other words, eau de rot.

Something in there was dead.

Chapter Twenty-two

“What’s he found?” Owlstone asked, backing away. “Is it a bomb?”

“No,” I said. “He’s also trained to find bodies.”

“Bloody hell.”

“Time’s not our friend, Detective Sergeant. We need to kick the door.”

She nodded, but she looked scared.

“Backup,” I suggested quietly, and she took a steadying breath and waved for Pettit and Lamba to join us.

“Okay, lads,” she said. “Captain Ledger will kick the door; we’ll cover and then clear the apartment in a two-by-two pattern.”

They nodded and drew their guns. I drew back and kicked. The door flew open and I went in and left while Owlstone covered my right. We moved fast, yelling for anyone who was there to lay down their weapons. But no one was there, and we all knew that going in.

“Clear!” yelled Pettit from the kitchen.

“Clear!” yelled Owlstone from what looked like a teenager’s bedroom.

“In here! In here!” yelled Lamba from the doorway of the master bedroom. “Two down. Civilians! Two down. Get a medical team.”

Owlstone made the call, but it was well past the point where medics could do anything. The woman and teenage girl on the king-sized bed were far beyond the need for first aid. Or any aid. Ghost sniffed the air near the bed and gave a brief whine.

Pettit checked the adjoining bathroom. “Gun in here! Plenty of blood, no bodies.”

“Step out, Ed,” ordered Owlstone.

Ghost suddenly whuffed softly and sat down by the hamper, looking from it to me and back again. I froze.

“What’s he found?” snapped Owlstone.

“He’s cross-trained as a bomb sniffer,” I said, and the constables all took reflexive backward steps. “Don’t worry; I don’t think that’s what he’s found.”

I was right. All we found in the hamper — after a very careful search — was dirty clothes. There was one set of coveralls with the name Plympton embroidered on the breast that Ghost sniffed, again giving us the single whuf.

“These must be Plympton’s,” I said, “and there must be nitrates on them. He probably had these when handling the explosives at the hospital.”

Owlstone and her men looked greatly relieved. Me, too. I fished a red rubber ball out of my pocket and tossed it in the air so Ghost could leap up and catch it. He returned it to me for another toss and tried for a third, but two catches was the reward for finding something and he knew it. His tail thumped happily on the floor, though, and that image was grotesquely at odds with what lay on the bed four feet from where the shepherd sat.

The bodies lay straight and proper. Fully dressed, the woman in a neat red skirt, white blouse, and a vest with snowmen embroidered on it. She had a Christmas wreath pin on her left breast. Her hair was as neat as possible, given the conditions. Beside her was a teenage girl who looked like she would have been beautiful, had time and the cruelest of Fates given her a chance. Her eyes were closed, long lashes brushing perfectly smooth cheeks. She wore the skirt and blazer from an expensive girls’ school, but she had earrings in the shapes of Christmas bulbs.

Both of them had been shot in the head. Blood trails led from the bed to the bathroom, and when I gingerly stepped past Lamba I could see that the ugly work had been done in there. The handgun, an old Webley top-break revolver, sat on the closed toilet lid. The gun was broken open, the bullets removed. The three spent shells stood in a precise line with the three unfired rounds. Bloody fingerprints smeared the casings and the toilet. The precision with which the rounds had been arranged was at odds with the smears of blood. Just as the neat and tidy positioning of the bodies belied the condition of the victims.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Lamba. “What is this? Some kind of ritual?”

“Looks like a professional hit,” said Pettit. “The sense of order is—”

“No,” I cut in. “No … this is pain. I think the husband did this, and I think he made them as pretty as he could so that they wouldn’t suffer any further indignities.”

Pettit cocked an eye at me. “Are you a forensic specialist?”

“No,” I said, but I didn’t care to explain my thought patterns to him. I knew I was right. “There will be another note.”

Owlstone said, “Okay, lads, you two take charge of the hall. No one comes in.” The constables nodded, clearly happy to leave the apartment. I wanted to go with them.

Once they were gone, Owlstone called in to headquarters. She listened for almost a minute. “Yes, sir,” she said crisply, and disconnected. Then she threw a calculating look my way. “Well, Captain, I just spoke to the Chief Superintendent, who said that we are to break investigative protocol and that I was to assist you in an examination of the crime scene.”

“And you have a problem with that because—?”

“Mucking about with a crime scene before Forensics arrives is a great way to lose evidence.”

“We could wait, but this is a matter of terrorism. The murder investigation is secondary. It’s more important right now to find a lead to the terrorists than it is to build a court case.”

“If we cock this it’ll ruin me in the department,” she warned.

“Me, too. So, let’s not cock it up.”

I gave her my very best “hey, I’m a blond-haired blue-eyed all-American guy” smile. That smile would charm the knickers off the Queen. Owlstone’s eyes were cold and her mouth was a stiff line of disapproval, but … she nodded. And she kept her knickers on, which in light of that smile spoke to a great deal of self-control.

We turned and faced the bed.

The stupid smile I wore crumbled slowly into dust and fell away.

“Damn,” I said softly.

Owlstone sighed, and we set to work.

Interlude Twelve

Rafael Santoro pulled the folds of his coat around him and tried not to shiver. The jacket he’d worn around London was inadequate for the wind that blew like knives across the North Sea. His gloves, purchased to allow dexterity, were equally useless.

“’Ere, Father, take this ’fore you freeze.”

Santoro looked up into the lined, weather-worn face of the captain of the hired boat. The man held out a battered tin mug of steaming coffee.

“Bless you, my son,” murmured Santoro as he took the cup and buried his nose in the steam. He preferred tea, but now was not a time to be fussy. He blew on the scalding liquid and took a careful sip, but even then he burned his tongue. He winced.

“Aye, it’s not very good,” said the captain, misreading the wince, “but it’s ’ot.”

“It’s fine, thank you.”

The captain was a lumpy man with a Cockney accent and a bulbous drinker’s nose webbed with purple veins. He lingered, clearly wanting something else. What now? Had the man noticed or discovered something? Did he want a bribe? Santoro looked up, hoisting a smile onto his face.

“Something—?”

“Well,” began the captain, fumbling with it now that he was up to it, “you see … the thing is, Father, it’s about wot ’appened in London. The fire and all. Those terrorists.” He paused. “I try to be a good Catholic, Father, but I can’t understand why God would allow this kind of thing to happen.”

“God gives us free will, my son. He allows us to make our own choices. One day all of the wicked will be called to account for what they have done.”

“Yeah, but that’s just it, Father. Who would want to do something like this?”

Santoro smiled sadly and shook his head. What kind of man indeed?

After the captain shambled away, shaking his head in confusion, Santoro closed his eyes and drifted into a comfortable doze. The question had triggered so many memories, and as the boat rocked on the waves his dreaming mind drifted back to the very first event he had orchestrated for the Seven Kings.

At 1:03 in the afternoon, a small man with a tidy mustache drove into the parking garage beneath the Bombay Stock Exchange, found a spot near the elevator, and turned off the engine. He sat behind the wheel for several minutes, pretending to read notes in a file folder as two carloads of employees from the exchange, returning from a late lunch, walked — laughing and talking — between the rows of parked cars, waited for the elevator, and then piled into the lift. When the doors closed, the small man got out of his car. He walked quickly up and down the rows to make sure that he was alone. When he was satisfied, he unlocked his trunk and pulled back the orange blanket that covered the unconscious Pakistani man.

The Pakistani was drugged but uninjured. Under other circumstances he would wake up in under an hour. He was dressed in the traditional clothing of a Muslim, a dark and formal sherwani and an embroidered velvet kufi. The small man bent and lifted the Pakistani out of the trunk, grunting and cursing with the effort. The drugged man was barely 140 pounds, but he was totally slack, and the small man had trouble pulling him over the lip of the trunk. It took four minutes to drag him to the open driver’s door and another three to adequately position him behind the wheel.

By the time the small man was finished, he was bathed in sweat. He mopped his forehead very carefully so as not to remove the makeup. Though Rafael Santoro’s own Mediterranean complexion was dark, he was not as dark as an Indian. He checked his watch. One sixteen. He smiled. Plenty of time. All that remained now was to close the car door and walk away.

He took the elevator to the lobby and walked out through the revolving door. He paused at a sidewalk stand that served nariel pani and drank the coconut water right there. So soothing after his exertions. He asked the vendor to scrape out the tender kernel inside, then strolled away, nibbling thoughtfully on it as he mentally counted the last three hundred seconds in his head to see if his calculations matched the digital timer in the trunk.

He felt the blast before he heard it. A deep rumble like a subway train rolling beneath his feet and then muted thunder filled the air behind him as the densely packed high-RDX explosives in the car detonated. He turned to see the shock wave ripple along both sides of the street like a waft of heat haze, shimmering in the air and blowing out storefronts and car windows. Santoro wrapped his arms over his head and dropped into a squat beside a wooden kiosk where brightly colored tourist scarves were sold. The shock wave passed him and fled down the street, and he peeked through an opening in his overlapped arms. He smiled at the beauty of it.

He turned as the crowds of people around him shook off their shock and ran toward the burning building. Santoro consulted his watch. His mental calculation had been off by less than fifteen seconds. The watch read: 1:30.

The crowd surged past him and he allowed the tide to pull him back to the scene of the disaster. He stood with the others and watched as the stock exchange burned, and when the flames leaped to the adjoining buildings Santoro hid a small smile. He stayed there for over an hour, and by then news that there had been a second blast was already being circulated. By the time he reached his hotel room and ordered a meal, the news stations were frantic with reports of bombings all across Bombay. The current estimate was eight, but Santoro knew that there would be more. Twenty had been planned. Some in cars, others on buses and even in the saddlebags of scooters.

Room service arrived and he ate a healthy meal of curry, flavored with coconut, tamarind, chili, and spices, with basmati rice. He tipped the boy and settled down to his meal.

He ordered a bottle of wine and sat with it in a comfortable chair. He was glad that he had not been one of the agents who had been ordered to leave a suitcase bomb in his hotel. He liked this place. Maybe next spring he’d come back here. He wasn’t as fond of the Juhu Centaur Hotel or the Hotel Sea Rock, so he didn’t mind when the increasingly shocked reporters told of blasts that tore through each of them. Other bombs destroyed the Plaza Theatre, the Nair and J.J. hospitals, part of the University of Bombay, and the Zaveri, Century, and Katha bazaars. He watched the news all day. He was mildly disappointed that the rail station bombs were found and defused before they could detonate. By day’s end the tally was thirteen blasts that claimed 257 lives and left over seven hundred injured. A nice day’s work.

He could not help but laugh as the police and various “experts” on terrorism discussed and debated the reason for the attacks. The air of Bombay was thick with paranoia.

Santoro showered, washing away the brown dye that made him look Indian. He would apply a fresh coat tomorrow before he checked out of the hotel.

He toweled off and got ready for bed. He knew that the whole plan would succeed. It was like clockwork. Long in the planning, subtle in the orchestration, deceptively simple in execution. A bread trail would lead the police toward a Muslim crime family who would take the fall. Lovely. There were no loose ends for the police to follow, nothing that would lead them back to Santoro, or to the men who had hired him to plan and execute what had been discreetly referred to as the Bombay Holiday.

Muslims had nothing to do with it. It was not part of any Islamic jihad. It had, in fact, nothing at all to do with any religious ideology and it made no specific theological statement. At least, not as far as Santoro knew. He was fairly insightful, and as far as he could judge, this whole thing was about what it was always about.

Money and power.

With that happy thought in his head, Santoro pulled up the sheet, snuggled into the pillow, and fell into a deep and untroubled sleep, content in the knowledge the world would never be the same again. The Seven Kings would be pleased. His last thought as he drifted off was, The Goddess will love me for this.

The boat thumped down over a tall wave and Santoro jolted awake. He looked around, his hand touching the knife beneath his clothes.

The captain saw him and smiled. “Wind’s picking up,” he said. “We’re ’itting some chop, but we’ll be in port before it gets too bad.”

“Yes,” said Santoro, but he was agreeing to a different meaning entirely.

Smiling, Santoro took his iPhone out of his pocket and checked his text messages. There were separate notes of congratulations from each of the Seven Kings. Both the King of Fear and the King of Plagues asked him how things were progressing on Fair Isle. To both, Santoro sent the same message:

He could imagine the champagne corks popping as that was read aloud in the Chamber of the Kings. Just before the boat docked, Santoro received a message from the Goddess herself:

The world swam around him and Santoro felt tears stinging his eyes.

He bent his head and whispered prayers of thanks and love to the Goddess, and prayed to her that he might soon be lifted from the flesh of a servant to the spirit of a god. Her God.

Her God and lover.

Chapter Twenty-three

Owlstone removed two pairs of latex gloves from her pocket and handed a set to me. I pulled them on and took my camera from my jacket. It’s a special design that takes thirty-five megapixel shots at ultrafine quality, with a three-hundred-image capacity. A prototype from one of Church’s friends in the industry. I clicked off a hundred shots, moving fast, trusting to the anti-shake function to capture everything. At least the forensics team would have some nice pictures to look at.

Nice.

Christ.

When I finished taking the pics I took a small cable from my pocket and connected the camera to my phone and then sent the images via satellite to Church, Benson Childe, Jerry Spencer, Bug, and Dr. Hu.

Photos on the bureau made it clear that the victims were the mother and daughter who had lived here. Laura Plympton, forty-one, and daughter, Zoë, fifteen. They’d both been pretty.

“Look at this,” Owlstone said, her voice dropping into a whisper. She drew a cheap plastic pen from her inner pocket and touched the curled left hand of Laura Plympton. I came around to her side of the bed. I took my penlight and shined it into the dark hollow formed by her curled white fingers. “Is that paper?”

“You have a good eye, Detective Sergeant,” I said, and took some close-ups of Laura Plympton’s hand. “You ought to consider a career in criminal investigation.”

“Oh yes, very funny.”

We very slowly, very carefully worked together to gently spread Laura Plympton’s fingers. She must have been murdered early yesterday morning, so rigor had come and gone, leaving her fingers slack in a creepy, rubbery way. In death her bladder and bowels had released, so the smells that rose from her were eye-watering, and buried beneath them were the beginnings of the sweet stink of decomposition.

Owlstone slid the paper out and I lowered Plympton’s hand back to its resting place on her breast. I knew that she was dead and far beyond any feeling, but I felt like I wanted to apologize to her for this necessary violation.

We carried the paper to the dresser and carefully unfolded it. It was a quarter of a piece of ordinary computer paper folded several times and then rolled into a cylinder. There were several lines handwritten on it in blue ballpoint:

It was unsigned. The paper was stained with bloody fingerprints and the distinctive pucker marks of dried water. Tears, without a doubt.

There was a reference to the Kings, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. Was Plympton not part of the Kings?

Was that an admission that he had become corrupted by the Kings? Or had they somehow coerced him into this?

No shit.

I looked at Owlstone and saw confusion and compassion warring on her young face. As one we straightened and turned to look at the bodies on the bed.

“What the hell are we into here, Captain?”

They are everywhere. He had underlined “everywhere” half a dozen times.

“It’s Joe,” I said, “and in my considered opinion as a professional investigator, it beats the hell out of me.”

Though … that was not entirely true. An idea was beginning to form in one of the darker side corridors in my broken head.

My phone rang. It was Church.

“Sit rep?” he demanded.

I told him and started to explain, but he cut me off.

“We have what we need from that site. Leave the rest to the locals. I’m three minutes away. Be downstairs.”

“I think I’m on to something here, I don’t want to bug out now.”

“Would you rather hear about it from the Emergency Broadcast System?”

Shit.

“I’m on my way,” I said.

Interlude Thirteen

The range master at Terror Town was slim, swarthy, bearded, and had a beaky nose and dark eyes. The name embroidered on his chest was Muhammad. A few sorry souls had made jokes around him with words like “towel head,” “camel jockey,” and “sand nigger.” They misunderstood his stance on racial epithets, because they thought that if he was working this range then Muhammad could not be either a devout Muslim or a true Arab. Of those sorry souls, the ones who were able to walk away from the range under their own steam were encouraged to pack their bags and go find a clue. The rest received the very best of emergency care in the T-Town infirmary.

Circe O’Tree had been there for one of those encounters. The whole thing was over in a second and a man much bigger than Muhammad lay in a fetal position, hands clutching his groin, faced screwed into a purple knot of silent agony. The sight had bothered Circe for weeks. But she could not find any fault with the range master. He never once started a fight; his view, however, was that even small hate crimes should be “appropriately addressed.”

Although she worked around violence all day and though she had logged hundreds of hours on the combat ranges and in the self-defense classes, Circe had never before been a witness to actual violence. Even so, threads of violence were sown through her life. Her mother and sister had died violently, her father was in one of the more ferocious departments of government service, and all of her friends were either current or former military or scientists like her, who studied war and conflict.

The relationship between Chief Petty Officer Abdul Muhammad and Dr. Circe O’Tree was complicated, its parameters unspoken. He cut her no slack, but he always gave her a little extra advice and encouragement. He also let her train in the late evenings after the teams had called it a night. Though most of the men at T-Town respected — or perhaps dreaded — Muhammad, they frequently forgot themselves when Circe was on-deck. She was a very beautiful woman with a figure that drew the eyes of normally focused shooters away from their targets. Range scores plummeted when she was on-deck.

And she found the whole thing exceptionally tiresome. She couldn’t change her genetics, and dressing down in shapeless clothes was an admission of defeat. After ignoring the testosterone-infused nonsense for months, she began coming later and later to the range. Now it was full dark and the sky above glittered with 10 billion diamonds. The August breeze off of Mount Baker was cool and soothing after hours spent with her computer.

“Your mind is not in the game, Doc,” Muhammad growled after she finished her last grouped shots.

Circe cleared and benched the gun. There was no one else on the range, but the proper etiquette had become ingrained. You earned a sharp rebuke only once from Muhammad, and you never forgot it. On her second day at T-Town Circe had stepped past the firing line before all of the other shooters had declared their weapons benched. Muhammad read her the riot act in front of everyone and he was thorough about it. Then he made her stay an extra hour and practice the rules of handgun safety, shouting out each step no matter who was firing. The lesson sank in.

She pulled off her ear defenders. “Lot on my mind tonight, Chief.”

“You haven’t scored this low since your first month.”

She looked downrange as the target moved toward her on a pulley. She had fired all fifteen rounds from a Glock 22. She was not a brilliant shooter, but she was a competent and consistent one, usually putting eleven rounds out of each magazine into the kill zone of a suspended target fifteen yards away. At twenty-five yards she lost a bit of her accuracy if firing fast, but in a slow fire drill she was a very good shot.

Muhammad folded his arms and leaned against the wall of the shooting stall.

“Why do you practice with a handgun?”

She almost sighed. This was one of the Chief ’s ritual questions.

“To save my life and the lives of those in my charge.”

“How do you accomplish this?”

“By hitting what I aim at with focus, speed, and commitment.”

“Uh-huh. So tell me, Doc, what part of that sounds like ‘I got too much on my mind’?”

“Nothing, Chief.”

“Very well. Bring your gear.”

When he said that it only meant one thing: the combat range.

Circe regretted coming out to the range this late. She had wanted to work off some nervous energy and blow holes in the wild theories that were forming in her mind. Bringing her problems to the range had been foolish.

She gathered up her gear, making sure to do each step of gun safety exactly the right way even though Chief Muhammad did not appear to be watching. She ran to catch up with him and followed him down a long and windy cinder-block corridor. The block walls were filled in with tightly packed dirt to catch ricochets, and the corridors smelled like a graveyard.

They came out into the maze of T-Town’s eighteen combat ranges. Each one was designed to allow operatives to train for different kinds of circumstances: city street, subway, airplane, airport, business, government office, house, and others.

Muhammad chose the shortest of the ranges, a mom-and-pop corner store. Circe knew that there were nine Pepper Poppers — metal silhouette targets that could be positioned throughout the range and operated by remote control. They were hinged at the bottom so that they could swing up on fast spring releases or fall back after being shot. At least four of the targets would be hostiles, the rest designated as “possible” noncombatants. The “possible” part was crucial, because in the War on Terror the enemy didn’t wear uniforms or team shirts.

“How many mags, Chief?”

Muhammad grinned. He took a magazine from her pack, thumbed four rounds out, and handed it over. “Eleven rounds. Best intel says four hostiles. Could be five. That gives you two per and three for luck.”

“I never did this with less than two full magazines.”

He shrugged. “Life sucks sometimes. What if a situation turned out to be bigger and badder than you expected? You want to read a rule book at a hostile? Think that’ll win the day, Doc?”

“No, Chief.”

“Now, you run this range and I don’t want to hear from jams, tripping over your shoelaces, or a text message from your friends. You run it like you know how to run it and keep your head in the fucking game. You read me, Dr. O’Tree?”

She had never been in the military, but she snapped to attention. “I read you, Chief.”

“Then it’s time to go to work.”

Muhammad put a wooden matchstick between his teeth and walked off the range and into the steel observation bunker. There was a warning buzzer announcing a live fire exercise and the lights in the store came on.

Circe called, “Loading!” She slapped the magazine into the Glock and racked the slide, keeping the barrel pointed into the range, her finger along the trigger guard. Muhammad’s words from their very first training session echoed in her mind.

Shake hands with the grip. Snug but comfortable. Get to know the weight. Fit the handle into the vee formed by the thumb and index finger of the shooting hand as high as possible on the backstrap. Your strong hand holds and fires; your weak hand completes the grip and supports.

Muhammad’s amplified voice growled from a speaker, “Ready on the firing line!”

Circe could feel her heart hammering, but she took several deep breaths to relax her mind and muscles.

Muhammad spoke from her memories: Breath control minimizes body movement and that in turn reduces handgun movement.

“Go!”

Circe kicked in the door and entered fast, sliding to one side and bringing her gun up in a two-handed grip, the sights level with her eyes.

Aim with your dominant eye when shooting a handgun. Even if you’re right-handed it does not mean that you are right-eyed dominant. Learn your body and work with it in the most natural way.

A target pivoted toward her. A teenager in a Brooklyn T-Shirt and jeans, but he was pulling a pistol from his belt. Circe shot him in the chest and again in the face.

Tap-Tap!

Squeeze the trigger in a natural and continuous way. Never jerk the trigger.

Another target sprang up from behind a row of canned goods. An old man holding something. A bag of groceries. Both hands visible. No weapon. She spun as she caught sight of movement to her left. A man with an automatic weapon.

Tap-Tap!

Follow through. Apply the shooting fundamentals continuously. Sloppy is dead. Let the process keep you alive.

She saw the shadow of another and was aiming as she turned, checking her target in a split part of a second.

Tap-Tap!

The afterimage of a hand grenade floated in her mind as she stepped and turned and covered high and low, tracking with her eyes. She shuffled sideways to put two rows between her and a grenade blast. There was a bang, and wet confetti filled the air. None of it landed on her.

Then the lights went out and something brushed her. She whirled and faded left, looking for ambient light, seeing a glow splash across the face of a man with a smiling face, but the glow washed down across his chest. Shotgun.

Tap-Tap!

Two targets came up together. Another teenager and a housewife. The teenager wore a sweatshirt with the name of the store. The woman stood behind him, one hand out of sight. The kid’s eyes were scared and painted so that he looked nervously back at Circe. It was an almost impossible shot in the dark. She took it.

Tap-Tap!

Four hostiles down. Three rounds left. The lights came on — no, just the emergency lights. Weak and yellow. She turned at movement, saw a woman with a stroller. Lingered for a moment, looking for a trap. No gun, no bomb. Circe moved forward, turning left and right, checking her corners, checking behind her.

There! A figure rose from behind the counter. Big fat guy holding another shotgun. Circe turned, aimed.

Did not fire.

The man looked like an older version of the kid in the sweatshirt. Father? Uncle. The owner, defending his store against the attack. Circe kept the pistol on him.

“Drop your weapon! Do it now—now!”

The shopkeeper silhouette dropped back.

And the lights came on.

“Clear and lock!”

Circe stepped out of her shooter’s crouch, turning to keep the barrel clear of the entrance. She eased the hammer down, removed the magazine, and ejected the round from the chamber. She held up the locked and empty weapon.

“Clear!”

Muhammad hit the button for the exit door to open and she stepped out, placing her weapon on the courtesy bench. Her ears were ringing and her hand tingled from the heavy recoil.

“Well, well, well,” said Muhammad, smiling around the wooden matchstick. “You’re not dead, Doc. Congratulations.”

“I almost shot that last target.”

He shook his head. “You didn’t. We don’t worry about ‘almost’ any more than we worry about any other distraction. Combat purifies thinking.”

It was one of his most common aphorisms, and she nodded, repeating it softly.

“Now,” he said, “it’s comforting to know that you can bring your game when you need to. Next time you’re on my range I want you to remember that. I don’t ever want to see bullshit scores like you took back there. You read me?”

“Loud and clear, Chief.”

Muhammad smiled and wiggled the matchstick up and down. “Okay, let’s agree that your ass has been kicked. Now, Doc … what the hell’s got you so bent out of shape?”

“It’s complicated, but …” She hesitated, unsure how to begin.

“With what you do? No kidding.” He wore a crooked smile as he shoved his hands into his back pockets. “I believe that it’s Miller time. Let’s go someplace and talk this out.”

“You don’t drink.”

“Bars serve coffee. I’ll watch you drink.”

She still hedged. “You’ll think I’m crazy.”

“And that’ll change our relationship how?” He clapped her on the shoulder. “C’mon, Doc. Crazy one buys the first round.”

They sat in the T-Town canteen, huddled together in a private corner. She drank white wine; he drank hot tea. She told him everything that she had found online, and she told him all of her speculations.

Chief Petty Officer Abdul Muhammad did not think she was crazy. “I can see it,” he said after careful thought. “On both sides of this thing there are enough hotheads ready to pull a trigger or throw a firebomb, and that’s as true now as it was during the Crusades and maybe back to Moses and the Pharaoh.”

“What do you think about the Protocols and all that?”

He sipped his tea. “What, do I think that there are radical Jews out there planning the downfall of the free world?” He shrugged. “Yeah, probably. Just like there are radical Muslims, Buddhists, Lutherans, and Hindus. There’s radical everything. That’s why there’s always a war somewhere. But if you’re asking if I think that these Web posts are being made by a vast secret society of Jews, then no. I don’t buy that for a moment.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Dr. Rudy Sanchez hurried through the terminal, collected his suitcase, and picked up the late-model Ford. His annoyance at having been sent back to the States before even setting foot in England had long since passed, replaced by a growing sense of unease about the man named Nicodemus.

Once he was on the road in Pennsylvania, Rudy called Mr. Church.

“Bug called me a few minutes ago,” Rudy explained. “We had another call from the psychiatrist at Graterford. Have you read the transcript?”

“No, and I can’t read it now. Give me the highlights.”

Rudy did. When he was finished, Church said, “He actually mentioned the Kings?”

“His exact words, as Dr. Stankeviius recited them to me, were: ‘Lo! And behold the rise of the Seven Kings. All shall fall before them!’”

“Interesting,” murmured Church. “I’ll see that and raise you one.” He told Rudy about the Kings symbol on Plympton’s door and the reference in the note the man had left in his murdered wife’s hand.

“What does it all mean?”

“I would give a lot to be able to answer that question, Doctor. Maybe you can coax some answers out of Nicodemus.”

“I hope so, but I’m not optimistic. Nicodemus is supposed to be in isolation, without TV or newspaper privileges, and yet he’s making references to the London Hospital and the Seven Kings. He shouldn’t be able to get outside information.”

“You question the likelihood of an information leak in a prison?” Church said. “That’s almost funny.”

“Almost,” Rudy agreed sourly. He absently wondered what Mr. Church would look like laughing. Rudy had never seen the man do anything more than smile, and even then the emotion looked unwelcome and unwanted on his features. “Someone at the prison must be feeding him information, and I doubt they’re doing it just so he can stick pins in the prison therapist.”

“While you’re there, don’t assume trust in anyone, and that includes the prison doctor and the warden.”

Rudy sighed. “It’s sad that paranoia has become an indispensable quality of good job performance here in the DMS. I’m finding it very hard to trust anyone.”

“It’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you,” said Church.

Rudy thought, Why is it you only have a sense of humor when things are really bad? But he didn’t say it.

“I’d like your full read on Nicodemus,” said Church, “as well as any observations you care to share about the staff.”

“What do you want me to look for?”

“I’ll leave you to determine that, Doctor. I don’t want to pollute your perceptions by sharing my speculations. We can compare notes later.”

“Okay.”

“One more thing, Doctor. I’m bringing in a consultant. Dr. Circe O’Tree. Are you familiar with her?”

“Not personally, but I know her work. I’ve seen her on TV, read her books. The new one, The Terrorist Sophist, should be required reading by everyone in the DMS. She makes some very important points on how terrorists rationalize what they do. She’s rather brilliant.”

“Yes. She’s also being largely wasted working as Hugo Vox’s assistant. I think she has more potential than Hugo gives her credit for. Do you have a problem with her consulting on this?”

“God, no. In fact, I welcome her insight.”

“Good. She’s already agreed and it’s our good fortune that she is currently in London working on another matter.”

He disconnected.

Rudy made the turn from I-95 to 476 West. He turned on the news and listened to the latest rehash of the London disaster. Nothing new, so he dialed through Sirius until he found a Mexican ska band, cranked the sound way up, and put the pedal down. As a driver, Rudy was usually careful to the point where Joe called him Tia when he was behind the wheel. He wasn’t feeling like an old aunt right now. As Joe was so fond of saying, the clock was ticking.

Chapter Twenty-five

When Ghost and I came out of the apartment complex the street was crowded with police vehicles, ambulances, and a variety of nondescript government cars that were probably licensed to the various counterterrorism teams I’d met yesterday. Lots of stone-faced guys with wires behind their ears were watching up and down the street while local cops struggled to keep the crowd well back. Everyone looked scraped raw by the unrelenting winds.

I saw a limo idling down the street, well out of the press and angled for a quick departure. The driver gave the headlights a quick flash, so I headed that way, at times having to be ungentle with the rubberneckers who thronged the bystreet. By the time I reached it the driver — in the form of the squat and muscular Sgt. Gus Dietrich — had gotten out and stood by the rear passenger door. Not sure what Dietrich’s job description was with the DMS. He was gruff, tough, honest, and as dependable as the bulldog that he closely resembled.

“Good to see you, Captain.” He offered me a rock-hard hand.

“Skip the ‘Captain’ crap, Gus. Good to see you, too. Wish it was under better circumstances.”

“Ha! Let me know when those ‘better circumstances’ roll around, Joe. I’ll take the day off and go get a massage. In the meantime … good luck with this one. It’s going to be a real nut buster.”

He opened the door and we climbed inside, happy to be out of the vicious cold. I slid onto the bench seat and Dietrich closed the door and ran around to climb behind the wheel. There were two men on the opposite seat. One big, one small, neither smiling fuzzy-bunny warmth at me.

Guy on the left was Mr. Church. He was north of sixty, but he made it look like a fit forty. Blocky, hard, with big hands and a face you wouldn’t want to see across a poker table from you. Tinted sunglasses even in the backseat of the limo. He gave me a fraction of a nod and there was no expression at all on his face.

The other guy was a gangly, gawky collection of awkward limbs and comprehensive disapproval. Dr. William Hu, chief of scientific research for the DMS. He had a Mongol face, an Einstein brain, the pop-culture sensibilities of Joss Whedon, but the compassion of a ghoul. When I’d first joined the Department of Military Sciences I tried real hard to like him, but that got to be an expensive hobby. He didn’t burn up any calories trying to warm up to me, either.

“Captain Ledger,” Hu said in exactly the same way you might say “painful rectal itch.”

“Dr. Hu,” I said, meeting him on the same ground.

We didn’t shake hands.

Ghost sniffed the hand Church extended, gave the fingertips a tiny lick, and then sat back. Then Ghost turned and eyed Hu like he was a steak dinner. Hu never attempted to touch Ghost. Hu was an asshole, but he wasn’t stupid.

Gus Dietrich put it in gear and the limo pulled away from the curb like we were fleeing the scene of a crime. I grabbed an armrest to keep from falling out of my seat. “Where are we going?”

“Scotland,” said Church. “Specifically Fair Isle. Shetland Islands, in the North Sea, very remote, ultrahigh security. A chopper’s waiting.”

“Why? Has there been another attack?”

“More complicated than that. Short answer is that there is a situation at a viral research station there. A staff member is holding the rest of the employees hostage.”

“Why?”

“Unknown.”

“He connected to the Kings?”

“To be determined.”

“Working alone?”

“Possibly. It’s the impression he’s conveyed so far. Uses ‘I’ and ‘me’ rather than ‘we.’”

“Demands?”

“Aside from the usual precautionary requirements — keep our distance, don’t try anything, et cetera — he’s asked to speak to a representative of Homeland Security.”

“Homeland? Does this guy know he’s in Scotland?”

“He’s American,” said Hu. “Baker and Schloss lease half of the island from the Brits.”

“Baker and Schloss? The male enhancement company?”

Hu grinned. “Yeah, the pecker pill people. They’re a medium-sized pharmaceutical company with a board made up of American, British, German, and French members. Majority stockholders are the Baker family of Martha’s Vineyard. Old money. The male enhancement drug put them on the public radar, but they make their real money from government contracts.”

“For what? Enhanced soldiers?”

“Viral research,” said Church.

“What kind? Germ warfare?”

“Nobody uses that term anymore,” Hu said haughtily. “Baker and Schloss has government contracts for tactical-response bio-agents. TRBs.”

“Which means what?” I asked.

“Germ warfare,” said Church. “The point is that the situation is politically complicated. The title to the land is actually held by the U.S. Government. Baker and Schloss has access to it as part of their research contract.”

“Why is it in Scotland?”

Church said nothing.

“What?” I prompted.

Hu snorted. “It’s here because it’s not allowed to be in the U.S.”

I studied their faces. Church was a stone, but Hu was smiling, and he never smiled unless something unpleasant was happening. “I’m going out on a limb here and guess that it’s not allowed in the U.K., either.”

“No, it’s allowed,” said Church, “but only under the most exacting circumstances, which translates as ‘difficult and expensive.’ Those responsible for establishing this facility found it less expensive and more productive to simply move it outside of the scope of domestic regulars and congressional oversight. That itself is problematic in a variety of ugly ways. The nature of the work being done at Fair Isle contravenes half a dozen international agreements.”

“Why is it even in operation?” I demanded.

“It’s a holdover from a previous administration. And it’s one of those things that the layers of government power players fail to tell a new president.”

“How—,” I began, but he cut me off.

“There are too many secrets to tell any sitting president. At best the President can be briefed in general about the areas of research and given more complete information when the situation requires it. But the career politicians within the infrastructure have a skewed view of both ‘need to know’ and ‘plausible deniability.’ They believe they have the right to decide what the President is allowed to know, or not allowed to know.”

I knew what he was saying. As much as we don’t want to accept the truth, there were layers of government that remained in place no matter which party held power in the White House. Shadow governments, cells and cabals, some of which believed that what they were doing was in the best interest of the American people, though in those rare cases when someone was able to shine a light on them it became pretty clear that money and the power it purchased was the only enduring motive.

“If this got out,” Church said, “it could cripple the current administration and it would almost certainly result in some kind of criminal charges for key members of the previous administration.”

I started to say something smart-ass, but he headed me off at the pass.

“This isn’t a time to collect scalps, Captain. Playing politics has hurt our country too many times. And while I agree that those responsible should be held accountable, that’s something best done quietly on our own turf. Spilling this in public would do greater harm than good. The stock market is already taking very bad hits because of the Hospital bombing; this could crash it into a depression. It would also strip the power of the United States in critical negotiations with North Korea, China, and Iran.”

“Yeah, stones and glass houses.”

He nodded.

I said, “Tell you, though … if someone wanted to do just that, this would be a good way to go about it. We have to consider that this might be a Seven Kings operation.”

“No! Really?” said Hu dryly.

Church adjusted his glasses. “We face three separate problems.”

“Let me see if I can guess,” I said, and ticked them off on my fingers. “First, we need to contain the situation and prevent any bugs from getting loose. Second, we need to make sure this doesn’t embarrass the ol’ U.S. of A.”

“Right. And the third?”

“We have to find out why this guy is doing this. You said he wants to talk to someone from Homeland? Not the Brits? Not the press? That’s interesting.”

“Isn’t it, though?” said Church. “He said one thing that I find particularly intriguing. He said that there’s still time to stop this.’”

“That doesn’t sound like a threat,” I said. “Maybe he’s not a bad guy. Maybe he’s just a scared guy.”

“Scared of what?” Hu asked.

“Don’t know yet. But you don’t take people hostage if you’re not scared of something. Not unless you’re in it for the money, and this doesn’t have that kind of feel.”

“Agreed,” said Church.

“Or maybe he’s part of this thing, whatever it is, and got either cold feet or an attack of conscience.”

“And if the Kings are involved we might finally have a doorway into them.”

I nodded. “Couple questions, though.”

“Go.”

“First … why me? Where the hell’s the rest of the DMS?”

“Everyone healthy enough to report for work has been scrambled and assigned to investigation or protection in the States. As for our teams here, Gog is still on the job in Prague and Magog has gone dark in Afghanistan, though that’s expected at this stage of that operation. We can’t get either of them here in time and this situation needs a shooter.”

I gave him a sour look. “Swell. Joe Ledger, gun for hire.”

“If your feelings are bruised, Captain, let me put it more delicately: this situation needs finesse.”

“Thanks, but I wasn’t about to break out in tears.”

Hu made a small grunting sound that I was free to interpret any way I wanted. I considered siccing Ghost on him.

“We do have some local assets, however,” said Church. “Barrier is sending Lionheart Team as backup.”

“I thought we had to keep the Brits out of this,” I said.

“Officially, we have to keep the British government out of it,” corrected Church. “Brigadier Prebble, head of Barrier’s Tactical Field Office in Scotland, is an old friend of mine. He understands our need for discretion and he’ll be meeting us in a few minutes.”

“Does Benson Childe know about this?”

“Officially, no. Unofficially, I briefed him on the matter and he advised me that Prebble’s goodwill is only going to last as far as containment. If there’s any kind of biological breach, then Prebble will disown us. As well he should.”

“As you would in the same circumstance.”

“Of course.”

The limo pulled out of traffic and through the gates of a large estate. A military helicopter was parked on the lawn behind the house, the rotors already turning, the engine whine rising to a scream.

Interlude Fourteen

Gault stepped out of the steaming shower and reached for a towel. It wasn’t on the rack. Instead Eris moved out of the mist and handed it to him.

Gault snatched the towel from her and pressed it to his naked, scarred face, turning half-away. But Eris moved closer still. She still wore the bikini top, but she had shed the tight pants and wore only the scraps of bright cloth that comprised the bottom of the bikini. Her body was strong and taut, with hard muscles under tanned skin.

“Let me see,” she said, touching the hand that pressed the towel to his face.

“No,” he said hoarsely.

“Don’t be a child, Sebastian,” she said in her low and smoky voice. “Neither of us is as pretty as we used to be. Life and time are monsters and they gnaw at us.”

She kissed the back of his hand and then tugged lightly at the towel.

“Please don’t …”

But Gault knew from too many years and too many encounters that Lady Eris could not be told no. She kissed his hand and tugged, and finally he yielded, as he had always yielded to her. She tossed the towel aside and touched his chin, turning his face toward her. Her sea green eyes took in everything, missed nothing. The smile on her parted lips never wavered as each of the bruises and surgical scars was revealed.

“This will heal,” she said softly.

“Not all of it.”

She touched the crow’s-feet at the corners of her eyes, then drifted her fingertips across her throat. “Neither will this. But only fools and mortals worry about these things.”

“You aged; I melted,” he said as she moved even closer. Her full breasts brushed the naked skin of his stomach. “Surely that’s proof of mortality.”

“No,” she said as she plucked the strings of her bikini. The pieces fell away except for the triangle that had covered her left breast, which was momentarily held in place by the pressure of one taut nipple against the rippled muscles of his abdomen. “No,” she said again, “we’re not mortals.”

She kissed his mouth, his cheek, the corner of his eye, her breath furnace hot against the crooked lines of his scars.

“We’re gods,” she whispered.

Gault suddenly pulled her to him, crushing her against his chest, her softness pressed to him, his hardness pressed to her, the steam swirling around them both. Her lips and hungry hands were everywhere, touching him, stroking him, guiding him toward wetness.

“Gods,” he breathed.

And then they both cried out together as two gods became one.

Interlude Fifteen

Circe tried not to fidget as Maj. Grace Courtland, Mr. Church’s top field agent and one of Circe’s closest friends, read through the Goddess Report.

Grace was slim and fit and was known throughout the counterterrorism community as the Iron Maiden. It wasn’t an insult. Grace was a top-of-the-game shooter for the DMS, which made her the best of the best of the best.

“Bloody hell,” Grace said as she closed the report.

“Am I crazy or is there something there?”

Grace smiled. “Both, I daresay.”

“Am I wrong?”

“The FBI sent us a report on this a few weeks ago and they were all over the place with their suspicions, and none of their geniuses came within pissing distance of what you have here. This is brilliant.”

“Really?”

“No, I’m lying to you, you daft cow. Of course! Agencies are nodding at the Goddess postings and dismissing them as an aftereffect or a symptom.”

“I know! But the dates clearly show that the posts predate the last couple of spikes in hate crimes.”

“No doubt, but there are always other events that can be held up as causal factors. An Army drone hits a village mosque instead of a Taliban opium warehouse and bang!” Grace tapped the report with a forefinger. “But they’ll have to take you seriously once they read this.”

“They have read it. This same report. They see my name on the document and they don’t take me seriously.”

“Ah.” Grace Courtland pursed her lips. “Then the problem is the same one you’ve been facing since you started mucking about with the Goddess thing, love. There’s nowhere to go with it. That’s the trouble with the Internet — there are too many ways to create and maintain anonymity. The FBI is all about following bread crumb trails. Here there’s no trail to follow, and those wankers are too busy playing with their beef bayonets to try and find a way. That and they’re swamped trying to stop the Chinese ghost net from stealing every last effing secret we have.” She paused. “Is there any chance the Chinese are involved in this? We’ve been dealing with wave after wave of their cyberterrorism these last few years.”

“Impossible to say.”

They sat and thought about it.

“So,” Circe said, “you see my problem. Even when I can get someone to agree that there’s something going on out there, no one can offer a single suggestion on what to do about it.”

“Mm,” Grace murmured. “If this was piss easy we’d have solved all the world’s problems already. As it is … best I can do for you, love, is bring this to Aunt Sallie. She has the cybercrimes portfolio right now.”

“But this isn’t a cybercrime per se. More like hate mongering, and technically that’s allowed under free speech.”

“Well, as we don’t have a division for cyber fucking-about we’ll have to go with what we have.” She lifted the report. “Can I keep this copy? I’d like to read it again on the plane.”

Circe chewed her lip. “Um … Hugo told me to keep this on the down low as far as the DMS is concerned. He said I could talk to you off the record. He’d kill me if he knew you had a copy of that.”

Grace smiled and tucked the report into her bag. “If you don’t tell him, I won’t.”

“Thanks!” Circe smiled weakly. “Do you have to get right back?”

Grace smiled. “Not this minute. First … I want to tell you about something that you have to swear to God you won’t tell anyone else.”

Circe crossed her heart and held her hand to God. “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you his name. Security reasons, you understand.” Grace Courtland leaned forward and put her elbows on the desk. “But … I think I’ve bloody well fallen in love.”

Chapter Twenty-six

We flew to the outskirts of Glasgow and transferred to an unmarked black Barrier helo. The cabin was soundproofed. Once we were airborne, an officer came out of the cockpit. Medium height, with ramrod posture, a neatly trimmed mustache, and a black beret on which was the medieval castle emblem of Barrier. He gave Church a “now we’re in it” look, and Church nodded. The officer smiled at me and held out a small, hard hand.

“Brigadier Ashton Prebble,” he said in a city Scots burr.

“Joe Ledger, sir.”

“Yes,” he drawled in a way that suggested he already knew who and what I was. “Pleasure to meet you, Captain Ledger. Glad to hear you’re back in the game. Timing couldn’t be more critical.”

I snorted. “Nothing like jumping in with both feet.”

Prebble had eyes like blueberries: dark and cold.

Ghost looked him up and down but didn’t react in any challenging way to Prebble. I’ve started trusting the dog’s judgment of people. Prebble was “one of us.”

“Ashton,” Church said, “would you bring Captain Ledger up to speed on where we’re going?”

“Of course. We’re flying to Fair Isle,” said Prebble. The table between us was actually a computer, and he called up an aerial shot of a tiny speck of a place in the North Sea, halfway between Orkney and Shetland. “We’ve managed to quarantine the island and cut off all telephone, cell, and radio communication. We even shut down the Internet. Nothing’s getting off the island and we have gunboats in the waters.”

“Has anyone noticed?” I asked.

“They have, but we can play the London Hospital card for all manner of blackouts at the moment. Small mercies.”

I glanced at Church. “No offense to the brigadier, but what’s on- and off-the-record here?”

“Brigadier Prebble is in the family, Captain.”

That was one of Church’s catchphrases. It meant that Prebble was in the select circle of people among whom there were no secrets. Well, none except those Church kept to himself.

Prebble punched buttons that tightened the satellite image of the facility. “Fair Isle is five kilometers long, about three wide. It’s almost entirely surrounded by jagged cliffs. Seventy-three civilian residents, not counting the live-in staff at the facility. The civilians live in the southern third of the island, which is where the fertile ground is. They live in crofts along here.” He tapped the screen to indicate several small enclosed parcels of arable land, then rolled the curser to shift the image to the central and northern sections. “The northern part is largely rough grazing and rocky moorland. There’s a lighthouse on the south end, and a bird sanctuary.”

I bent low and studied the aerial image. There was a compound at the northwest tip of the island. A handful of functional buildings surrounded by trees and a fence.

“There are six buildings comprising the Fair Isle Research Endeavor — or FIRE, if you enjoy trite acronyms. According to public charter, the lab is there to study bacteria that affect fish and mollusks. And, before you ask, Captain, there really are some rare and even unique bacteria in those waters that do affect the marine life. It’s very good cover, and I believe a portion of the facility is actually dedicated to that purpose. Am I correct, Doctor?”

Hu nodded. “About twenty percent of the work at the lab, and they’ve actually made some progress, too. Last two years have seen a four percent increase in clam harvests.”

“Big whoop,” I said. “What about the other eighty percent?”

“Ah,” said Prebble as he suppressed a smile. “According to what I’m not supposed to know, there are some very, very nasty bugs being studied there.”

“Very nasty,” Hu agreed. “Baker and Schloss are working to develop a TRB, specifically an airborne strain of Ebola.”

I stared at him in horror. “Why the hell would—?”

“Proactive defense,” Church cut in.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning,” said Hu, “that someone is inevitably going to develop airborne Ebola. You busted one lab yourself, Captain.”

“Yes, and those were nutcases, Doc. What are our guys doing? Working on a cure—?”

“A cure, a treatment, or some prophylactic stratagem,” said Hu.

I didn’t like it, but I understood it. Ebola is about 97 percent contagious and almost always lethal. Obtaining research samples was necessarily difficult, because if a terrorist organization ever launched a weaponized version of it and we hadn’t done our homework we wouldn’t live long enough to regret the lack of preparedness. Still sucked, though.

“Bloody marvelous, isn’t it?” Prebble said with a tight smile. “And your lot brought the virus here by the gallon. Can’t say I’m very happy about it.”

“Can’t say I am, either,” said Church. “After 9/11 there was an overwhelming fear of being perceived by the public as unprepared. It was a bigger concern than actually developing a workable response to a biological attack. That pushed several likely pathogens into active testing immediately rather than waiting until a secure facility could be built somewhere in the U.S. And there may have been a secondary agenda. Some of the people who put this plan together may not have wanted to risk testing on U.S. soil. They felt it was more ‘prudent’ to exploit the protection of an ally with a strong military in case of an attack by a terrorist group.” He glanced at me. “No, Captain, don’t look at the logic too closely. It doesn’t hold up to any kind of scrutiny.”

“Politics,” said Prebble, giving that word all the bile it deserved.

“Politics,” agreed Church. “By U.S., British, and international law this lab is illegal. It was black book authorized following 9/11, but it was approved too hastily and then given to a private company to manage. If you try to make sense out of that you’ll hurt yourself.”

“Aye,” said Prebble. “I can’t stand on a pedestal here, because we made the same mistakes. America wasn’t the only country scrambling to retrofit itself for antiterrorism and counterterrorism preparedness.”

“You guys are killing my idealism here,” I said.

“Let’s hope that’s all we kill,” said Ashton. It wasn’t a joke and nobody smiled.

“So,” I said, “we seem to be busting our ass to get there, but everything you’re telling me is past tense.”

Hu said, “This morning, FIRE senior researcher Dr. Charles Grey came into work and brought his wife and son with him. They passed through all the security checkpoints, and he used his keycard to get them all into the bioresearch wing. Totally against all protocols, of course. We reviewed the security tapes, and when one lab tech tried to protest Grey flat out threatened to fire the guy. The tech backed down, more concerned for his job than for protocols.” He sneered. “Accidents are always about the human element.”

For once I could find no fault with his statement.

Church called up a floor plan on the tabletop computer. “FIRE is built in layers, with a false front around the exterior to make it look like an inexpensive university-level lab. There are offices and staff rooms, and so on, built in the outer ring. They connect at two points through air locks to the main lab complex. Inside there is another and much more sophisticated air lock that accesses what they call the Hot Room. That’s where the work on the class-A pathogens is done, and there’s a glass-enclosed and pressuresealed observation tank in the center — the staff calls it the fish tank — and the biological vault is in there. Everyone working in the Hot Room can see the bio-vault, so nobody working there will be surprised when it’s opened. There are also warning lights and buzzers of different kinds that go off when the unlocking codes are being entered.” Church looked up from the screen. “Dr. Grey called the entire staff into the Hot Room and shortly after that the video surveillance system went out.”

“How? Aren’t those systems supposed to have redundancies?”

“Yes,” Church agreed, “so we can presume that they were deliberately taken off-line.”

I thought about that. “Then he can’t be doing this alone. No way the security cameras are controlled from the Hot Room or the other labs.”

Prebble smiled approvingly. “Good call. No, the fail-safe on the surveillance system has a set of manual controls, and they are in the security office on the other side of the complex. So figure at least one other person. Could be more.”

“Is there a shutdown protocol?” I asked. “And is that connected to the door seals?”

Hu said, “There are manual controls for all functions of the outer lab and the Hot Room, but it’s only used when the bio-vault is locked and the fish tank sealed. They use it when they’re installing new equipment or making repairs to doors and such, and under those conditions the bio-vault with the active samples is sealed and guarded. That system is connected via satellite uplinks to coded routers in a national security satellite. The uplink has been terminated at the source. Same for the hard-lines that connect to the TAT-fourteen transatlantic telecommunications cable. The satellite and cable are functioning normally, but both report a disconnection.”

“There’s got to be a fail-safe … a dead man’s switch.”

“Sure,” said Hu. “But like everything, there is a bypass to it. Bug has pinged it and he’s sure that the system has been taken off-line. In fact, the only way to bypass this kind of security is through deliberate and coordinated human action.”

“Shit.”

“You can’t prevent human error,” said Hu fussily. “You can only advise against it and encourage adherence to rules.”

“It gets worse,” said Church. “Because the main lab is not part of any active virus research protocols, it has looser safety features. In fact, it can be manually integrated into the main air-conditioning system for the whole lab facility.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face. “What kind of moron would approve that design?”

“The bureaucratic kind,” said Church.

“Christ. Can the vents be blocked from outside?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, but it appears that at some time prior to today Grey or someone working with him disabled the vent overrides. We’ll have to review weeks of security tapes and logs to see who worked on it, and that’s beside the point. It’s damage done. The vent controls have been entirely routed to the Hot Room. All Grey has to do to flood the building is throw a switch.”

“What are the options? Can you disable the electrics? Cut the power?”

“Essential services like venting, lights, and air-lock functions have battery backups. It’s a safety measure to make sure the automatic seals never lose power.”

“What about an electromagnetic pulse? How fast can you drop an E-bomb on the place?”

“This is a hardened facility,” said Prebble. “We’ve examined the option of carpet bombing the facility, but we would need an exact mix of bunker busters and fuel air bombs, and that’s tricky. Destroying the building is easy … making sure we fry every single microscopic germ is another matter altogether, and our best computer models give us only a probability of ninety-four percent success.”

“And since we’re talking about airborne Ebola, that might as well be zero,” said Hu.

“Yes,” agreed Prebble, “and prevailing winds are not in our favor today. On the other hand, there’s a carrier just over the horizon and I’ve had a quiet word with the captain. He’s an old mate of mine. If there’s so much as a wee hint that the facility’s outer containment is failing, then I make a call and we’ll all be having tea with Jesus before you can say ‘oh, shite.’”

“You’d drop a nuke?” I asked, appalled. “And only part of my concern is based on the fact that we’re flying there. Dropping a nuke on an illegal American bioweapons lab would be …” I fished for a word bad enough to describe it and came up short.

“I agree,” said Church grimly. “Aside from the physical damage and risk of fallout, neither country would recover from the damage to their credibility on a global scale. It would truly be catastrophic.”

“Nevertheless, gentlemen,” said Prebble, “should things turn against us I’ve prepared a set of recommendations for the Prime Minister that includes a nuclear option.”

“Let’s make sure that things don’t turn against us,” said Church quietly. “We have several overlapping quarantine protocols in operation, and a Chinook is flying in rolls of industrial-grade quarantine draping. We’ll disable all of the external cameras and then drape the building. That should give us an extra step toward first base in the event of a containment breach. Once that’s in place we’ll roll out our primary response.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “Me, in a hazmat suit, with a gun.”

“Can you recommend something else?”

“Sure. A whole bunch of shooters in hazmats with guns. Seal the outer doors, take out the inner doors with an RPG, burn everything else with flamethrowers, let Dr. Grey be the one having tea and crumpets with the Messiah, and we call it a day.” I looked at Church. “But that’s not the play you’re going to call, is it?”

He said nothing for a moment. This was the kind of moment in which he’d usually reach for a NILLA wafer while the rest of us sorted it out and got into the same mental gear as him. Prebble hadn’t supplied any cookies. Church looked almost wistful. He said, “You’re the senior DMS field commander on-station, Captain. Do you see that as the best tactical option?”

I sighed. “No.”

“And why not?” Church asked, like Socrates guiding a student through a logic puzzle. I hated when he did this.

“Because with that plan we don’t get to ask any questions … and we need to know why he’s doing this.”

Church and Prebble nodded.

There was a faint bing-bing and then the pilot’s voice said, “Touchdown in five, gentlemen.”

Interlude Sixteen

Hugo Vox stood in the doorway to Circe’s office. His face looked haggard, his eyes dark.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Circe couldn’t speak. It felt like a steel hand was clamped around her throat.

Grace …? Her mouth formed the name silently as the first tears fell.

Vox nodded. “Down in the Bahamas. A big DMS action. I don’t have the details, but the word is that she died in combat. A lot of people died. The DMS took a lot of losses. It’s … it’s a terrible tragedy. For them … and for all of us.”

“Grace,” Circe murmured, finding a splinter of her voice, but the name stuck in her throat. “God …”

“I know you two were close,” said Vox.

Circe put her face in her hands. “I just saw her the other day!”

“The DMS was facing something really big. Something really, really bad. From what Gus Dietrich told me, Grace may have saved us all. That new guy, Ledger, was able to wrap it up, but Grace Courtland did her part. Yes, ma’am, she did her part indeed. Best of the best, she was.”

Circe shook her head, not wanting to hear more. Not now.

Vox turned away, and then paused. He turned back for just a moment and watched Circe’s shoulders tremble with the first wave of sobs. He opened his mouth to say something, but he left it unsaid. He sighed and lumbered out.

Interlude Seventeen

The two silent Korean guards came for Gault and Toys an hour later and led them down the hallway, the end of which was blocked by a gorgeously embroidered brocade tapestry that depicted a scene from the Book of Revelation. Gault bent and slowly translated the Latin stitched along the border.

“‘Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time. The beast that was, and is not, is himself also the eighth, and is of the seven, and is going to perdition.’”

“I must have missed that in catechism,” murmured Toys.

One of the guards slid the tapestry aside to reveal an elevator door. The guard pressed his palm to a geometry scanner and tapped in a complex entry code. The elevator door opened silently. Toys was impressed with the sophistication of the equipment. The security precautions matched the exacting standards he had always encouraged Gault to use.

The elevator took them deep into the heart of the island. When the doors opened, one guard indicated that they exit, but neither of the two Asians moved to join them. Gault and Toys exchanged a brief wary glance before stepping out into a hallway that had been carved from raw bedrock. There was a set of large and ornately carved teak doors to their right, and as they stepped forward the doors opened toward them without a sound.

They entered a massive chamber. One wall of the chamber was covered floor to ceiling with flat-screen TV monitors; the other walls were hung with tapestries as ancient and elegant as the apocalypse drapery upstairs. The center of the room was dominated by a massive oak table around which there were seven great thronelike chairs and seven expensive leather chairs of the kind Toys had once bought for Gault’s private office. On the far side of the table a chair that had a higher back than all the others sat on a dais. It stood empty.

The lights were low except for green-globed lamps positioned for each of the chairs. All but one of the lamps had been angled to spill light toward the center of the table, leaving the person in each chair cast in shadows.

Six of the great chairs were occupied, but the one closest to where Gault and Toys stood was empty. Likewise, six of the leather chairs were occupied. Every face was in shadow, but Toys knew that those faces were turned toward Gault.

“Yes,” he heard Gault murmur.

“What?” Toys asked under his breath.

Gault looked at Toys for a long moment, his eyes glassy and distant.

“Sebastian—?” Toys prompted.

Gault did not answer. Instead he took a step deeper into the room.

“Welcome,” said a familiar voice, and they turned as a man in one of the thrones leaned into the spill of light. “Sebastian, Toys … it’s so good to see you both,” said the American in his booming bull voice. It was difficult for Toys to reconcile the gruffness of this man with the elegant majesty of his mother. They were not only unalike as people, but to Toys it seemed as if they had to be from different species also.

“Welcome!” said the others seated at the table.

Gault nodded silently and, Toys thought, with genuine reverence.

Because of all the grandeur of the room, the moody lighting, the thrones, and the setting, Toys wouldn’t have been surprised if the men at the table had been wearing hoods or masks, or at the very least black tie. But the American wore an ordinary three-button Polo shirt and had a pair of sunglasses tucked into the vee. He looked ready for a quick nine of golf rather than a clandestine meeting in an underground chamber beneath a castle.

Gault gestured vaguely to the room. “What is all this?”

The American laughed. “It’s pretty much exactly what it looks like, boys. We’re a secret society.”

“A ‘secret society’?” Toys laughed. “Are you taking the mickey?”

“No, I’m serious as a heart attack.”

Gault folded his arms and cocked a disbelieving head to one side. “Ri-i-ight. An actual secret society. Like, what? Like the Cabal?”

“They’ve been smashed flat by the DMS.”

“The Trilateral Commission?”

“More effective.”

“The Illuminati?”

“Right ballpark.”

Toys muttered, “Somewhere Dan Brown just had an erection.”

Everyone at the table laughed.

“Seriously … who are you and what is all this?” demanded Toys.

The American smiled and shrugged. It was a very Gallic shrug even though he was pure New England.

“How would you like me to answer that?”

“I presume ‘straightforward’ is a nonstarter?”

Another chuckle rippled through the seated figures.

“If we ever decide on a membership pamphlet, it will go something like this,” said a man on the right side of the room, and then he spoke in a formal and ominous voice. “We have many names. History knows us as the Sargonai, the heirs and kinsmen of Sargon of Mesopotamia, first emperor in the history of mankind.”

The man who spoke wore the robes of a Saudi. Moreover, Toys knew him. It was impossible that he was here. In America, in New York of all places, where even the mind-numbed street people would attack him without hesitation.

“‘Sargonai’?” Gault echoed with a smile.

Another leaned forward, a fat man with Slavic features. “It’s just a cover name, one of many we’ve used, but we don’t call ourselves that. Not anymore.”

“Why not?” drawled Toys. “It’s catchy. It would look great on souvenir coffee mugs.”

“Hush,” barked Gault.

“No,” said the Saudi, “let him have his voice. If you are welcome here, then so is your Conscience. As you see, we each have one.”

Around the room the people seated in the leather chairs leaned into the light. Four men, two women. Most of them nodded, one waved, and the one seated next to the American saluted with a steaming cup of coffee.

“‘Conscience’?” Gault asked.

The Slav answered that. “It is the policy of the Trust that each of us has a Conscience who is free to speak his or her mind. They may offer advice, provide intelligence, and participate in all of our discussions. All great kings have had such as they, and they’ve worn a thousand disguises — chamberlain and general, jester and body servant, spouse and lover. Trust is the determining factor; mutual interest and a shared vision are the chemicals that combine to cement their relationship together.”

Gault took a step forward and Toys noticed how his friend’s eyes had flared with interest at the word “kings.” For years Gault had written that word in doodles or used variations on it for passwords. Gault had never explained why.

“You speak of advisors to kings,” Gault said. “Is that what you are? Kings?”

“Yes,” said the American. “We are the Seven Kings of the New World Trust. Sons of Sargon through a thousand generations of men, the fruit of the Tree of Empire. Foretold in the Book of Revelation.”

Gault shared a look with Toys.

“‘Seven’ Kings?” Gault tilted his chin toward the empty throne.

“Seven we have been; seven we will be again,” said another voice. A man at the far side of the table leaned forward. Toys recognized him as an Israeli politician. “Seven is the sacred number of the Goddess.”

“Though, admittedly,” the American said, “we are one member short at the moment.”

“Kings of what?” asked Toys.

The Israeli and the American smiled as if they were waiting for that question.

“We are not kings of countries,” said the Israeli. “Each of us embraces a specific path, a specific view, and we claim kingship over everything that falls within the scope of this view.” He stood up and in a bold voice declared, “I am the King of War. No gun is fired, no border crossed, no weapons bought or sold but that I am involved. War and the threat of war cultivate commerce and cause innovation to advance by leaps and bounds. War evolves our society and defines our species.”

It sounded crazy, the words childishly grandiose, and yet the way in which it was said made the smile die on Toys’ mouth. He looked at this man and in a flash of insight believed him. Toys knew that, all phrasing aside, what this man said was the truth.

The Saudi stood. “I am the King of Lies. Truth is the clay in my hands, and information is the most potent force on earth. Nations rise and fall on what is said and what is believed. A whisper in the ear, a story leaked to the press, a piece of information seeded to an intelligence analyst can change the course of world events.”

Toys heard Gault catch his breath.

The Russian stood. “I am the King of Famine. The need for food is a universal constant, and no one takes a bite or lets water pass their lips unless I allow it. Fortunes are made from plenty as they are from want. I am both plenty and want.”

Another man stood and spoke in a cultured Italian accent: “I am the King of Gold. Money is the blood of this world. The lack of it destroys people and tears kings from thrones; the excess of it corrupts saints. World economies are mine to bend and twist and crush.”

A Frenchman stood. “I am the King of Thieves. My weapons are stocks and banks and loans and the flow of debt between peoples and corporations and governments.”

Finally the American stood and spoke in a booming voice: “I am the King of Fear. When a bomb goes off, it has my kiss upon it. Terror stirs the pot of chaos, and in chaos the Seven Kings thrive. I arm the faithful and the fanatical. I allow the disenfranchised a voice. Not to serve their ends, but to serve mine. Ours.”

Then all of them together raised their voices and roared out, “We are the Seven Kings. We are chaos!”

They sat, but the echo of their words punched all the walls and pounded Gault and Toys like physical blows. No one spoke until the last echo faded to a whisper.

The American smiled a devil’s smile. “And we would like you to join us, Sebastian. We have an opening at our table.”

“Opening?” murmured Gault faintly. His eyes were fever bright.

“We would like you to be our new King of Plagues.”

“Jesus,” hissed Toys, and grabbed Gault’s arm, but Gault laid his hand on Toys’ wrist and slowly pushed him off.

“The King of Plagues,” echoed Gault. He looked at each man … each King. He looked at their thrones and then at the empty throne, and as he did so he touched the bandages that still covered his ruined and remade face.

Toys leaned closed and whispered to him, “Be careful, Sebastian …. This is too weird … even for us.”

But Gault was not listening.

“What do you say, Sebastian?” asked the American. “We need a man of vision, a man who understands the power of self-interest. We need a man who grasps the many wonderful and life-changing potentials that wait in the RNA and proteins of a virus. Someone who is brave enough to use these pathogens like fists.” He paused and every eye in the room was on Gault. “Are you that man?”

Gault took an absent step forward, and then another, and a third until he stood at the edge of the table. He rested his fingertips on the cool polished wood and stared for a long minute down at his own distorted reflection.

Then, slowly, he raised his eyes and looked at the assembly of Kings.

“Yes,” he said in a voice that was more deadly than smallpox. “Oh … yes!”

Toys felt a pain in his heart as if some unseen hand had stabbed him. He looked at the rapt expression on Gault’s face, and then he closed his eyes.

No. Oh, Sebastian … no.

He did not—dared not — say it aloud.

Chapter Twenty-seven

We landed behind a stand of oak trees, scattering goats and gulls. Once the door was open I peered through the window just in time to see another chopper set down, a muscular Merlin HC3 transport chopper. The doors slid open and a dozen Barrier agents in SARATOGA HAMMER chemical warfare suits deployed and ran to formation past the outside edge of the rotor wash.

Prebble, Hu, and Dietrich climbed out of our chopper, but Church shifted to stand between me and the door.

“Hold on,” he said. His dark eyes, hidden behind the tinted lenses of his glasses, were like black marbles. “I’m sorry to have cut your vacation short.”

“No, you’re not,” I said.

“No, I’m not,” he admitted. “You’ve been through a lot and I’m throwing you into the fire. Dr. Sanchez tells me that it’s too soon, that you need more time to heal. Tell me if I’m making a mistake.”

I wanted to laugh. We both knew I’d rather be back in my hotel room in London. Or in the middle of the Sahara. Anywhere but here. Sometimes the absurd nature of what I do hits me. Here I was, a former Baltimore detective still young enough to kick some ass in a pickup b-ball game; a guy with a father who just won a nail-biter of an election to become the new mayor; a brother who was also a cop as well as a husband and a father to my only nephew; a guy who should have been working cases back home and maybe scouting for a wife of my own. With all that, here I was pulling on a combat-modified hazmat suit and gun belt because I was about to enter a building filled with some of the deadliest and more virulent diseases known to modern man, a building held by a lunatic who was threatening to release those diseases. A man I’d almost certainly have to kill and who might be part of a huge secret society trying to tear down the world.

How the hell did that become normal for me? Or for anyone?

Was it too soon? How could I — or anyone in my position — answer that question?

“You didn’t make a mistake,” I said.

He nodded but didn’t move.

“Is there something else?” I asked.

For a moment Church’s mouth was a tight and lipless line of tension, almost a snarl. “I didn’t want to tell you this in front of the others. I debated waiting until after you finished with the lab, but I didn’t think you’d thank me for that.”

“That’s ominous as shit, Boss. Spill it.”

“There’s been another incident.”

He told me about the explosions at Area 51. I could feel my stomach turning to icy slush, and there was a roaring in my ears that wasn’t the wind.

“Lucky Team, the investigators, the staff at the base,” Church said. “Gone. All of them.”

“And Echo Team? Top and Bunny—?”

He shook his head. “We lost two. Sergeants Gomez and Henderson. The rest were outside. Scrapes and bruises, but no other casualties. They are, however, the only survivors. Everyone else at the base is dead.”

“I–I can’t believe it,” I stammered.

I didn’t know Henderson, but Ricky Gomez had been in active training around the time I took off for Europe. Nice kid from Brooklyn. His brother played single-A ball for the Cyclones. Now Ricky and Henderson and all the others were dust. Just like the four thousand at the London. Ash and bones. I could hear something ripping behind my eyes and a bloody haze clouded my vision. I had to force my voice to sound normal. I used the Cop voice, not the Killer’s.

“What do we know?” I demanded.

“Next to nothing. Nellis is sending a team and I’ve scrambled our people from the casino. We have Jerry Spencer’s number two, Bess Tanaka, out there working the scene.” Church paused. “So far no one has come forward to claim responsibility.”

“Has to be the Kings.”

“Probably,” he said, “but the unfortunate truth is that they’re not our only enemies.”

“What’s our play?”

“That’s being determined now. I’ve advised the President to keep this out of the media for as long as possible; otherwise the whole base will become a circus. The Internet and cable talk shows are already buzzing with conspiracy theories about the Hospital. This would be gasoline on that fire. We may have to spin a cover story to make it work.”

I nodded. “How the fuck does someone take out an entire military base? I mean, seriously — a secret and ultrahigh-security military base?”

“I can only think of one way,” Church said, his face turning once more to a mask of cold iron.

I looked at him and then nodded. He was right; there was no other way.

“God damn it.” They had to have someone inside.

“I’m sorry I had to dump this on you right before a mission, but I knew you’d want to know.”

I nodded.

“Do you want me to pull you from this?”

“Is that a serious question?” I said.

A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “I suppose not.”

He offered me his hand.

“Then good hunting, Captain.”

We shook, and he stepped aside to allow me to exit the bird.

Chapter Twenty-eight

“I’m sorry there isn’t more,” said Dr. Stankeviius. “Apparently the ‘maximum’ aspect of the security here at Graterford doesn’t extend to my office.” As he said it he shot a withering look at the warden.

Rudy Sanchez saw the barb go home. Certainly no love lost between these two, he thought.

“The records for this prisoner are sparse at best,” Rudy said aloud. “Is there any explanation for the omissions, Warden?”

The warden, a block-faced former state trooper named Wilson, spread his hands. “It’s a mystery.”

“A mystery,” Rudy said quietly, establishing and maintaining direct eye contact.

Wilson shifted in his chair. “Naturally I’ve initiated a full-scale investigation.”

“Naturally. But, tell me, Warden, what does that investigation comprise?”

“Sorry?”

“A full-scale investigation — what exactly will you do to try and locate the missing files?”

“I … I mean we will interview the staff, and review the duty logs ….” His voice trailed off.

Rudy removed a small notebook and jotted something. Wilson’s eyes were fixed on Rudy as he did so, but he didn’t let Wilson see what he wrote. The note read: Get car inspected.

Wilson immediately launched into a more detailed explanation of what would be done. Computer searches, extra staff brought in to scour the filing cabinets to check for misfiling, a complete search of Nicodemus’s cell, follow-ups with all current staff, and interviews with trustees and guards who worked in the medical unit during or after the murder of Jesus Santiago, the young Latino who had been mutilated with the numbers 12/17.

Rudy listened quietly. Then he wrote: Feed Joe’s cat. And closed his notebook.

Wilson was sweating.

“Thank you, Warden,” said Rudy. “I’m sure you are doing everything within your powers.” He leaned ever so slightly on the word “your.” He had no desire to roast anyone over a bureaucratic fire, but at the same time he despised incompetence, particularly in jobs related to health or security. He wasn’t fond of it before joining the DMS, and now he knew firsthand how sloppy work could lead to spilled blood.

Rudy turned to Dr. Stankeviius. “Doctor, you indicated to me that you believe Nicodemus to have unusual knowledge of the events taking place in London. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Has Nicodemus admitted such knowledge?”

“No, as I mentioned in my report—”

“He mentioned the Seven Kings, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Just the once?”

“Yes.”

Rudy did not mention the graffiti on the wall of the hospital or on the door of the murdered family. Instead he asked, “Has Nicodemus admitted to any of the crimes for which he’s been convicted or suspected?”

“No.”

“Has he denied involvement?”

“For Jesus Santiago? His response was obscure and evasive. I could not encourage him to say yes or no in simple terms. On the other hand, he flat out denied that he had been talking with Santiago; and the witness to that encounter — a guard — later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.”

“You don’t have any medical records for Nicodemus,” Rudy said. “Why is that?”

“There was a fire in the prison medical center,” said the warden. “Fire marshal says that it was rats chewing on the wires. They found a charred rat carcass. We lost a couple of years’ worth of records.”

Bullshit, thought Rudy.

Stankeviius nodded. “Much of our testing equipment and supplies were smoke and water damaged. The fire also damaged the CT scanner.”

“And the copies of the medical reports that should be in the file?”

Neither man answered. Rudy sat back and looked at them for several quiet seconds. Both men looked ashamed and nervous.

They’re both scared out of their minds. Dios mio! What in hell is going on here?

“I’m sorry, gentlemen, but I’m having a hard time understanding this. This is a maximum-security prison. A model for such prisons, as I understand it. You have a large staff, modern equipment, plenty of resources, and you’re telling me that you are unable to compile even a basic medical and psychological profile on a convict who has been incarcerated here for over fifteen years? One-room jails in third-world countries can do at least that much. I hesitate to use the word ‘obfuscation’ here, but—”

“Now wait a minute, Dr. Sanchez,” Stankeviius began. “We’re not doing this deliberately—”

“No? So, it’s just sloppy procedure?”

Stankeviius clamped his mouth shut.

“That’s unfair,” Wilson said tightly. “We’ve had a string of bad luck.”

Rudy eyed him coolly. “Bad luck is what happens when you buy scratch-off lottery tickets, Warden. As I understand it, it is not a factor in the American penal system, particularly at this level.”

Both men stared at him for a second; then their eyes faltered and they looked away. Rudy sighed.

They’re too scared to even properly defend their actions. Interesting.

“Very well,” said Rudy. “I’d like to see the prisoner now.”

The doctor and the warden exchanged a brief, defeated look. Finally the warden got heavily to his feet.

“Of course, Dr. Sanchez.”

Interlude Eighteen

Champagne was served and they all toasted; even the Saudi took a glass, winking to Gault as he did so.

Toys closed on Gault to whisper in his ear, “What the hell are you doing? We don’t even know what we’re getting into here. We just got out of a mess …. Do you want to walk into another one?”

Gault looked at him, his eyes hard and steady. “I know precisely what I’m doing, Toys. If you’re scared, you can leave any time you want.”

Toys took a step back as if he’d been slapped. “What are you—?”

The American cleared his throat and waved everyone to their seats. Gault and Toys remained standing, though now they stood a few feet apart. Toys looked both surprised and concerned, but Gault smiled and patted him on the cheek.

“It’s all going to be fine,” he said quietly. “You’ll see.”

When everyone was seated, the American pressed a section of the tabletop and it slid open to reveal a computer keyboard. He tapped some keys and the monitors on the wall flickered on to show a series of buildings in different cities.

“First,” he said, “let us show you our world. No secrets.”

“No secrets,” murmured Gault.

“This is the world of the Seven Kings.”

On the screens, one after another, buildings erupted into flame. School buses exploded, throwing small fire-wreathed shapes into the street. Jetliners slammed into tall towers, and those towers collapsed, pancaking down and filling the streets with deadly gray clouds. Suicide bombers walked into theaters and train stations. Kings and presidents were caught in indiscretions. Princesses were killed in car wrecks. Drug companies released medications that proved to be more dangerous than the diseases they were designed to combat. Flu epidemics sprang out of nowhere. It rolled on and on. A symphony of destruction that was at once shocking in its scope and elegant in its subtlety.

As each new image played, one of the Kings would tell the story behind it. Misinformation, disinformation, and the placement of carefully selected truths. Fuel thrown onto the fire of religious hatred. Ethnic wars funded by private dollars. Useful assassinations, and even more useful attempted assassinations.

Gault turned to the Kings. “You did all of that? The Towers? All of it?”

“Some of this is our doing,” said the King of Gold. “Some of these things are the actions of our enemies. Some were conceived by us but handed over to other groups to carry out. We’re often involved well behind the scenes.”

The King of Famine said, “We provide ideas, financing, encouragement, and occasionally direct action.”

The American nodded to the small man who sat in the seat of his Conscience. “My good friend and Conscience, Rafael Santoro, has overseen many of our most complicated ‘events.’”

Santoro bowed slightly. “It is always my pleasure to serve the Seven Kings.”

Toys gestured to the screens. “If some of this isn’t your actual work,” he said, “why show it to us?”

“Well,” said the American with a mildly pained expression, “that’s part of the reason we brought you here. When we said that we will have no secrets from you, we meant it. As much as we would like to truly be the most powerful force on the planet, we aren’t.”

Toys nodded. “Let me guess — you’re in some kind of dustup with the other lot.”

“Yes,” agreed the American.

“And they’re bigger?”

“At the moment.”

“And stronger?”

“For now.”

“Do they know about you?”

There was an uncomfortable murmur. “Yes,” said the King of War. “They know. They know and they would like to see us all dead.”

Toys said, “Do they fight for truth, justice, and the American way?”

“Hardly.” The King of Lies laughed. “They are a true shadow government with no higher intentions. They have had a hand in starting virtually every major conflict since the Civil War.”

“As opposed to you chaps who are giving out daffodils and free blow jobs,” said Toys with disgust.

“Damn it, Toys,” snarled Gault, but the Kings surprised them both by laughing.

“I like this boy, Sebastian,” said the American. “I always have. Says what he fucking means and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anybody thinks.”

“Too bloody right,” Gault said with asperity.

Toys affected to brush lint from his lapel with a look that said, I’m rubber; you’re glue.

“Our agenda is not a happy one for the great unwashed masses,” admitted the King of Gold. “We are predators and we pretend to be nothing else.”

“Then who are your enemies?” demanded Gault. He looked as if the very thought of enemies offended him on a personal level.

“The Skull and Bones.” Several of the Kings said it at the same time, each of them with disgust.

“The actual Skull and Bones?” Toys laughed. “Those wankers at Yale? George Bush and that lot?”

“That lot, yes,” said the Saudi. “Though, admittedly, not all of the most celebrated members of that society belong to the Inner Circle and it’s the Inner Circle who are the real power. Many of the members do not even believe that an Inner Circle exists. They think it’s an urban legend created by detractors of the Skull and Bones. However, it is real, and it is only the Inner Circle which concerns us. That is where the true power is.”

Gault said, “Surely the world is big enough for you each to cut a large slice of the global pie. Why the conflict?”

“It isn’t of our making,” said the King of Famine. “When we first made contact with the Inner Circle we reached out in the hopes of establishing some manner of working partnership. Or at very least an agreement of noninterference.”

“How’d that work out for you chaps?” asked Toys.

“Not well. Each attempt to arrange a sit-down with the Inner Circle has resulted in the murder of our agents. Over the last decade the Inner Circle has invested a great deal of time and effort in discovering who we are. A number of our agents have been targeted and killed, many of them tortured for information. We keep a great deal of distance between us and our operatives in the field, so the Inner Circle do not know our names — but they’ve done considerable damage to our operations. They’ve also sicced various American and international organizations on us, including INTERPOL, NATO, the CIA, and the DMS. That has made things … uncomfortable.”

“Why the animosity? Are you both going after the same things?” asked Gault. “Is it simply a competition to grab the most?”

“No. Our interests overlap, but our methods are very much in conflict. And the Inner Circle have become obsessed with controlling all of the power in the Middle East, which is where we make much of our money. They keep starting wars over there.”

Toys looked at the King of War. “And you don’t?”

“No. We make more money from the threat of war and the arms race than from outright declared war,” said the Israelite. “Small wars are okay, but major conflicts stop trade. In cases of decisive victory it can even eradicate whole markets. We profit from the constant escalation, from nations and groups preparing for war, because that means when one upgrades its weapons system its rivals need to do the same.”

“Keeping up with the Joneses,” said Toys. “With guns.”

“Guns, missile systems, jets, tanks, body armor, defense satellites, the works,” said the American. “The Inner Circle are directly aggressive. We’re chaotic. Aggression causes trade disconnects — and to see that, look at the U.S. and its trade relations in the years following 9/11. They waved such a big stick that they chased everyone else off the playground, and as a result they wound up selling their souls to China. Dumb asses.”

“So … you didn’t do the attacks on the Towers?”

“Oh, but we did,” said the Saudi with a smile. “That was a masterpiece of planning of which we are all very proud. But it was the Inner Circle who derailed our carefully drawn plans by shifting the focus away from Al-Qaeda and onto Saddam. All that nonsense about weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was a murderous fool, but he was no Hitler. He was not even a decent Mussolini. Iran is ten times greater a threat to the United States. Iraq … that was purely a grab for oil.”

“And to place substantial U.S. military assets in the Middle East,” said War. “If we had not stepped in to fund the Shiites and some other interested parties, then the Americans would have flattened Iraq and that would be that.”

Gault walked over to the Saudi. “Where do you fit into all of this, then? You are the face of the Al-Qaeda. They are hunted because of you.”

The King of Lies smiled. “It was always our intention that the Al-Qaeda take the blame for the Towers. However, we initiated the project and invited them in. They were involved, have no doubts, and most of them are as true to their cause as they say. I, however, am not, nor have I ever been. We stoked the Al-Qaeda’s hatred of the—ahem—Great Satan. Overall, it was one of our greatest successes.”

“And we used our people here in the States to amp up anti-Islamic hatred,” said the American. “Hate crimes are mucho profitable. They impact stocks, they shift populations, they influence elections — and there are profits to be taken at every step of that.”

“So you destroyed the Towers to make a buck?” Toys asked.

The King of Gold said, “Most negative world events influence the stock market, mainly because the vast majority of investors are timid sheep who piss themselves if the wind veers. Deliberate negative events, such as terrorist incidents, cause significant and sudden drops in the market. The key is knowing what is coming and, most importantly, when. That way you can buy when prices are plummeting. Do it through a hundred intermediaries and you don’t leave a trail. We learned that from 9/11. And if the government panics and closes the market, wait it out. It will always reopen and prices will always rise again. Once things stabilize, we begin to sell when prices get to about sixty percent of the pre-panic price. Again, you don’t appear to be a strict profiteer. You’re just one of the sheep meandering back to the fold after the Big Bad Wolf has been chased off.”

“So,” said Gault, impressed, “instead of having your people poised to act should something happen, you have them ready to maximize the take based on true foreknowledge.”

“Exactly.”

“Bloody brilliant.”

“Manipulting the United States and its global image has been the key,” said the King of Thieves. “America has been a crucial element in Middle East politics since the British withdrew in 1971. Despite all of the hate and criticism leveled against them, intelligent people on all sides of the issue know that they are a positive influence on the stability of the region. If their credibility were so badly damaged that they could no longer adequately play their role, then there would be a regional crisis that would cause oil prices to skyrocket. We saw some of that in 2006 and ’7 when Americans were paying over four dollars a gallon to keep their SUVs on the road. Go back in time and you can see other price spikes corresponding to incidents of damaged American credibility and regional instability. The 1973 oil embargo was the first, then the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Iran-Iraq war the following year. Over and over we see proof of this.”

“The current conflict has other useful effects,” continued the King of Famine. “Our actions have brought the United States into armed conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

“I thought you were opposed to open war?” said Toys.

War laughed. “Afghanistan isn’t an open war. It never will be. It’s a guerilla war. That’s fine, because that kind of thing can go on for years and years without any dramatic resolution.”

“Which America can’t win?” suggested Gault.

“No one can,” agreed War. “Not unless you are willing to exterminate the enemy, and America — for all of its faults — is not willing to take that step. Not even the Bonesmen can sell ethnic genocide to the U.S. people. We can bank on that. We have, in fact, banked on it.”

“Bush is a Bonesman, isn’t he?” asked Toys.

“Yes, but he’s not Inner Circle,” said the American. “Dubya was their public face, and may not have even known it. He’s a Texas jokester who couldn’t manage a Wal-Mart and the Inner Circle put him in the Oval Office for two terms while they moved behind the scenes.”

“What about the current administration?” asked Gault.

“The Inner Circle doesn’t have the same kind of control over this president, which is why they are trying to weaken him and discredit his accomplishments. Once he’s out, they’ll put another one of their mannequins in the White House.”

“Don’t tell me you voted for the Democrat,” Toys said with a grin.

“Actually, we did.” The American chuckled. “Though rest assured it had nothing to do with supporting him, his policies, or the do-gooder agenda he’s selling. No, we stand behind anyone who isn’t on the Inner Circle’s leash.”

“We are trying to meet the Inner Circle on the same ground,” said the King of Famine. “They are kingmakers and they have a lot of experience in that regard. We are working toward that end. We want to put one of our puppets in the White House and, ultimately, in Number Ten Downing Street, the Palazzo del Quirinale, the Élysée Palace, and the Kremlin.”

“How far along are you?” asked Gault.

Famine shrugged. “We have a program in place now that is designed to increase racial and religious hatred between Islam and Israel, which should embarrass sitting governments and shake some power players out of their seats. Then it will be a horse race between us and the Inner Circle to fill those seats.”

“Through religious conflict?” asked Toys, and he was careful to keep his voice neutral.

“None of us have any particular anger toward any religion or ethnic group; however, we agree that hate crimes are good for business. Our business,” said Lies. “Our campaign is being driven through systematic disinformation on the Internet, and through bribes and donations to certain extremist groups who lack only funding and a kick in the backside in order to act.”

“And by ‘act’ you mean—?”

“Walking into mosques or temples wearing vests packed with C4. Or leaving bombs in religiously significant areas.”

“Christ,” said Toys, and Gault cut him an annoyed look.

“There are always people willing to kill in the name of their God,” said Famine. “Because of the open-forum nature of the Internet, laws about free speech, and news media hungry for controversial stories, small and disenfranchised groups have found a voice that can now be heard around the world. It’s lovely. With money, Internet postings, and other support, we give them a fist as well as a voice.”

“And,” said Gault, “because they’re vocal factions instead of countries, hate crimes increase, tension increases, but the actual nations don’t go to war. And you profit.”

The Kings beamed at him.

“This is all so … elegant,” murmured Gault.

“Elegant, maybe,” snorted the American. “But it’s riskier than it needs to be.”

Gold turned to him. “Not so. Your mother, the Goddess, has done great work.”

The American made a disgusted noise.

“You disapprove of this campaign?” Gault asked him.

The American looked around the room before he shrugged. “We may not have secrets here, but we don’t always agree on policy. I was the only dissenting voice on this. Mom still hasn’t forgiven me.”

“What’s your objection?”

“It puts my ass on the line. This whole campaign requires me to use resources that are part of what I do outside the Kings. If this falls apart, guess whose dick will be in the wringer?”

There was a brief and uncomfortable silence in the room.

“My brother,” said the Frenchman quietly, “we’ve talked about this. There are so many layers of subterfuge between your businesses and the Goddess’s plan that they will never dig deep enough to expose you.”

“Maybe,” snapped the American with bad grace, “but those Inner Circle pricks aren’t forgiving and they can bring a lot of guns to bear. They’ve already aimed the DMS at us. Those sons of whores took out seven cells that we’ve been grooming for hits here in the States.”

“How?” demanded Toys. “How does the Inner Circle know what you’re planning?”

There was a heavy silence in the room.

Finally the King of Famine said, “We suspect that the Conscience of our former King of Plagues was leaking information.”

Toys glanced at the empty seat. “And where is he now? Seems like you should be turning thumbscrews on the chatty bastard.”

“We did,” said Gold, and when Toys and Gault looked at him they saw that he wasn’t joking. “We can get quite — oh, what’s the phrase?”

“We went medieval on him,” supplied the King of Fear. “But we got a little overzealous. Well … I did, I guess. By the end he was confessing to everything from killing Marilyn Monroe to starting the Chicago Fire. My bad. I thought I could open him up.”

“If I may,” said Rafael Santoro, placing his palm over his heart, “if there is a next time, please consider allowing me to do what is necessary, yes?”

The American nodded. “Not a problem. I should have waited until you were back in the country rather than having a go at it. Even so, the leak seems to have stopped, though.”

The Russian said, “Our goal of instability works even when the Bonesmen are pulling the strings in Washington and, through proxy, the Middle East. We have damaged and will continue to damage governmental credibility, and when America stumbles money spills all over the place.”

“And you were there to lap it up?” said Toys with a smile.

“We were there with big fucking buckets!” declared Famine. “The economic crash of 2008? That was ours. It was our riposte to the invasion of Iraq, and we skewered the Bonesmen very nicely.”

Gold laughed. “People talk about all the billions that were lost, but money is never ‘lost.’ It is like energy — it continues to exist in one form or another. Money drained out of banks and automobile manufacturers and it flowed to us through a thousand channels within the global market.”

Gault smiled. “This is all brilliant, but … is there a place for me in Eris’s program?”

“Please,” said the King of Thieves quickly, holding up a hand. “In the Chamber of the Kings, she is to be referred to as the Goddess.”

Gault bowed. “‘Goddess’ it is, and I can’t think of a better description for her.”

“The first wave of the program is already under way,” conceded the King of Famine. “But your late predecessor, the esteemed and much-missed Dr. Kirov, had been working on several key steps of the second phase. They are very much ‘your’ kind of thing, Brother Plagues.”

“Tell me.”

He told Gault the plan. The information was staggering in its beauty.

“Kirov had about half of it worked out,” said the King of Gold. “And he was preparing for a trip to Egypt when he died. A stroke, by god! A tragic loss and a hard blow, because we don’t know how he was going to accomplish several key steps.”

“Yeah,” observed the American, “it left us with a big fat frigging hole in Mom’s evil master plan. Kirov was the point man for this whole operation. Now we have to decide if we can continue with what Kirov had planned, or if we need to cut our losses.”

Gault pursed his lips. “I’d like to look at Kirov’s research and see his lab. And, of course, I’ll need to know everything about what you are planning. What you want to do, who you want to kill, and what you hope to accomplish.”

“That will take some time ….”

Gault smiled a great and icy smile. “Then let’s get to it.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Mr. Church’s phone rang and he stayed inside the chopper to take the call. The caller ID said “unknown.” The voice said, “Area 51 was the work of the Seven Kings.”

“I was wondering when you would be calling,” said Church as mildly as if the call were from an old friend. “It’s been a while.”

He attached a cable to his phone and plugged it into his laptop, initiating a seven-continent multiphasic search that used MindReader to hack satellites and phone company databases.

“Did you miss me?”

“I always enjoy our chats. Do you have something for me?”

“I want to see the Kings destroyed.”

The tracking signal began bouncing around from country to country.

“The DMS could accomplish that,” Church said, “if you gave us something more concrete to go on.”

There was silence on the line. The tracker had so far traced the call through eighteen national exchanges and fourteen service providers.

“Can you at least tell me something about the Seven Kings? What do they want to accomplish?”

There was a sound that might have been a laugh. “They want to break the bones of their enemies and suck out the marrow. That’s what they want to do.”

“That isn’t particularly helpful.”

“Yes,” said the caller, “it is.”

And he disconnected.

The signal vanished without any clue to its origin.

Chapter Thirty

Nicodemus was led into the office. Rudy sat behind Stankeviius’s desk. He had borrowed a technique from Mr. Church and had purchased a pair of nonprescription glasses with tinted lenses. Except in direct light his eyes were virtually impossible to see.

“My name is Dr. Sanchez,” said Rudy. “Please … sit down.”

Nicodemus sat. His hands were cuffed to a waist chain and he laid them in his lap. He stared at Rudy with eyes that rarely blinked.

“Please state your full name.”

Nicodemus studied him for a long time before answering, “Nicodemus.”

“Is that your first name or your last name?”

“It is all that I am.”

“Why are you reluctant to tell me your full name?”

“Why do you need it? Only witches and sorcerers conjure with names. Is that what you are?”

“Do you think that’s what I am?”

Nicodemus smiled but did not answer.

“Do you know why I wanted to see you, Nicodemus?”

“I know.”

“Will you tell me?”

Almost a full minute passed before Nicodemus answered, “It is the nature of prophets to know things that other men do not.”

“Are you a prophet?”

“Sometimes voices speak through me.”

“Are you aware of the event that occurred in London yesterday?”

“I am aware that souls are in the smoke and that darkness stretched across the sky.”

“What else do you know of that event?”

Nicodemus leaned forward. “Are you a God-fearing man, Dr. Sanchez?”

“I am a person of faith.”

One corner of the prisoner’s mouth curled upward in a small sneer. “Then if you are a Bible-reading man, brother, you will be familiar with the Book of Exodus, chapters seven through twelve.”

Rudy had been expecting this. “You’re referring to the Ten Plagues of Egypt?”

“You are a Bible-reading man! Yes … God visited the Ten Plagues on Egypt in order to free the Israelites who had been kept as slaves.” He leaned forward very quickly and Rudy noted that the guards gasped and stepped back first rather than lunge forward to restrain the man.

They are just as afraid of this man as Warden Wilson and Dr. Stankeviius, Rudy mused. What kind of hold does Nicodemus have over everyone?

Nicodemus’s eyes burned with excitement. “Had it been God’s will simply to release His people, He could have done so with a legion of angels. But that teaches nothing. Do you know why God sent so many plagues, and why he hardened Pharaoh’s heart each time so that the Israelites were not freed?”

“Please tell me.” He noted that Nicodemus used the word “God” rather than “Goddess.”

“I asked you, Doctor.”

“Very well. It seems to be a matter of how one interprets the meaning of the words, bearing in mind that they are translated. I do not believe that the passage is saying that God forced Pharaoh to commit evil, but that God allowed it.”

“Why would He allow such a dreadful thing?”

“It is the nature of free will. If we humans have free will, and faith in the face of doubt suggests that we do, then it comes from God. Otherwise no one would be responsible for anything that they do, and that includes acts of charity and kindness as well as acts of evil.”

“Then, Doctor, by your own statement you do not believe in the guidance of the Divine in our actions.”

“That isn’t what I said, and I believe you know that. Guidance is not the same thing as coercion.”

He watched Nicodemus’s eyes when he said the word “coercion.” Was there a flicker? Did they tighten just a fraction?

“What about the Devil, Dr. Sanchez? Do you believe that the Devil and his demons can dominate the mind and soul of a person and make them do terrible things?”

“No,” said Rudy. “I do not believe that.”

“How can you believe in one part of the Bible and not all of it?”

Rudy almost smiled, and he appreciated the trap the little prisoner had laid. Very clever indeed.

“That is a longer discussion than we have time for now,” Rudy said. “Though perhaps we’ll have the chance to explore it further. For now, Nicodemus, please tell me why when I ask you about what happened in London yesterday you bring up the Ten Plagues of Egypt? Is there some connection?”

“All things are connected. We float in a pool of time in which all things eddy and swirl.”

“Could you be a bit more specific?”

“We are living in biblical times,” said Nicodemus. “The Bible isn’t a record of what was; it is a record of what is.” The Old Testament, the New Testament … they are but chapters in a book that will continue to be written. New pages are being written today. Written into our skins, written on the skies above us, written into our souls. The prophets shout it from street corners and are not heard. False prophets speak it from the television, but even when they tell the truth they are not believed. History is unfolding and the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and—’

“‘tenement halls.’ You’re quoting Simon and Garfunkel,” said Rudy. “Not exactly Scripture.”

Nicodemus chuckled. “Ah, so you are awake. I had begun to worry, Doctor. You come here to ask me questions that you already know the answers to, and when I speak you do not appear to listen.”

“You are being vague and evasive,” Rudy said.

“And you are being disingenuous,” countered Nicodemus. “You do know what I am saying.”

“No, sir, I do not. But I am willing to listen and to hear.” When Nicodemus did not reply, Rudy said, “Please, tell me what you know about what happened in London.”

Nicodemus closed his eyes very slowly and then opened them. It was a very reptilian action. “I know nothing about London. The sky is like sackcloth and my eye is blind.”

Rudy waited. “Yesterday, when you spoke with Dr. Stankeviius you mentioned a ‘goddess.’ Tell me about her.”

“Not a goddess,” corrected the little man. “To believe in a goddess presupposes that there are many, and that is an untruth spoken by liars and fools. I spoke of the Goddess.”

“And yet today you mention God. Doesn’t that suggest more than one deity?”

“No,” said Nicodemus quickly. “Sometimes my mouth speaks the words it was trained to speak, not those which are in my heart.”

“Meaning?”

“God has transformed and become.”

“Become what?”

“Become all. Male and female. The eternal yin and yang. This is the completion of a cosmic cycle begun before time.”

“I see.”

“No, Doctor, you do not. You pretend wisdom, but your eyes are blinded by convention and misunderstanding.”

“I am willing to learn the truth.”

Nicodemus’s smile was so strange that Rudy could not easily find an adjective to describe it. The closest he could come was the lurid “goblinesque.”

“The Goddess has opened her eye, Doctor, and she sees all. She has appointed Seven Kings to sit in judgment of all men.”

Ah, thought Rudy, now we get to it.

“Who are these Seven Kings? Are they real men?”

“They are the Sons of the Goddess and they walk the earth as the Son of man once walked.”

“And are they connected with what happened in London yesterday?”

“They are connected to all things. The Seven Kings are everywhere. They look over your shoulder and they see into the hearts of men.”

“Nicodemus,” said Rudy quietly, “you seem to know so much. Why not put this insight and wisdom to good use? The Seven Kings are doing very bad things. Surely this cannot be the will of heaven.”

“Do you pretend to know the mind of the Goddess?”

“No, I do not. But if you do, then help us. Tell me something that will allow me to protect the innocent.”

Nicodemus chuckled and then repeated the word “innocent” as if he could taste it. His tongue wriggled over his teeth and lips. “I can only repeat what is whispered in my ears.”

Rudy sat back. “I do not believe you are telling me the truth, Nicodemus. I believe that you do know more than you are saying.”

Suddenly, like the flip of a switch, everything on the little man’s face changed. In a flash his face lost its sinister cast; the feral intensity in his eyes dimmed like a fire someone had doused with cold water. His mouth worked to speak, but there was no sound. He looked shocked and suddenly stared at Rudy with a deep and terrible desperation.

“Who … who …?” he whispered.

“What’s wrong?” asked Rudy, rising to his feet.

“Who am I?” Nicodemus looked around the office as if seeing the people and the furniture for the very first time. “What … where am I? What is this place?”

The guards stepped back in confusion. Even Nicodemus’s voice had changed. It was the croaking voice of a weak and sickly old man.

“G-God … help me!”

Then Nicodemus stiffened and looked down, but it seemed as if he was looking down into his soul rather than at his body.

“What’s happening to me?”

The scream was so immediate and so shockingly loud that Rudy squeezed his eyes shut and clapped his hands over his ears. The guards staggered backward, both of them crying out in fear. The warden and the prison psychiatrist reeled back, feet kicking at the floor to push them deeper into their seats and away from the tearing sound of that voice.

Then silence.

Rudy could barely breathe and he slowly realized that he was holding his breath. Slowly, slowly he exhaled, and for a moment his breath misted in the air as if the room were frigid.

Cautiously, almost fearfully, Rudy opened his eyes. The little prisoner sat calm and erect in the chair. He was smiling. A cruel and secretive smile, a smile brimming with an awful amusement.

He was Nicodemus again. Rudy looked around. The others in the room wore the expressions of people who had witnessed horror. He had seen expressions like those on the faces of the people at Ground Zero and in Thailand after the tsunami and in Haiti. No one spoke.

Before Rudy could say anything, Nicodemus spoke in a voice that was as soft as a whisper but as grating as teeth on the tines of a fork. “I am looking over water to a dark and pestilential place. From this place a new river of blood will flow, like the Nile flowed with blood when Pharaoh defied the will of God and refused to free the people of Israel. Oh, woe to the enemies of the Goddess. May their bones bend and crack like wheat straw in a hot wind. Stand not in the path of the Goddess’s righteousness and wrath.”

Rudy licked his lips. “What was that?” he said. “A minute ago — what was that?”

“Why, nothing at all happened a minute ago, and if it did, I was not here to behold it.”

“Who are you, Nicodemus?”

The little man chuckled. “Maybe I’m that in which you do not believe, Dr. Sanchez.” He stared at Rudy and would say nothing else.

Rudy tried several times to elicit further comments, but the prisoner might as well have been a statue. Minutes stretched and snapped and still Nicodemus merely sat there and looked at Rudy.

“Very well,” Rudy said at last. He turned to Warden Wilson. “Warden, I think it would be in the best interests of national security for this prisoner to be kept in complete lockdown. He goes nowhere alone, he is allowed no contact of any kind with other convicts, and anything that he says to the guards is to be reported to me or my office right away. Are we agreed on this?” His voice was mild but pitched to accept only agreement and cooperation.

Wilson nodded and then jerked his head to the guards. The prisoner rose without being touched and turned toward the door. But at the doorway he paused and turned back to Rudy.

“I will leave you with one last thing, Doctor, since you are a Bible-reading believer in the Holy Word.”

Rudy waited.

“Your friend has stepped into harm’s way.”

“What do you mean?” Rudy asked.

“When the Sword of the Goddess falls, it is better to stand with the righteous rather than with those who allow the wicked to prosper.” He did the slow, reptilian blink once more. “You and yours fight to defend the house of bones and that path is impure and filled with snakes and thorns. The river of blood will sweep your friend away.”

Rudy stood. “You accused me of being disingenuous, Nicodemus, and as far as I’m concerned this is a con game. Everyone has friends and a case can easily be made that at any given time one or more of our friends are in some potential danger. Car accidents, plane crashes, take your pick. Scare tactics are cheap theatrics, and frankly, I expected more from you.”

Nicodemus smiled. “Well now, sir, I would not want to be compared or confused with carnival barkers and sideshow tricksters. No sir. Yet my comment stands. Your friend is walking in harm’s way.”

“Which friend?”

The smile became degrees colder. “The killer,” he said. “The one who has lost the grace of the Goddess. The one who walks with ghosts.”

Rudy’s mouth went dry. Nicodemus laughed and fell into his intractable silence, and after several minutes he allowed himself to be led away.

“What was that all about?” demanded Wilson in a ghost of a voice.

Rudy’s throat was so tight he could not speak to answer.

Interlude Nineteen

Hugo Vox roared at her, “You did what?”

Circe winced. “Grace was a good friend, Hugo, and I thought that she might be able to use MindReader to—”

Vox slammed his open palm down on his desk hard enough to make everything jump. A dollop of coffee splashed onto the blotter. “God damn it, Circe, why the fuck did you do that?”

“I thought—”

“You thought? You thought! Jesus H. Christ, talking to your pals at the DMS is one thing, but everything—everything—official that is going to land on Church’s desk gets vetted by me. Every goddamn thing. We live and die on federal goodwill. We piss them off — and breaking protocol is the fastest way to do that — and suddenly they forget where their checkbook is. You know that, too.”

“I—”

“I don’t care what connections you have there. You could bring down ten kinds of shit on my head. What were you thinking, kiddo? You trying to kill me here?”

His booming voice was so loud that it rattled the windows and hit her like shock waves.

“I … I’m sorry, Hugo.”

He made a disgusted noise and pivoted his chair to face the wall. He seethed in silence for a long time and she let him. She didn’t dare say anything else.

Finally he drew in a deep breath and let it out like a hot-air balloon collapsing. Without turning, he said, “I give you a lot of slack, Circe. Because of your dad, and because you do good work, exceptional work, and I’ve got nothing but praise for it.” He turned back to face her. “Except for crap like this. It’s not the first time you’ve jumped protocol, but by god it had better be the last. And I’d say the same thing if you were my own daughter.”

“I’m sorry.” Tears burned in the corners of her eyes.

“Yeah, well … Shit. I don’t mind that you spoke with Grace Courtland, but you know goddamn well that it had to be an off-the-record thing. Nothing official, and no copies of a report that I haven’t frigging well okayed.” He drummed his fingers on the desk blotter. “Okay, here’s the deal. The Goddess stuff is over. Give me your final report and then you’re off the project effective now.”

“But that’s not fair, Hugo. I—”

He held up a warning finger. “It is so important to your future that you not finish that sentence, kiddo.”

She clamped her mouth shut.

“I’ve got another project that is career valuable but also off-site. I want you way the hell off the DMS radar for a while. I’m sending you to London. You’ll be our liaison for the Sea of Hope thing.”

“But—”

He cocked his head and glared at her.

“Yes, Hugo,” she said contritely.

“This isn’t a demotion and no one will see it as such. Hell, it’ll probably help you sell more books. But I want you out of T-Town in case your end run brings down any heat. Which it will. So, go pack and, Circe … do us both a favor — stay out of my way for a couple of days.”

“Yes, Hugo.”

She sniffed back her tears and left the office.

Chapter Thirty-one

“I’m at the door,” I said quietly. I was in a hazmat-augmented HAMMER suit with a bunch of Star Trek gizmos clipped to my belt. I was miked into the temporary command center set up in the chopper and there was a small camera on my helmet. I passed a sensor gadget over the door frame but got no pings, so I knelt and peered through the glass and along the cracks.

“No visible booby traps. Dalek, what’s the call on the lock?” We’d switched to call signs only. Redcap was Prebble; Church was Deacon. Dr. Hu’s call sign was Dalek. He was a nerd on several continents.

“The outer door is nothing special, Cowboy,” replied Hu. “All of the special locks are inside.”

“Nothing visible through the glass,” I said. “Proceeding inside.”

I took a very careful hold of the metal door handle. No shocks and nothing exploded. I pulled gently and the door yielded, but I stayed on the balls of my feet. If I felt the tension of a wire or heard a click, I was going to set a new land speed record for a scared white guy in a hazmat suit.

The door opened with a wonderfully boring lack of explosions.

I went inside. The reception area was empty and sparsely furnished with a functional desk, a file cabinet, two ugly plastic visitor chairs, and a glass coffee table littered with magazines that were three years old. The walls were covered with posters about bacterial research and its benefits to the fishing industry, a map of the coastal waters, and a complex set of tide tables. I quickly searched the whole room and came up dry. No traps, no surprises.

And that, by itself, was surprising.

There was a set of double doors behind the counter that looked cheap and fragile, but the wood grain was a clever fake and when I ran a finger along the surface I felt the cool hardness of steel. A keycard scanner was mounted in a discreet niche in the wall. All DMS agents have a programmable master keycard, and the key codes to this facility had been uploaded to mine. I swiped the card and was surprised that it worked. I’d expected the codes to have been changed or at least disabled.

I did not, however, take that as a sign that all was well and that the wacky professor was brewing a pot of chamomile for us to share with a plate of ginger snaps. There are a lot of ways to lay a trap.

The door opened with a click. I unclipped a handheld BAMS unit — a bio-aerosol mass spectrometer — from my belt. It was one of Hu’s sci-fi gadgets, a few steps up from what they use in airports. The BAMS allowed for real-time detection and identification of biological aerosols. It has a vacuum function that draws in ambient air and hits it with continuous wave lasers to fluoresce individual particles. Key molecules like bacillus spores, dangerous viruses, and certain vegetative cells are identified and assigned color codes. Most of the commercial BAMS units were unreliable because they could only detect dangerous particles in high density, but Church always made sure that Hu had the best toys. Ours wasn’t mounted on a cart like the airport model.

I checked several spots in the room and the light stayed green. If there were pathogens loose in here, the concentration was too low for the BAMS unit to detect.

I moved inside.

The door opened into a faux vestibule that was actually a low-level air lock. As I key-swiped the inner door, the one behind me swung shut with a hydraulic hiss. With the BAMS unit in one hand and my Beretta 92F in the other, I moved out of the air lock. The inner room was large and empty. Computer workstations and wheeled chairs, flat-screen monitors in the walls. A Mr. Coffee on a table. Coffee cups.

The scanner was still green, but I had an itch tickling me between the shoulder blades. It was the kind of feeling you get when you think someone’s in the tall grass watching you through the crosshairs of a sniper rifle. I crept across the room, moving on the balls of my feet, checking corners, checking under desks, looking for trip wires, expecting an attack. Doing this sort of stuff for a living does not totally harden you to the stress. Sure, you get cooler, you learn the tricks of ratcheting down the tension on your nerves, but you aren’t a tenth as calm as you look. It’s one of the reasons we take precautions, like keeping our finger flat along the outside curve of the trigger guard. You keep your finger on the trigger and you either shoot yourself or shoot the first poor son of a bitch who wanders into the moment.

Like the kid who opened the side door to the staff room.

I never heard him, didn’t see him, had no clue he was there until he spoke.

“Are you him?”

I instantly spun around and screwed the barrel of the pistol into soft flesh between a pair of large watery green eyes. In the split part of a second it took for me to pivot and slip my finger inside the trigger guard I registered how short and how young he was.

Maybe seven.

Fire engine red hair, cat green eyes in a freckly face that was white with shock as he stared cross-eyed at the gun barrel. In a movie it would have been a comical moment. In the flesh it was horrible on too many levels to count.

“I.I …,” he stammered, and I stepped back and pulled the gun away, but only just. Kids can kill, too. They can pull triggers and they can wear explosive vests. The only reason he didn’t get shot was because his hands were empty.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

He had to try it several times before he could squeeze it out. “M-Mikey,” he said. “I’m Mikey Grey.”

“Hold your arms out to your sides. Do it now,” I ordered, and after a moment’s indecision he did it, standing there like a trembling scarecrow as I clipped the BAMS unit to my belt and patted him down. He was wearing jeans and a Spider-Man T-shirt. Sneakers and a SpongeBob wristwatch.

A couple of tears boiled into the corners of his eyes, and despite his best efforts to be brave, his mouth trembled. Seven was no age at all. A baby.

I hated myself for this.

“Is your dad Charles Grey?” I asked, trying to take the edge off my voice and utterly failing. I wasn’t prepared for this even though I knew that Grey had brought his family into the lab with him.

“Yes,” Mikey said, almost making it a question, unsure of what kind of answer would placate this big, mean stranger with the funny costume and the gun. Then he found another splinter of courage and lifted his chin. “Are you here to hurt my dad?”

“Why would I want to do that, kid?”

“I don’t know. ’Cause he said you were.”

Christ.

“I’m not here to hurt anyone,” I said, and hoped that it wasn’t a lie. Of course, this was coming from a guy holding a loaded gun. “But I do have to talk to your dad.”

“I’m scared,” said the kid. His face was still paper white with fear.

“It’ll be okay.”

“I’m scared of my dad,” he said.

I wanted to peel off my hood and put my sidearm away and give this kid a hug, get him outside this madhouse. I knelt in front of him.

“Why are you scared of your dad, Mikey?”

“He keeps yelling,” he said. “Yelling and crying. I don’t like it when he cries.”

Swell.

“Listen, Mikey … can you take me to him?”

“No! You’re going to hurt him.” He rubbed his eyes with his fists, but the action looked more like he was tired than crying. In the harsh fluorescent lighting his pale skin looked almost green.

“I’m not here to hurt your dad, kid.”

He stared up at me, his face filled with doubt; then his eyes shifted away toward the door. “I’m scared to go back in there.”

“I’ll be right with you, kiddo,” I said as I straightened.

The kid sneezed and I instantly jerked back from him and made a grab for the BAMS unit. The light was no longer green. It glowed orange.

Mikey wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I have a cold.”

“How long have you had a cold, kid?”

He sniffed. “I don’t know. I just got it, I guess.”

“Today? Did you wake up with a cold?”

“No.” He sniffed again and there was a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead. “I keep sneezing and I can’t find any tissues. I think Mommy used them all.”

“Does your mom have a cold, too?”

“She sneezed so much she had a nosebleed.”

“Where is she? Where’s your mom?”

He looked around for a few seconds, like he was trying to orient himself. “Isn’t she here?”

“No. Where is she?”

He sneezed again. I held the BAMS out to try to catch some of the spray.

The light changed from orange to red.

Everything in my gut turned to greasy ice water.

“I … don’t know,” Mikey said distantly. “I think she went to lie down. She had a nosebleed.”

Mikey wiped at his nose and stared at the drops of blood on his wrist. He looked at me, confused, wanting and needing an answer. He was swaying slightly, as if there was a strong breeze. Beneath his freckles his color was bad. Definitely green, with dark red splotches blossoming on his cheeks.

I heard a click in my ear and then Church’s voice: “Deacon for Cowboy, Deacon for Deacon, copy?”

“Go for Cowboy,” I murmured, stepping away from the boy. The kid stood there, clearly unsure of where he was. Blood ran from both nostrils and he didn’t appear to notice.

“Cowboy,” Church said, “we’re receiving the telemetry feeds from the BAMS unit. Be advised that the room is now officially compromised. Repeat, you are in a hot zone. We’re getting V-readings.”

V for virus. Damn.

I stepped away and touched my earbud. “What kind?”

“Dalek is matching the readings with the facility’s database and—”

Another voice cut in. Dr. Hu. “Cowboy, be advised, the kid appears to be infected with a strain of QOBE.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“It’s something they were working on at Fair Isle. Quick Onset Bundibugyo Ebolavirus.”

“Say again?”

Church’s voice cut back in, “The boy has Ebola.”

A cold hand clamped around my heart.

“Then it’s in the main air supply. Talk to me about containment, ’cause I’m outside of the Hot Room.”

“We’ve got the exterior vents draped and we’re sealing them with foam. Nothing can get out.”

“Does that include me?”

“We’re airlifting in a hyperbaric decontamination module. We’ll soft-dock it to one of the doors. You’ll be okay as long as your suit seals are intact.” He sounded almost disappointed.

The kid couldn’t hear the conversation. He was using his sleeve to blot blood from his nose. At first I thought he was remarkably calm, but when he glanced at me I could see that his eyes were already starting to glaze with fever.

“That’s nuts,” I whispered. “Ebola has a five-day incubation—”

“Not QOBE,” said Hu. “It’s a bioweapon engineered to hit and present within minutes to hours. Introduce it into a bunker or secure facility and everyone in there dies. Without living hosts an insertion team in HAMMER suits can infiltrate and gain access to computers and other materials. Infection rate is ninety-eight point eight; mortality rate among infected is one hundred percent.”

“Tell me that someone else cooked this up and that we were just working on a cure.”

There was silence on the line, and then Hu said, “Grow up, Cowboy.”

“We’ll talk about that when I get out of here,” I said softly, though it occurred to me that Hu probably wouldn’t have made that comment if he thought there was a snowball’s chance of me getting out.

“What’s my time frame here?” I asked.

Church said, “You’re fighting the clock. If the boy has just started showing symptoms, say one hour before you’re alone in there.”

“Deacon,” I said, “tell me one thing. Did you know about this?”

“That it was being studied? Yes. That it was off the leash, no.”

What remained unsaid was whether he would have sent me in here regardless. I think we both knew the answer to that.

Second day back on the fucking job.

I turned back to the kid. “C’mon, Mikey … let’s go see your dad.”

The kid sniffed again and turned toward the nearest door, but he blinked at it for a moment, his face screwed up with uncertainty.

“What was I doing?” he asked distractedly.

“You’re taking me to see your dad.” My voice almost cracked.

“Oh … okay.”

He reached for the knob, turned it the wrong way several times, and then wiped his nose with his wrist. When he reached for the doorknob again there was a long smear of blood on his wrist. Mikey finally opened the door and walked through, and I followed, torn between the demands of the mission and the horror I felt for what I was seeing.

I was watching a child die.

The virus was going to kill him in minutes. An hour tops. That was all the time this kid had left. There was no cure, no magic bullet. There was something so enormously obscene about it that I could feel the anger rising like lava inside me. The Modern Man within me — the civilized aspect of my fractured persona — was numb with the shock of this. My inner Cop wanted answers. But it was the third aspect, the Warrior, who was grinding his teeth in a murderous rage. Even that part of me, the Killer, was offended by this because this was something that transcended civilization, transcended law and order: this was the primal and visceral response to protect the young of the tribe. And here was one who was in mortal peril, and no laws or strength of arms could do a single thing. All I could do was use the last minutes of this child’s life to further my mission.

God …

The kid led me through the outer layer of the FIRE facility — the staff quarters, supply rooms, mess hall, and other nonessential sections. The doors to each room stood ajar. No one was there. There were signs of conflict, though: coffee cups that had dropped and shattered on the floor, briefcases left standing in the middle of a hallway, discarded purses, and a number of cell phones that had been tossed to the floor and then smashed under heel. Mikey lingered by a broken BlackBerry that had a pink gel case. He looked at it for several seconds, chewing his lip and furrowing his brow.

Then he looked up at me. “Mom had a nosebleed,” he said. “She had to lie down.”

“I know, Mikey. I’m sure she’ll be okay,” I said, and the lie was like broken glass in my mouth. “Let’s go see your dad.”

Mikey suddenly smiled brightly. “Daddy’s taking us to work today!”

I started to speak, but then the moment passed and the dull, disconnected look returned. Mikey sneezed and continued along the hall.

At the end of the hallway was an air lock, the door of which was blocked by a wheeled desk chair. A sign read: CENTRAL LABORATORY COMPLEX.

“Daddy said to keep the doors open,” said Mikey as he squeezed past the chair and entered the air lock on the far side.

“Where is your dad, Mikey?”

“In the Hot Room. Though … it’s not hot. It’s pretty cold in there. Isn’t that funny, that they call it a hot room?” He sneezed. “C’mon ….”

Everything he said had a dreamy quality to it. Even when he looked at the blood on his hands from his sneeze his expression didn’t flicker. It was apparently unreal to him, and I guess that was a blessing. No tears, no screaming, no panic. Even though I was glad the kid wasn’t terrified and screaming, his calm was eerie.

I followed him through two more air locks. The front and back doors of those locks whose lock assemblies had been torn apart, the hydraulics bashed out of shape and ripped open.

“Did your dad do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Mikey said defensively. A fit of sneezing hit him and the kid reeled against the wall and sneezed until blood fairly poured from between his fingers. I crossed to the closest office and found a box of tissues, tore out a fistful, and brought them back to the kid. He mumbled something and used the whole wad to clean his face.

“Mom had a bloody nose, too,” he said. Then he seemed to forget about the tissues and they fell from his small fingers.

Tears burned my eyes, but I sniffed them back. I couldn’t wipe them away while wearing the suit, and I couldn’t risk blurred vision. I bit down on my fury, grinding it between my teeth until my jaw ached.

I followed Mikey through the central labs.

“Daddy’s in there,” Mikey said, pointing a trembling finger at the far wall, into which was set a much heavier air lock. Huge, thick, solid, and probably impenetrable under any ordinary circumstances. It was the kind of air lock that would have kept even the most virulent pathogen locked in, but I knew that we were past that point. The proof stood beside me, tracing his name on a desktop in his own blood.

This one had not been disabled. But the kicker was what someone had painted on the wall in dark red paint.

The symbol of the Seven Kings.

I bent close to examine it. The HAMMER suit’s filters don’t allow smells to get in, which was fine with me, because as I looked at the dark graffiti I realized that it wasn’t paint. It was blood.

I spoke quietly into my helmet mike: “Cowboy to Deacon, are you seeing this?”

“Copy that,” said Church, then added, “I would welcome the opportunity to chat with the person who painted that.”

Casual words, but not casually meant.

“Roger that.”

I turned to Mikey. “Did your daddy put this here?”

He looked at it for a blank second and then shrugged.

We crossed the room to the door to the Hot Room. The air lock was flanked by double keycard terminals with computer keyboards. The idea was to make sure that no one could enter this kind of lab alone. They used the same thing in missile control rooms. No one can just waltz in and launch the nukes, and the odds of two complete whackos working on the same shift, in the same place, who both wanted to release the Big Bad Wolf were pretty damn slim. These systems allowed for one person to require compliance and agreement from another, and if something was hinky the other person’s lack of compliance kept the monster in its box. The terminals were too far apart for one person to operate them both simultaneously. The computer codes had to be entered in unison, as did the key swipes.

Dr. Grey probably used a colleague to gain entry earlier. Why not? Back then nobody knew he was nuts.

Now he sent a kid. His own damn son.

“I have a card thingee,” Mikey said. He bent and picked it up from the floor near the air lock. “Daddy told me to leave it here. There’s one for you, too. He said we had to type in those numbers and then use the cards. He said to do it together. Like a game. It’ll only work if we do it together.”

He pointed to the metal door, on which a security day code had been written in what looked like lipstick. Rose pink. A nice color.

“Okay, Mikey,” I said in a voice that I barely recognized as my own. “Let’s play the game.”

Interlude Twenty

Gault stood by the throne of the King of Plagues. Up close Gault could see that the chair was ornately carved with scenes from Gilles Le Muisit, Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake, and Jean Pucelle’s Psalter of Bonne de Luxembourg. He trailed his fingers over the carvings of the frantic and helpless doctors, the wretched infected, and the skeletal dead.

“Lovely,” he murmured.

“Take it for a test drive, Sebastian,” suggested the American, his tone of voice at odds with the grandeur of the moment.

Gault climbed into the seat. It was very comfortable, the leather seat built over padded springs.

Toys stepped up behind him and pushed the heavy chair closer to the table. “Looks good on you,” he whispered.

Gault nodded and his eyes were filled with fire. “King of Plagues,” he murmured.

Toys looked at Fear. “What now? Does Sebastian swear some kind of oath? Or is it more secret society — ish — you know, with a blood pact and all that?”

The others laughed.

“We thought about that in the beginning,” said the Frenchman. “We concocted a dozen rituals and, yes, blood oaths were considered. But in the end we decided on a much stronger ritual.”

Gault look up sharply. “What kind of ritual?”

“We gave our word,” said the American. “One to the other.”

Both Toys and Gault started to laugh and then realized that the American wasn’t joking.

“Really?” asked Gault. “That’s it? Your word?”

The Saudi leaned forward, his face serious and intense. “It all depends to whom your word is given. We each agreed to give and receive our word of trust. We agreed never to lie to one another. To everyone else, to the world, to our closest friends on the other side of that door, yes. We agreed that our word would only matter to the Seven Kings and the Seven Consciences of the New World Trust.”

“It’s a covenant,” said Thieves. “A sacred one.”

Toys and Gault exchanged a look that turned into a smile.

Famine cocked an eyebrow. “You find that amusing?”

“Well,” said Gault, “it smacks of ‘honor among thieves,’ doesn’t it?”

The Frenchman shrugged. “I assure you that this is not a joke.”

“He’s right, Sebastian,” said the American. “The one thing we don’t joke about is the integrity of our word when given to the others here in this room. It’s what bonds us and defines us.”

“Very impressive, I’m sure,” said Toys. “But what does Sebastian get out of this?”

The grin that bloomed on the American’s face was broad and toothy and filled with true delight. “Why, son, you both get every goddamned thing you ever wanted. And I’m not talking about caviar and blow jobs; I’m talking about everything. You think you understand what power is? I’m here to tell you, boys, that you surely do not.”

The King of Famine nodded. “When people talk about secret societies they claim that these groups want power, but they don’t attempt to decode what the word ‘power’ truly means. But I will bet you already know.”

“Money,” answered Gault. “It’s always about money. Money buys power — which itself is a catchall term for the ability to do things. Purchase, push, build, destroy, own … money is the only path worth walking.”

“Root of all evil,” said Toys. Several of the Kings nodded at him with approval. “So then … what is evil?”

“It’s how the losers describe the winners,” said the American.

Gault nodded and rubbed his palms back and forth along the armrests of the throne. “So,” he said, “you really are an ancient society?”

The American gave a dismissive laugh. “Nah. That’s the myth we’ve been constructing. It’s what we sell to the rubes. Truth is, we’ve only been in operation for twenty-five years, give or take. We studied all those conspiracy theories to design our group and build our myth. And we hijack a lot of stuff to make that myth look ancient. It’s easy, ’cause if you look hard enough you can find clues to anything, whether it’s there or not. That’s how all those kooky New Age books about Lemuria and Atlantis and the Alien Reptoids got traction. Take a glyph from some tomb that shows a guy in a weird headdress sitting in a chair, and with the right caption underneath it in a book aimed at the right audience you can convince people that it’s a spaceman who visited the Aztecs. Erich von Däniken made a frigging fortune with that, all that Chariots of the Gods bullshit. We spent years on that sort of thing, and we used our people to seed it into pop-culture books on ancient societies, historical mysteries, and conspiracy theories. We poured money into programming at local libraries and coffeehouses for the most vocal nut jobs, and we used dummy corporations to set up a lot of the more subversive small presses that publish books about the Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission. All of that stuff. Mind you, some of it’s true, of course, and that makes the deception that much more compelling. There’s an old carnival barker saying: ‘Use nine truths to sell one lie.’ That’s us.”

The Saudi gave a thin smile. “None of us are what the world thinks we are.”

Gault turned to him. “Even you? Why pollute your own name, then? Everyone knows your face—”

“Do they?” interrupted the Saudi. “People know what they’ve been led to believe. You see this face, this beard, these clothes … but do you see the dialysis machine that the world press insists I’m dependent upon? Do you know for sure that this beard is real? Or that under this beak of a nose I don’t have a smaller one that has been carefully reshaped? Or … is the face beneath the makeup the real one and this exterior merely special effects? How do you know that I’m even a Muslim? I could as easily be a Christian or a Jew or a Buddhist or even an agnostic or atheist. You wonder how it is that I am here in this country when every airport security person in the world knows my face. I ask, are you sure that I have ever been out of this country since 9/11? Or that a surgically altered twin is not making videotapes for me in a cave somewhere? Is any of this true? Or real? I am, after all, the King of Lies.”

“Your people would tear you to pieces if they got so much as a whiff of this,” Gault said.

The Saudi shook his head. “My ‘people’ are all here in this room.”

Gault leaned back and folded his arms. With narrowed eyes and pursed lips he studied the Kings. “Well, well,” he said softly.

Toys gestured to the empty throne on the dais. “Who’s that for?”

“Ah,” said the King of Gold, “that is for the Goddess. It was the Goddess who gave birth to the Seven Kings. It was her idea.”

“It was a family idea,” corrected the American. “We cooked it up together and we brought in the first of the other Kings.”

The Frenchman turned and bowed. “Indeed, my friend, and I meant no insult. Everyone here honors your contributions.”

“So … what is my role?” interrupted Gault. “You say that I’m to be the new ‘King of Plagues.’ It sounds wonderful and flattering, but in practical terms, what does it mean? If your goal is to destabilize rather than destroy, then you surely don’t want a global pandemic.”

“God, no!” laughed the Frenchman. “We want a scalpel, not a sword.”

Toys looked at Gault, saw how those words cut delicately into him. A scalpel, not a sword. How beautifully phrased to appeal to Gault’s vanity. How sweetly it matched his hungers, his passions. They know him too damn well.

Gault nodded slowly.

“Then let us seal this in sacred honor,” said the King of Famine.

They all stood and placed their hands over their hearts. Sebastian Gault and Toys exchanged a brief look and then did the same. The room quieted and one of the Consciences must have touched a rheostat, because the lights dimmed to a soft glow that extended no farther than the table.

“Sebastian Gault,” asked the American, the King of Fear, “do you pledge your life to the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?”

Without a second’s hesitation, Gault said, “Yes, I do.”

“Will you keep the secrets of the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?” asked the Israeli, the King of War.

“I will.”

“Will you share your truths with the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?” asked the Saudi, the King of Lies.

“I will.”

“Will you share your secrets openly with the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?” asked the Russian, the King of Famine.

“Yes, I will.”

“Will you trust your fortune to the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?” asked the Italian, the King of Gold.

“I will. Freely and completely.”

“Will you forswear all other allegiances in favor of the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?” asked the Frenchman, the King of Thieves.

“All but one,” said Gault. “I have long ago placed my life and trust in the keeping of my friend Alexander Chismer. Toys. As long as he is part of this deal, then I agree with my whole heart.”

Toys looked up at Gault’s face, surprised at his words. Surprised and more touched than he would have ever admitted.

“Toys is your Conscience,” said the Saudi. “You speak for him with this oath, and he is oath bound to us as are you.”

Everyone turned to Toys, who was shaken by everything that he was hearing, and his voice was charged with emotion: “I will always be with Sebastian.”

There were appreciative nods all around.

The King of Fear said, “Sebastian Gault, do you pledge your life to the Seven Kings of the New World Trust?”

“I do,” said Gault, and as he said it he felt tears burning in the corners of his eyes.

“Then,” said the Saudi, “welcome to our brotherhood. All hail the King of Plagues!”

In the small room the applause was thunderous.

Chapter Thirty-two

Mikey and I entered the codes and swiped the keys. If he thought there was anything odd about what he was doing or if he wondered why he was doing it, he said nothing. His eyes were almost completely glazed, though, and the bleeding was worse.

“I’m sleepy,” he said. He leaned against the wall inside the air lock, and as the big door swung shut behind us he slid down and sat on the floor. He looked at me for a moment and I searched for some flicker of awareness, some spark, but there was only the vacuity created by the disease that was consuming him. He lay down on his side, curled his arm like a pillow, and rested his head. His eyelids drifted shut, long lashes brushing round cheeks, and he went to sleep. Blood pooled on the floor around him.

There was nothing I could do. Not a goddamned thing.

I wanted to scream, to pound my fists on the walls. But all I could do was continue, to go on, go deeper into this madness.

God help the first person I caught up with who was part of this thing.

I pressed the controls on the other side of the air lock. A simpler oneman system. The locks clicked, the air pumps hissed, the disinfectant spray blasted me, and the light went from red to green. Funny. Green is supposed to mean that it’s safe to proceed. I cut a last look back at the boy. Safe.

Inside my head the Warrior screamed for blood.

The inner door opened and I stepped into a surreal world. The room was large, much bigger than I expected, and there was a massive steel vault in the center of the floor, surrounded by very thick curved glass of the kind used in commercial aquariums. Inside this “fish tank” standing in a loose line around the vault were twenty-eight people in hazmat suits. Each faceplate was covered with strips of white surgical tape except for a narrow eye slit. The suits were pressure inflated so that they all looked like that Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and the suit material was opaque, so except for height it was impossible to tell the men from the women, and even that wasn’t certain. They were identical. All traces of race, age, and gender were smoothed to a homogenous and alien sameness.

No one held a gun.

“Step out of the air lock.” The voice came through the lab’s PA system. It was a man’s voice. American accent. However, if someone in the fish tank was doing the talking I couldn’t tell.

“I’m good right here,” I said.

“Step out of the air lock or I’ll shoot one of these people.”

“Not a chance.”

“You don’t believe me?” He sounded way too calm, given the situation. I guess I did, too.

“Sure I do, but I’m not going to give you a new target.”

“Having an attack of the jitters?”

“No, I’m having an attack of common sense.”

He actually laughed at that. But the laugh was sharp and twisted like he had barbed wire in his throat.

“Are you Dr. Grey?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“You haven’t asked about your son.”

Another pause. Longer this time. “Is he dead yet?”

“You knew he was sick?”

“Yes.”

“Did you infect him?”

Seconds ticked by.

“Yes,” he said, and now I could hear the strain in his voice. It was like bending close to a piece of steel and seeing the tiny stress fractures.

“Why?” I asked, my voice as calm as I could make it.

“I did it to save him.”

“Well, nice fucking job, Einstein. That poor kid just bled out in the air lock.”

The PA system was bad, full of distortion, but I could hear his ragged sobs.

“I did it to save him!” he cried.

“From what?”

No answer.

“Listen … Dr. Grey,” I said, “let’s stop dicking around here. You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to do all this, and to get me here. If you have a list of demands, or you want to make some kind of statement, then I’ll listen. But you have to make a show of good faith.”

“Faith?”

“You have to let some of these people go. Give up a few hostages. Show me that you’re at least willing to be reasonable.”

“No,” he said in a voice that sounded as vague and distracted as his son’s had been. “No … I think we’re well past the point of being reasonable.”

“No, we’re not. There’s still time to—”

“There is no time. Time ends here, ends now.”

“Bullshit. If that was the case, then why send for someone from Homeland? Why go to such elaborate lengths? If you have some political or social statement to make, then this is not the way to be heard.”

The people in the room shifted nervously. I stayed crouched down behind the heavy door, trying to find my target. Still nothing. Or was there? At the far end of the fish tank, one of the figures had shifted position, but she did it very cautiously. It was a small figure, almost certainly a woman, and she slowly raised her arm so that her forearm lay across her midsection. Her hand was curled into a loose fist, but as I watched, she uncurled her index finger. It took a second for me to process it, but then I realized that she was pointing to a spot outside the tank. I deliberately turned away, sweeping my eyes and gun in a wide arc as if covering the room, but when I swept back toward her she was still pointing. She even twitched her hand a little to emphasize her meaning.

“This isn’t about politics,” said Grey. He muttered something else after that, but it was too low for me to hear. A remark to himself. I think he said, “At least I don’t think it is.”

I surreptitiously cut my eyes in the direction the woman indicated and saw a row of gray filing cabinets lining the far side of the Hot Room. There were several of them and from where I stood I couldn’t see what was beyond them, but if someone was on the other side, they’d be able to see the fish tank and my reflection in the glass. It couldn’t have been a large space, and there wasn’t enough cover for someone to stand behind it. But … was someone sitting on the floor? Yeah … there was enough cover for that.

Gotcha.

“Then what’s it about, Doc? Give me something so I can help you.”

“I don’t need help!” His voice was thicker. More tears, or had he been exposed to the pathogen as well? The big clock in my head went tick-tock.

“Then tell me what you do need.”

“I need you to step out of the air lock. I swear I won’t hurt you. But I need to see you. I need to look into your eyes.”

“And why would that be?”

“Because I need to know if I can trust you.”

“Trust is a funny request from someone who just killed his kid.”

“I could have vented the Ebola into the atmosphere,” he said. “I didn’t have to warn anyone. I didn’t have to bring you here. I could have made this much worse.”

Worse than murdering your own kid? I wondered, but he was right. If a strain of fast-acting airborne Ebola reached England or the Continent …

“If you want to earn my trust, Doc, why not let some of the hostages go?”

“No!” he snapped with abrupt ferocity. “No, they stay.”

“And you want me to become a hostage, too?”

“No,” he said, and maybe it was the distortion of the PA system, but he sounded genuinely surprised. “No, don’t you get it? This isn’t about you! I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t even know you.”

“But you do know these people. Aren’t they your friends? Your colleagues and co-workers?”

“Exactly!” he said as if he’d just made a point.

He sneezed. I heard it through the PA system and I heard it in the room. He was definitely over behind the filing cabinets.

“I don’t have much time,” he said. “God … Mikey.”

“Where is your wife, Dr. Grey?”

He didn’t answer.

“Is she dead, too?”

“Yes,” he said after a long pause.

“Help me understand this. You take your co-workers hostage and yet you kill your own family?”

“I won’t explain over the com system.”

Seems that my options dwindled down to just one.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to stand up and step out of the air lock. If this is an ambush, believe me when I tell you that I’m better at this than you are. If I see a gun in your hand I will shoot you dead.”

“I won’t shoot you.”

“Same rules apply if I see a trigger device. You’re not winning friends here.”

“No,” he said, “I expect not. Monsters don’t have friends.”

That was a comforting statement.

“Coming out,” I called, and I let my gun lead the way as I straightened and eased out of the air lock. The hostages all took an involuntary step back as I fanned the pistol barrel across them. I had the file cabinets in my peripheral vision, and I was ready to bust a cap in absolutely anything that moved.

Suddenly I heard a ripping sound to my right and knew for certain now that he was there. There were no shots, no further sounds.

I had my pistol in a two-handed shooter’s grip and I moved low and fast, checking every corner, and when I reached the wall of filing cabinets I took a breath and then whirled around.

Dr. Charles Grey sat on the floor. He held a beaker of some evil-looking liquid in his left hand. His pistol lay next to his right thigh. The hood of his hazmat suit was gone, torn open and partly off, which explained the tearing sound I’d heard. His face was puffed and red from crying, but he wasn’t sick. Not yet. He’d been waiting for me to arrive before subjecting himself to the Ebola pathogen.

He looked up at me with eyes that were filled with a devastating sadness. The microphone fell from his hand.

“Help me,” he said softly. “Please, for the love of God help me …. I don’t want to kill the world.”

Interlude Twenty-one

After the oath was given and accepted, there was a party. The Kings and their Consciences left the chamber and went up into the castle, where tables had been set, food laid out, and a thousand candles lighted. There were scores of people — members of the upper-echelon staff, rock stars, politicians, famous artists.

The American took Gault and Toys aside before they entered the ballroom.

“Careful what you say in here.”

“These people don’t know?” asked Gault.

“Nah. They think this is a party, and most of these lunkheads are professional party people. They jet-set around the world to wherever the party is. Drinking, snorting, and fucking their way through the glitterati landscape. No cameras are allowed and the stuff that happens here never makes it to the press.”

“Yes,” murmured Toys with a smile, “we’ve swum in these waters for years.”

The American laughed. “Good point. Then you know the rules.”

“The only rule is silence,” said Toys.

“Fucking A.” The American clapped them both on the shoulders and then dove into the eddying waters of flesh and excess.

Gault made to follow, but Toys touched his arm. “Sebastian … are you sure about this?”

“About what? Getting drunk and getting laid?”

“I’m being serious here.”

“Why?” asked Gault. “Why are you even hesitating? I could tell when we were in there that you didn’t like it. Why? This is what we have both wanted forever. All this power has been handed to us.”

“When you’re done coming in your pants, how about stepping back for a perspective check? Don’t you think this is all too much too soon? And too free?”

A look of disappointment flickered over Gault’s face. “I understand that you’re still off-balance from what happened with Amirah and the Seif Al Din, Toys. Granted our luck turned bad with that.” He touched the bandages that covered part of his handsome face. “Don’t think that I’ve forgotten, or could ever forget. But sometimes fortune does smile on people. We’ve landed on our feet here. We’ve landed hip deep in gold dust. We’re among friends.”

“They’re not my friends,” said Toys defensively.

“Sure they are. They’re my friends and what’s mine is yours. Now stop being a pussy and let’s go get what we deserve!”

Toys started to protest, but Gault clapped him hard on the shoulder — much harder than had the American — and pulled him into the noise and movement of the party.

Chapter Thirty-three

Rudy stopped at the Blue Bell Inn and asked for a table as far away from other diners as possible. The place was warm and cheery with Christmas decorations and twinkling lights. Rudy barely registered them. He was shown to a corner deuce where he ordered coffee and waited for the server to go away. Then he removed his cell, activated the scrambler, and called Mr. Church.

For once Church actually answered the phone. “Doctor,” he said tersely, “is this important? Otherwise—”

“It’s very important.”

“Then give it to me fast. We’re in the middle of something here.”

Rudy did, though a couple of times he felt as if he were wandering down shadowy side corridors of speculation. Church listened without interruption, but when Rudy was finished he said, “Verify that he mentioned the Ten Plagues of Egypt.”

“Yes.”

“And a river of blood?”

“Yes.”

“And he mentioned Grace and Ghost?”

“He used those words in a sentence. It might be pure coincidence, but I doubt it.”

Church grunted.

“Mr. Church,” Rudy said, “I want to be frank with you.”

“By all means.”

“This man frightened me.”

“In what way? Because he appears to have insider knowledge?”

“Not precisely. It’s more that he appears to have …”

“Say the word, Doctor.”

“Okay. He appears to have unnatural knowledge.” Rudy licked his dry lips. “What is happening over there? How come I can’t get through on Joe’s phone?”

“Captain Ledger is participating in an active operation.”

“Is he in danger?”

Church did not answer.

“What did Nicodemus mean by ‘river of blood’?”

After a moment, Church said, “I’ll call when I have information that I can share.”

Church disconnected, and Rudy sat alone.

“Dios mio,” he breathed.

Interlude Twenty-two

“So … you make your fortunes by chaos?” Gault asked as he and the American strolled through the fragrant gardens on the island. Toys trailed along a few feet behind them, and watchful guards were posted in camouflaged observation posts. Gault carried a glass of whiskey and soda; the American had a balloon of brandy. Vox took slow drags on a cigar. Behind them the castle was lighted up like a Disney palace. Music and laughter from the party were muted by the dense trees.

“‘Chaos’ is a good catchall word,” said the American. “By its own nature it resists specific definition. ‘Destabilization’ is maybe a little more precise. Any time the status quo takes a hit we make a buck.”

“And yet your day job — if it’s not too vulgar to call it that — is all about stabilization.”

“Yeah, well, life’s a fucking comedy act isn’t it?” They strolled in companionable silence for a bit. “With my day-job stuff … you do see how that allows for the other stuff to work, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“So, you can see why I’m not too crazy about Mom screwing with it.”

“Of course,” said Gault neutrally.

“I’d rather we stuck with events like 9/11 and the London subway bombings. That stuff hits the market like a tsunami, and we turn a buck while staying far, far away from the action.”

“You prefer to play it safe?”

“Fucking right. The risks should all be on paper or in predictions of percentage points. We shouldn’t be risking our own goddamn necks.”

“That’s less … exciting.”

The American snorted. “Don’t lecture me on what’s exciting, Sebastian. You’re a nice kid, but you laid your balls on the chopping block when you got involved with Lady Frankenstein over in Afghanistan. And you didn’t profit from it. You’re on the lam and you lost how much money?”

Gault said nothing.

“Mom’s more like you,” continued the American. “She grooves on the danger. She was against the bank thing we did a few years ago.”

“You robbed a bank?”

“Ha! We robbed every bank on the Continent. We spent fifteen years orchestrating the recession that slammed everyone at the end of’08. That was mine, right from the beginning. No risks, and we made insane amounts of money.”

“From an economic downturn?”

“That’s just it, Sebastian: the Seven Kings don’t see what’s been happening as an economic downturn. It’s simply a turn; it’s a sudden and radical change. Look, imagine that the economy is like an hourglass. Turn it on its head and the sand flows in a safe and predictable way. But if that same glass had holes in its sides, then during the process of turning it around some sand would inevitably fall out.”

“And when the glass is turned, you’re standing under those holes ready to catch the spill?”

“Sure. Here’s the crazy thing: most of the actual methods we use to scoop up the sand are legal. We have legions of people working for us holding the buckets. Investors, brokers, trust attorneys. For example, back at the end of 2009 our hedge-firm guys raked in billions in profits. Record one-year takes. Since we helped to destabilize certain banks, we knew who was likely to fall and who would remain standing. While most investors were running for the exits or swallowing bottles of sleeping pills, we used our people to scoop up beaten-down bank shares. We bought Bank of America stock when it had dropped below a dollar a share, and then sat tight as the bailout shored up the holes we’d kicked in the sides of the ship. A bunch of ultraconservative boneheads didn’t follow suit because they thought that the government was about to nationalize the big banks. There were times no one else was even bidding.” He took a deep lungful and blew pale blue smoke over the heads of a thousand roses. “During the resurgence, one of our guys scooped up about twelve billion after fees in the second quarter of’09 and did even better in each quarter of 2010. That was just one of our guys.”

“No one noticed?”

“Sure they noticed, but they don’t draw the right conclusion based on what they saw. It’s like that old joke about six blind guys trying to describe an elephant. One touches its ears and thinks the elephant looks like a fan, another one touches its tail and thinks it’s a snake, and another one touches its tusk and says it must be like a spear, yada, yada.”

“Three blind men,” Gault corrected.

“Six,” the American said without rancor. “The American poet John Godfrey Saxe translated that story from an old Indian legend cooked up by a Jainist philosopher. Some lazy ass shortened it to three men.”

Gault grunted as he sipped his whiskey.

The American gave him a foxy wink. “I know you think I’m a fucking moron ’cause I talk like I’m a blue-collar chowderhead from South Baaaston.”

“Only sometimes.”

“Only sometimes,” agreed the American.

“Point taken,” Gault said. “My apologies.”

“Fuck it. The Seven Kings don’t apologize to each other. Or to anyone. We also don’t take offense. In fact, it’s useful to try and never take anything personal. You’re above that shit now; you live in a Big Picture world now, Sebastian. It takes some adjustment to think of yourself in those terms.”

“As a king?”

The American nodded.

“It may take some getting used to,” Gault murmured, “but I expect I’m going to like it.”

“Oh, you will.”

They walked on, pausing as a fat peacock strutted across their path, taking his time and pretending not to notice the two tall men.

“Faggot bird,” the American muttered. “Eris loves them. I’d like to turn my dogs on ’em. That’d be wicked fun.”

“Hedge funds,” Gault prompted.

“Well, yeah, hedge funds. When a lot of businesses tanked, we cleaned up buying properties for pennies on the dollar, and did better buying billions in beaten-down commercial mortgage-backed securities. For a while the fluctuations in the bond market pretty much gave us a license to print money.”

“What if the market doesn’t recover?”

“We won’t be aboard any ship that’s actually sinking, and if we have to take a loss here and there to maintain respectable credibility, then we’re taking a chunk of the back end. The stuff our accounting department does is science fiction.”

“How do you keep yourself safe from the IRS and the FBI?”

The King of Fear chuckled. “Most people run from the feds because they know you can’t fight ’em and you can’t beat ’em in court. We don’t have that problem.”

“Why not?”

“This is what I mean by ‘Big Picture,’ Sebastian. Small minds try to figure out how to dodge the bullet the system shoots at them. Big minds try to fight the system by wrapping themselves in layers of legality.”

“And that’s what you do?”

“No. We’re Big Picture, but we’re Big Picture as viewed by Kings. What we do is plan ahead. Years and years ahead. Anyone involved in the actual crisis is going to get looked at very closely, right? What we do is plan far in advance and then we seed people into the system. We’re everywhere, Sebastian. We’re in all levels of government, all corners of Wall Street and other national financial districts. We’re in Congress and the White House. We’re deeply positioned in the IRS, FBI, SEC, EPA, FTC, … and everywhere else. We have significant players in the Republican and Democratic parties. And we have people peppered through the press. We’re on both sides of every argument, every congressional bill, every peace accord, every global summit. Chaos isn’t about taking sides. Kingship is about ruling all of it.”

They stopped by the cliff and looked out over the wind-troubled waters of the St. Lawrence River.

“Who does your dirty work? Hits and bombings and such?”

“We recruit from existing extremist cells. We fund them and protect them, and then we tap them to be our street troops. We call them the Chosen, and they’re sold different versions of a bill of goods about rewards in heaven. Or whatever else they’d sell their souls for. Money, pussy, whatever works. You’d be surprised how many of these soldiers of God will sell their own mothers for a few hundred K and a California blonde with plastic tits. Kind of ruins your faith in suicidal fundamentalism.”

Gault laughed and the American blew smoke rings at the moon.

“Couple, three years ago,” continued the American, “my man Santoro came up with an idea to build a more elite combat team. The Kingsmen.”

“Catchy.”

“It inspires a sense of pride and entitlement. I put Santoro in touch with some ex-Delta and SEAL guys and they built a training program that is world-class and wicked hard. Couple of guys out of every group die or get crippled. We let the other cadets shoot the cripples. Sounds harsh, I know, but it also makes them hard as fucking nails. Real fire eaters.”

“How are these Kingsmen used?”

“Black ops, wet works. That sort of thing. We had one tussle with the DMS. Our team lost, but it was an overwhelming-odds situation, and the DMS thought they were facing some rogue cell of ultrajihadists.”

“The DMS teams are the toughest I’ve ever seen,” Gault warned.

“Yeah, well … we’ll get a chance to test that.”

“These Kingsmen … what’s their incentive?”

“Numbered accounts in the low seven figures. Plus they watchdog each other, and that keeps them all straight. Lots of trust between them. Real pride. No way they’d screw each other over. They have a real sense of pride, and they are totally devoted to Mom. Eris has built her mystique to the point that some of these guys really think she is a goddess. She’s convinced them that she is a direct descendant of Sargon the Great of Akkad, so the Kingsmen believe they can trace their warrior lineage to the first emperor in human history. That’s quite a legacy. Santoro is their general, role model, and chief badass.”

“He seems like a capable chap.”

“He’s a fucking nut bag. Don’t get me wrong, I love the guy like a son, but he is eight beers short of a six-pack. Santoro absolutely believes Mom’s a goddess. That’s not a joke. Guy gets a spiritual boner every time her name is mentioned, and once — just once — one of the Kingsmen saw Eris walk by and didn’t yet know who she was, so he made a crack about wanting to tap that, and Santoro was right there. Jesus fucking Christ, you never saw anything so fast and nasty. Santoro told the guy to pull his knife, and mind you, this guy was ex — Force Recon and he was a badass mamba-jamba and twice Santoro’s size. But my boy cut him four kinds of bad: long, deep, wide, and often. He humiliated him and carved pieces off the guy and then did things to him while he was down and dying that I don’t like to think about. Had the guy begging for forgiveness from the Goddess with half a tongue and his guts in his lap. Talk about an object lesson. There had to be forty, fifty of the Kingsmen — full team members and cadets — watching that. By the time he was done, Santoro was painted red from head to toe and he looked like some kind of demon. The other Kingsmen knelt — actually fucking knelt—in front of him, and then Santoro led them in a prayer to the Goddess. That, my friend, is how legends are made.”

Gault stared at the American. “Bloody hell.”

The King of Fear chuckled. “Life’s weird for us, but you get used to it.”

They began walking again.

A little while later Gault said, “If you disapprove of Eris’s plan are you outside of it? Or do all the Kings work together on everything?”

The American puffed his cigar before answering, “It’s one for all and all for one. For the most part. I have a couple of my own gigs running, but this thing — what we’re calling the Ten Plagues Initiative — is what everyone else wants to do, so I’m doing my part. But there are threads that could lead back to me. Granted, it would take some pretty damn creative logic jumps to connect the dots, but even so that’s more of a trail than I like to leave. The DMS are not as stupid as my darling mother thinks.” He cut Gault a look. “You know that firsthand.”

Gault touched the bandages. “Yes. But … tell me, is this the first time the other Kings voted against you?”

The American smiled. “Yeah. Kind of caught me off-guard, too.”

“Is this going to be a problem?”

“Nah,” said the American. “I got it handled.”

Toys took microsips from a glass of wine as he trailed along behind Gault and the American. Neither man had so far bothered to direct a single comment to him. Nor did they lower their voices to prevent him from hearing the conversation. He supposed that it was all meant to be a sign of trust, an unspoken acknowledgment that he was privy to all of their secrets.

But it didn’t feel that way to Toys.

He sipped his wine and digested everything he heard, and kept his thoughts to himself. In the darkened woods the peacocks screamed like damned souls.

Chapter Thirty-four

“Are you him?��� It was the same question his son had asked me. “I told them to send someone from Homeland Security.”

“Then I’m him,” I said.

“Where’s Mikey?”

“You know where he is, asshole.”

Tears ran down his cheeks. “Was it fast?”

“What do you think?”

“God.” He licked his lips. “It’s important that you understand. I need to make you believe me when I say that I loved my son.”

“Save it for Saint Peter. He likes a good bullshit story,” I snapped. “Right now I need to know why you’re doing all of this.”

He wiped his streaming eyes and nose with a forearm. I reached out with a foot and pushed the pistol out of his reach.

Grey flinched and clutched the beaker to his chest as if that might protect him from my anger.

“Why don’t you put that beaker down?”

“You’ll kill me if I do.”

“I’m already talking to a dead man.” I showed him the BAMS unit. “Ebola’s all over this place. Besides, after what happened to your kid, I’m not sure I’d do you the favor of giving you a quick way out. You should feel what he felt.”

“Yes.”His eyes were bleak but steady. “I should. I gave Mikey a little morphine first. But … not for me.”

“If you’re looking for admiration for your sacrifice, too bad. Now … put the beaker down.”

“No. I need something to make you stay with me until I get it all out.”

I tapped the chest of my HAMMER suit. “Sorry, but scary as that Ebola shit is, I’m covered.”

He shook his head. “That suit has polycarbonate components. This is filled with a rapid-action strain of pseudomonas bacteria. It eats oil. They use it for cleaning up oil spills, but this strain was designed for bioweapons use. It would dissolve the seals in your suit before you reached the first air lock.”

“Well, kiss my ass,” I said. “You’ve really thought this through, Doc. You earn the merit badge for Mad Scientist of the Week. It’ll look great in your obituary.”

I was calculating how fast vapors would spread if he dropped the beaker compared to how fast I could get my ass the hell out of here.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t buy much sympathy these days. This is your play, Doc, so … talk.”

He did.

I expected it to be about politics. But that wasn’t it at all. Instead Dr. Charles Grey told me a horror story. There were no ghosts or vampires in it, but it was scary as hell.

He and his family lived in a cottage on the other side of the island. A few weeks ago, while Mikey and his mom were preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for the American staff at FIRE, Grey walked into his study, felt a sudden burn on the back of his neck, and then woke up five minutes later tied to a chair with a hood over his head. There was at least one man in the room with him. A frightening, invisible figure who spoke politely but told of dreadful things that would be done to Grey’s wife and son if the doctor did not do exactly what the man wanted. The man stood behind Grey and pulled off the hood. Then he reached past Grey and began placing photographs on the table in front of him. Photos of women who bore a strong physical resemblance to his wife. And little boys who looked like Mikey.

“The pictures they showed me … the things that were done to those other children. And to the women. Inhuman things. It was unbearable to think that someone could do that to another human being. To innocent children. To women. Then … he placed pictures of Mikey and Alicia next to the others. He had pictures of my wife shopping, of her in the bathtub, of us making love. The thought that they had stolen our privacy, that they were somehow watching us all this time …”

“Your boy, too?”

“Yes. Pictures of Mikey sleeping. One of him using the toilet at school. God!” He gagged and I didn’t know if it was the first touch of the Ebola or the sheer horror of what he was remembering.

“Why didn’t you go to the police?” I demanded.

“They warned me not to. He showed me a picture of a little boy … I mean I think it was a boy. Had been a little boy. The man said that this was the result of someone else notifying the authorities. He said that if I told anyone, even my wife, then this would happen to my son. To Mikey. Even if they had to wait a month, or a year, or ten years. One day my son would vanish and if we ever found him at all there would be only pieces left to bury. He said if that happened, I would receive an e-mail with a video file showing everything that had been done to Mikey, and that the last thing the boy would be told before he died was that this was all my fault. He made me believe that there were worse things than death. Even the way Mikey died—” A sob tore its way out of his chest. “Even the way he died wouldn’t be a millionth as bad as what they would have done to him. And if I did this and let my family live, I’d go to jail and they would still be out there. How could I trust that they would leave my family alone? They might … they might …” He shook his head.

“There’s witness protection—,” I said, but he cut me off.

“Witness against whom? I never saw his face. He wore a black mask. All I could tell was that he was a male and had a Spanish accent.”

The Spaniard. The mysterious figure who was the liaison between the Chosen, the Kingsmen, and the Seven Kings. Son of a bitch.

Grey glared at me. “So … do you want to tell me that the police, or even the military, would protect me from someone I couldn’t identify? Besides,” he said, his mouth a taut and bitter line, “he said that they had people in the police, in the military, in the government. He said that they had people everywhere.”

“And you believed him?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

I thought, Yeah, I probably would.

“And,” Grey went on, “he said that he would occasionally reach out to me through other means to prove what he said. He wasn’t lying. I found notes in my locked car. Voice mails in five different voices on my phone. Notes on my desk.” He swallowed. “Even a folded note in my lab coat here in the Hot Room. They were everywhere. I thought about running, but if they are everywhere, where could I run?”

Grey sobbed so hard that he almost dropped the beaker. My heart was in my throat. When he wiped his nose it left twin red smears on the forearm of his hazmat suit.

“I gave them both morphine. This strain of Ebola works very fast. I thought it would hurt less than a gun. I … I’m not good with guns.”

“Why not overdose them with morphine?”

Fresh tears welled in his eyes. The tears were pink with blood. “I didn’t think you would believe me unless you had no choice. Seeing Mikey would convince you.”

I wanted to take my gun and pistol-whip the shit out of him. I wasn’t a doctor and even I could have figured fifty ways to do it better than he’d done it.

“What about the rest of the staff?” I said. “Why hold them hostage?”

“I told you … I found notes on my desk, in my lab coat. And then the security cameras and ventilation cut out. They have someone else here. I don’t know who, so I made everyone put on hazmat suits and go into the fish tank. I locked it from the outside.” He coughed and there was blood on his lips.

“Are the people in the fish tank infected?”

“No, but it’s in the air with them. If you trust your people, then maybe you can interrogate them. Get one of them to talk. I didn’t release the virus until the tank door was sealed. I put a bicycle lock on the crash bar and broke the key off in the lock. You’ll have to cut it to get them out.”

“I’m still a step behind you here, Doc. If you’re going to hand everyone over to us, why not turn yourself and your family in? This isn’t some candy-ass drug buy. This is international-incident stuff. This is terrorism. We’d be able to protect you; I guarantee it.”

Dr. Grey looked at me with eyes that wept tears of blood. “He said that they are everywhere. The police, INTERPOL, everywhere.”

“And yet you asked for someone from Homeland.”

“What else could I do? I had to make this big enough so that it would be harder for them to cover it up.”

“How do you know I’m not one of them?”

“I looked out the window. I saw the helicopters land. Not all of you can be involved. I mean … if you are, then my family is better off out of a world like that. And if you’re not involved …”

He looked to me for encouragement, and I gave him a small nod.

“ … then please do something.”

“You haven’t told me much, Doc. How is this connected with the bombing at the London?”

Grey stared bug-eyed at me. “Is it? Oh my God! Are you sure?”

“The Seven Kings put their mark on both places right before things went to hell. You’re involved in this thing; you tell me.”

He gave me a frank and uncomprehending stare. “Who are the Seven Kings?”

“Their symbol is painted in blood on the wall outside of the Hot Room.”

“I … saw that outside when I sent Mikey to … to …” He shook his head. “I don’t know what it means.”

“The guy who roughed you up, the Spaniard. Did he say anything about why they were doing this? Or about what they wanted?”

He laughed and then abruptly turned his head and spit blood onto the cold floor. “He never said why. He only told me what he wanted me to do. He said, ‘Go to your job, remove the Ebola from the vault, and spill it on the floor of the Hot Room.’”

“Nothing else?”

“Just that. Since the fail-safes were supposed to kick in as soon as there was a biological accident, I thought that all they wanted was an incident. Maybe kill some of the staff and expose America’s involvement in secret bioweapons testing. It’s the only thing that made any sense. Then the vent controls went down and the fail-safes never kicked in.”

“And he never mentioned the Seven Kings?” I asked. “Or even just ‘Kings’?”

“No, just the Goddess, and I—”

“Goddess? Tell me exactly what he said.”

“Both times he attacked me he mentioned the Goddess. When he promised not to hurt my family if I did what he wanted, he swore by the Goddess. And yesterday, when he attacked me in my garage, he said that ‘nothing is impossible if the Goddess wills it to be.’ He held a knife up to my eye and made me swear that I believe in the Goddess. I … got it wrong first, I said that I believed in God, and he got so mad I thought he would kill me right there. He kept ranting about faith and how the Goddess was his shield and he was her sword. Crazy stuff like that. Then he gave me his knife and told me to kill him. He said that his faith would protect him.”

“What did you do?”

“What could I do? He said that if I didn’t try to kill him he would go upstairs and turn Mikey into one of his angels. God. That’s what he called the poor women and children in those photos. Angels. He called his victims ‘angels.’”

Grey described how he had tried to kill the Spaniard and how the man had disarmed and beaten him without effort. “He was so fast. I … I never saw him move. God, please! I couldn’t let him do that — I couldn’t let him turn Mikey into an angel.”

His sobs were as deep and as broken as any I’d ever witnessed. This man, this Spaniard, had killed Dr. Grey long before today. He’d broken Grey’s spirit and his mind and cut away the fabric of hope and trust that bound his life together. It was horrible to witness and it provoked in me an atavistic dread of the Spaniard, and of the Seven Kings and the Goddess they worshiped. A dread … and a killing rage that burned like boiled acid under my skin. I wanted to face this man, and I knew that I didn’t want to do so from the cold and antiseptic distance of a gun. I wanted to be up close and very personal with the Spaniard. Knife to knife, or — far better yet — hand to hand.

Grey coughed and the sound dragged me back from the edge of a red darkness and into the broken moment. I looked at Grey and thought about Plympton. The selection of these men had to have other elements. I mean … hell, I had a family that I loved — my dad, my brother and his wife and kid, couple of aunts — but I wouldn’t slaughter four thousand people in a hospital to protect them. I’d find some other way to keep them safe while I looked into it. So, okay, I’m a cop and a federal agent, and psychologically speaking I have a headful of bees and spiders, but I could not believe that there were levers strong enough to turn me into a mass murderer. What was it about Grey and Plympton that made them different?

“I’m going to find out who did this,” I said. “I am going to find them and I can guarantee you, Dr. Grey, I will show them what ‘terror’ really means.”

He closed his eyes. “I wish I could believe you.”

I said nothing to that. He was starting to drift. Bloody sweat was leaking from his pores.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” I said softly.

He nodded weakly. “I wrote an account of it. Of everything. It’s on my laptop, in the documents section. My password is grásta.’ With an accent over the first a. It’s hidden in a folder called ‘Christmas List.’”

“What’s grásta mean?”

“My family’s Irish. That’s Gaelic,” he said. “For ‘mercy.’”

I stood and stretched out my left hand. “Give me the beaker.”

He smiled and looked at the swirling brown mixture with the red veins. “It’s not what I said it was,” he said. “It’s just coffee and Tabasco sauce.”

He handed it to me. I still took it carefully and set it on the desk.

“Mercy,” I said.

“Grásta. But I don’t deserve it.” He buried his face in his hands. I could hear him saying the names of his wife and son over and over again.

Mercy.

I’m no saint. Furthest thing from it. But I can at least grant a little mercy.

I raised my gun and put the laser sight on him.

Interlude Twenty-three

Sebastian Gault lay with his head on Eris’s naked breast as the stars wheeled overhead. The boat rocked gently under them, dark water slapping against the hull. Far away on Crown Island, cicadas and crickets made the darkness pulse with life. Fireflies were pinpricks of light as they flitted among the tall grasses on the banks of the St. Lawrence River.

“I’m glad you accepted our offer, lovely boy,” Eris murmured.

“You knew I would,” said Gault. “It feels a little surreal, though. Kings and thrones.”

She laughed, deep and throaty. “It is surreal. We’re remaking the world into what we want it to be.”

“I hadn’t expected you to be the driving force for this thing.”

“Oh … you know, ‘behind every great man is a—”

“totally psycho power-hungry bitch?”

“Exactly.”

“And sonny boy is fine with that?”

“He’s less devoted to the Goddess than his fellow Kings, but he’ll do his part.”

“What about the others? Are they all still in your corner?”

“They are,” she said as she ran her fingernails down his chest and over his hard stomach. “I have a special relationship with each of the Kings.”

“God, please don’t tell me that you and your son are—”

“No.” She laughed. “Just the other Kings. I’m corrupt, lovely boy, but not tacky.”

“Thank god for small mercies.”

“Thank ‘Goddess,’” she corrected.

“Ah, yes.”

They lay together and watched as several meteors burned their way through the blackness. Minutes drifted past them on the current of the night.

“Sebastian …?”

“Mm?”

“You loved her, didn’t you?”

“Who?”

“Amirah. Your pretty little Iraqi mad scientist. You really loved her, didn’t you?”

He closed his eyes, shutting out even the simple beauty of the star field above. “Love is a quicksand pit.”

“You’re being evasive.”

“Did I love her? Yes. Deeply, and despite the fact that she was married to another man, and despite the fact that I had several times planned to kill her, and despite the fact that she betrayed me and tried to kill me, I loved her to the end.” He made a low, feral sound and a shudder passed through his whole body. “I still do, and I wish I could take a scalpel and carve that emotion out of my body. I’m not joking, Eris …. If I could actually cut it out, I would.”

“Is that what your plan is? The course of action you proposed to the Kings — is that the scalpel you want to use?”

He sat up and looked down at her. It was so dark that she was merely a paleness woven into the fabric of shadows.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Eris propped herself on one elbow. “Oh, don’t take offense, Sebastian. You can’t possibly be dense enough to believe that you’re not damaged goods. We all are or we wouldn’t be the people we’ve become. You are one of the greatest pharmaceutical researchers on the planet, a self-made rags-to-riches billionaire, and yet you’ve spent most of your adult life covertly funding terrorist organizations and creating exotic diseases just so you could be the first to bring treatments to market. You’re a thoroughly corrupt mass murderer. You paid to have a certifiably insane molecular biologist design a pathogen that could easily — easily — have caused a global pandemic of apocalyptic proportions. If it wasn’t for Joe Ledger and the DMS, this whole world would look like a sequel to Night of the Living Dead. And now you have been brought into a secret society, a group that has asked you to help them destabilize the economies of the global superpowers by any means necessary. You are all those things, lovely boy, and yet when you spoke tonight about what you would be willing to do as part of the Seven Kings there wasn’t a flicker of greed in your voice. There wasn’t ego or megalomania. What I heard was a person in pain who wanted to stop hurting.”

“How do you know what I said or how I said it, damn it? You weren’t even there.”

She laughed. “I’m always there, Sebastian.”

Gault said nothing.

“And you, lovely boy, are still being evasive. Surely you have the balls to admit the nature of your motivations. Or should I go looking for them?” Her fingers brushed his upper thigh and he batted them irritably away.

“What do you want from me?” he snapped.

“Only the truth,” she said. “That’s the only thing that matters between us. Between the Seven Kings, their Consciences, and their Goddess. No lies, no secrets.”

The wheel of night turned and turned above them before Gault could bring himself to speak, and when he did there were ghosts in his voice.

“I … died,” he said. “When Amirah betrayed me, when it all crashed down … I died. I could feel it inside. It was like a poison had taken hold of me. You know how they say your life flashes before your eyes? It does. I saw everything that I had done; I saw all the versions of myself. The child, the lad, the young entrepreneur, the man. I saw myself expand into a captain of industry. I saw the specific moments of my own corruption. My first dirty deal. I saw the faces of the people who were dead because I wanted them dead. I saw the friends betrayed and cast aside. And I saw Amirah’s face — beautiful before her betrayal and beautiful and monstrous after. I saw the monster that lived within me. I felt the humanity in me die, Eris. I felt it go and …”

His fingers closed around hers and she squeezed back.

“ … and I was glad. God, I was so glad to be rid of it. It was a tumor, a canker.” His voice was a reptilian hiss.

“Sebastian … my lovely boy …” Eris bent toward him, finding his face in the dark. She kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his lips, and as he spoke his cold words were breathed into her hot mouth.

“All that remains is the monster,” he said.

Eris took him in her arms and held him. Tears flowed like hot mercury from her eyes and splashed on his shoulder.

“This is so beautiful, my sweet,” she said. “This is what Caesar knew when he realized that he was more than man. This is what the pharaohs knew, and the first emperor of China. To be a King — a true king — is to be greater than a man.” She showered his face with a thousand quick kisses. “You’ve ascended. You’ve become. Anything and anyone to whom you were attached before this moment is gone. You don’t need them anymore. You are a King, a true king of this world, and you will be a god in the next.”

They clung together in the darkness of their own passion.

Belowdecks, in a cabin that was spacious, luxurious, private, but not as soundproof as its designers intended, Toys, the Conscience to the King of Plagues, sat on a bunk, his knees drawn up, arms wrapped around his shins, fingers interlaced, head leaning against the hull. The cabin was as dark and desolate as his heart.

He had listened to the sounds of Sebastian and Eris making love, and it had amused him, even aroused him. Then he had listened to their whispered conversation.

All that remains is the monster.

Toys stared at the darkness in his cabin, but what he saw was a deeper and greater darkness within. He looked at his own hands. They were bloodstained, too; he knew that. Since he had become Gault’s personal assistant and closest confidant, he had charred his own soul with unnumbered crimes. His Catholic guilt had been nicely off-line for years now, surfacing only long enough to compel him to light a candle two or three times a year for all of the lives he had helped to destroy. His comfort and solace had been that over the last two thousand years the Catholic Church itself had done far worse, even without counting the excesses of the Inquisition.

But this …

Somehow this felt beyond that, maybe beyond redemption.

And the irony was that the catalyst to these dark thoughts had been the word, the label that the Kings used for people such as him.

“Conscience.”

Was there ever a crueler word?

The boat rocked gently, creaking as boats will. Far away a buoy clanged to mark the channel passage. His interlaced fingers pressed together so tightly that pain pulsed in every joint and sent fire flashes along his arms. The pain was the only thing that kept him from screaming.

All that remains is the monster.

“God,” he whispered as the first tears fell from his eyes.

Chapter Thirty-five

I stood in front of the fish tank, my pistol down at my side. The marshmallow people inside stared at me through the surgical tape slits. I couldn’t see their eyes, but they could see mine.

I used my free hand to press the button for the intercom.

“Listen to me,” I said. “You know what Dr. Grey did. You know he’s dead.”

A few of them nodded. Most stood as still as statues.

“He had an accomplice. Someone sabotaged the security systems and bypassed the vent controls. The plan was to release the airborne Ebola to the atmosphere. That means that one of you in there is in on this.”

They cut sharp looks at each other, many of them taking involuntary steps back from whoever was nearest, and often colliding. There was a buzz of voices.

I leaned into the wall mike.

“Shut the fuck up.”

They froze and stared at me.

“I’m talking now to the person who sabotaged the systems. If you are not a terrorist … if you were coerced into this, then you have one chance. Identify yourself and provide any help and information you can and I promise that any threats made against you or your family will be dealt with. If someone threatened to harm members of your family, let us know now so that we can send teams to take them into protective custody. This is bigger than local police; this is bigger than any one government organization. This is connected with what happened yesterday at the London. That means this is international terrorism of the worst kind. There are no limits to what we will do to protect you and your family if — and only if — you step forward and cooperate with us right now.”

I stepped back. They looked at each other. Probably friends reaching out voicelessly to each other, hoping to see innocence in familiar eyes and be judged innocent in turn. Or maybe looking for traces of guilt.

“All lines of communication to this island have been cut,” I said. “That means that no word of what’s happening here will get out. If you’ve been told that harm will come to your loved ones unless the pathogen is released or the news hits the airwaves, then you need to speak up now. We can have teams anywhere in less than fifteen minutes. And all teams will be monitored, so even if there is a spy in the network he won’t be able to act before he can be stopped.”

No one said anything.

I edged closer and tapped the glass with my gun.

“I’m having a really bad day, folks … so believe me when I tell you that if you don’t come forward and we find out who you are — and we will find out — then your day is going to make mine look like a Disney flick. Tick-tock.”

Nothing.

“Okay. That’s your call. Bear in mind, this isn’t U.S. soil and this facility does not officially exist. Anyone involved in this is hereby designated as an enemy combatant. You are about to disappear into the system and you will never resurface. There will be no one left to speak for your family.”

I started to turn away.

“Wait!”

The crowd inside the fish tank stepped back from one figure. It was a large man near the back.

“Please!” he said urgently. “They said they’d kill my mother and my sisters. They … they showed me pictures of what they’d do. Can you help them?”

I stepped close to the glass. “What’s your name?”

“Chip Scofield, building maintenance. God, please tell me you can help them. They said that if the rivers didn’t run red with blood, then the blood of my family would run like a river.” His voice was rising to a hysterical pitch. “Oh, God — get them out!”

“Calm down, Chip. You’re doing the right thing. Can you tell me anything about them? Can you tell me anything about the Seven Kings?”

“Yeah. The Spanish guy who—”

Suddenly two shots rang out and Scofield was slammed forward against the glass with such force that blood shot all the way to the ceiling and splashed the glass for a dozen yards to either side. I heard him grunt in surprise with his last truncated breath. Everyone screamed and lunged away from a slender figure who stood with her back to the far wall.

It was the woman who had pointed the way to Dr. Grey, and she held a .32 automatic in her gloved hand.

She fired two more shots. Right at me. The glass of the fish tank spider-webbed, but I was already diving for the floor. Another two shots and the whole front of the tank exploded outward, throwing huge chunks of reinforced glass into the Hot Room. As I rolled sideways there was a fifth shot. I came up into a shooter’s crouch, my gun out in front of me in a two-handed grip, but when I put the laser sight on the spot where the woman had been standing it illuminated the center of a fresh splash of dark red. The woman slid slowly down the wall, her hand falling away from where she had placed the barrel beneath her chin. The wall behind where she had stood was splashed with blood, brains, and bits of bone.

The screams from the other staff were shrill and unrelenting.

I held my ground, fanning the gun back and forth, looking for another target, but I knew it was over. I’d had a single chance at this, and now it was gone.

Interlude Twenty-four

Gault and Toys returned to their separate apartments before dawn, but almost immediately Gault rapped on Toys’ door and came sweeping in, glowing with energy.

“This is bloody marvelous!” he said.

“Marvelous,” Toys agreed without inflection. “Drink?”

“Martini,” Gault said, and Toys mixed them. “God, I can’t wait to read Kirov’s notes and see what they’ve been doing. A terror campaign based on the Ten Plagues? It’s brilliant.”

“You’re praising a terror campaign, Sebastian.” Toys jiggled the pitcher. “Maybe you need a double.”

Gault laughed and accepted a glass. “Let’s drink a toast.”

Toys gave an unenthusiastic grunt.

“What’s with you? You seemed pretty effing eager back in the Chamber.”

“Did I? Mm. Maybe I was caught up in the moment,” Toys said. “I thought you were, too.”

Gault snorted. “This isn’t just a ‘moment,’ Toys. This is our life now. Why is that so hard to grasp?”

“Sebastian, we’ve been on the run for months. You were betrayed and nearly killed. After all these weeks of surgery and pain, you should be careful. Take things slow.”

“Oh, sod that. This situation is tailor-made for me.”

Toys noticed that Gault had changed his reference from “us” to “me.” It confirmed his fears. “Tailor-made? Really? Sebastian, we narrowly—narrowly—avoided being killed during your last ‘can’t fail’ master plan.” He paused and took a breath. “Look, we have money, and we still have youth and strength. We don’t need this. Let’s face it, we are not cut out to be evil geniuses. We never were. Let’s take the money and bloody well run.”

“Not a chance. We already ran. Now we’ve arrived.”

“Christ.” Toys flapped an arm. “And of course the fact that there’s a woman involved has nothing to do with your wanting to stay. You already have that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” Gault’s voice was suddenly cool.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, why don’t you tell me?”

Toys sighed. “Don’t start a fight, Sebastian. It’s just that when there’s a woman involved you—”

“I what?” interrupted Gault sharply. He slapped down his martini glass hard enough to slosh the contents onto the wet bar and crossed the room to stand uncomfortably close to Toys. “I what, Toys? Are you saying that if I become interested in a woman I lose control? Or perspective?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying? You’re comparing the Goddess to Amirah and—”

“Whoa, Sebastian, let’s have a little effing perspective. We’re not in the Chamber now and Eris is not a goddess.”

“Perspective?” Gault murmured. He edged closer still, so that his breath was hot on Toys’ face. “Yes, let’s both have a perspective check. When things went wrong in Afghanistan I had a moment of weakness. I won’t deny it, Toys, and I needed you. I really did.”

“Yes,” Toys said in a hoarse whisper.

“But … what happened when I called out for your help? Do you remember?”

“Sebastian, I—”

“Do you fucking remember?” Gault snarled.

Toys tried to meet Gault’s fierce glare, but he felt his own eyes growing moist and weak. He turned his face away.

“You slapped me, Toys. I was in pain, I was desperate and your response was to attack me.”

“It wasn’t an attack, Sebastian, and you damn well know it. You were sinking and I needed to snap you out of it.” Toys suddenly threw his drink against the wall and wheeled on Gault, his own anger finally rising. “If I hadn’t, then that fucking whore Amirah would have released a doomsday plague. A doomsday plague. How can you of all people not grasp what that means? If you want a perspective check, then embrace that for a moment. Christ, you’re lucky I didn’t put a bullet into you right there and then, because I bloody warned you about her. I warned you over and over that she couldn’t be trusted, and each time you ignored me.”

“She was my—”

“What? Your ‘lover’? Get a sodding grip, Sebastian! She was playing you. She played you all the way and then she turned into a goddamn zombie and tried to eat you. I mean … how thick are you that you can’t see that you were wrong?” He jabbed Gault in the chest with the tip of his finger. Gault flinched but held his ground. “Or have you become so bitter and arrogant that you can’t admit that you made a misstep? You want to get mad at me for hitting you? Go ahead!”

“I’m warning you, Toys—”

“No! You don’t warn me.” Toys jabbed his finger again, much harder this time. “If we’re going to be part of this bullshit, then while you go and play King I’ll be the Conscience I’m supposed to be. If there are no lies and no secrets in this absurd secret bloody society, then let that start right here and now. I love you, Sebastian. Like a brother. More than a brother, but I will not take your shit. Not now, and not ever. And I will not let you make another mistake.”

Gault looked down at the finger that was still pressed into his chest right above his heart. He slowly, gently reached up and pushed it away.

“Listen to me, Toys,” he said softly. “Don’t think I’m unaware and ungrateful for what you’ve done for me over the years. You’ve been closer to me than family. You are my family. I’ve never had secrets from you. But don’t forget who you were before I found you. A minimum-wage laborer in one of my plants. I was the one who saw something special in you, the potential. I paid for your education; I put you in that posh flat; I let you buy whatever you wanted.”

“And I earned those things a thousand times over.”

Gault gave a single stubborn shake of his head. “When I found you, you were nothing.”

“Maybe,” hissed Toys, “but a few months ago this ‘nothing’ kept you from destroying ‘everything,’ so don’t be all high-and-mighty with me.”

Gault’s mouth opened and closed. He turned and began striding away, but within a few steps he slowed and stopped. His rigid shoulders slumped, and in a gentler voice he said, “The world has changed, Toys. It started when Amirah betrayed me. I feel … I feel like the fires that burned my flesh also burned away something else.” He turned. “It burned away my weakness, my doubt. I can look back at the Seif Al Din project and I can see where I went wrong, just as I can see how I would do it all differently. Life usually doesn’t give you a chance to start over, to do it the right way … and yet here we are. Not only is this a second chance; it’s a chance at something greater, grander, than anything we imagined. All of those wild, mad dreams we had, they’re nothing compared to this. We passed through fire, Toys — you and me — and we emerged as changed beings. Purified. No longer ordinary men. The universe has opened the door to greatness. Don’t you understand? To greatness.”

The moment held and stretched.

Toys wiped tears from his eyes. “Is this what you want, Sebastian?” he asked quietly. “Look me in the eye and tell me, brother to brother, that this — the Seven Kings, the path to domination, all this death and destruction — is what you truly want.”

Gault crossed the room and placed his hands on Toys’ cheeks, framing his face. He bent and kissed Toys on the forehead. Gault’s eyes burned like candles.

“Yes,” he said. “This isn’t just what I want, Toys. This is what I will have.”

Toys searched Gault’s face, looked deep into his friend’s eyes. He shivered. If eyes were the windows of the soul, then …

God save my soul, he thought.

“Okay,” he said softly. “Okay.”

Interlude Twenty-five

The American sipped his whiskey as he watched the replay of the argument between Toys and Sebastian Gault. It was the fourth time he had viewed it. During each viewing he focused on a different aspect of the spat. This last time he had zoomed in to watch the expressions on Toys’ face. He found them very interesting.

He swirled the whiskey, enjoying the tinkle of ice cubes.

“Okay,” said Toys. “Okay.”

The American played that back with the sound up, listening for subtleties of intent and meaning in the young Englishman’s voice.

The King of Fear smiled.

Chapter Thirty-six

I stood naked in a decontamination chamber while antibacterial and antiviral agents blasted me from every possible angle. I scrubbed my skin until I glowed in the dark. Afterward they made me stand in a full-scale BAMS unit for five minutes.

“You’re clean,” Hu announced, though he sounded almost disappointed.

Everything I’d been wearing, including my sidearm, was sealed in a steel drum filled with some kind of acid. Even the fumes from the acid were vented through filters and stored in tanks. I was okay with the procedure. If this strain of Ebola ever got out it would make 28 Days Later look like a Pixar comedy.

I just wished that there was some way for all these gadgets and chemicals to scrub the filth off my soul.

I dressed in an extra set of Barrier BDUs and a pair of sneakers that were half a size too small. All I had left of my personal belongings was my anorak and my dog. Ghost came and sniffed me suspiciously a few times, confused by my lack of scent, but I rubbed the back of my wrist to coax some of the natural oils to the surface and when he took another sniff he licked my hand. I knelt down and hugged the furry monster for a while. If it was too tight, Ghost didn’t seem to mind. He wagged his tail and whined a little, sensing the hurt that I felt. Dogs are truly the best of companions. You don’t need to explain. They know as much as they need to know, and they are loyal no matter what sins you’ve committed.

As I got to my feet I looked at FIRE. It was draped in sheets of heavy gray cloth and men in hazmat suits were spraying the cloth with noxious-smelling foam. Above us, a dozen choppers armed with Hellfire missiles kept watch. Somewhere over the horizon Prebble’s chums in the Royal Navy were poised to turn this whole island into a memory of charred dust if the right word was given.

Church was waiting for me near our chopper. The winter sun was setting and a bank of clouds was rising from the horizon line like a curtain being cranked into place.

Church handed me a cup of coffee. “It’s instant,” he said, “but it’s hot.”

I sipped it and winced. It tasted like the stuff they’d been spraying me with.

“First,” he said, “a complete team from Nellis is on-scene at Area 51. The five remaining members of your team are fine and have been treated for minor wounds.” When I said nothing, he went on. “Jerry Spencer has taken over the Plympton crime scene.”

“He have anything to say?”

Church almost smiled. “He isn’t happy that you messed with the evidence.”

“I’ll cry about it later.”

“Other than that, he told me that he would call me if he had anything and asked that I stop bothering him while he was working. His natural warmth and charm are apparently unaffected by the scope of this disaster.”

I nodded toward FIRE. “What about Scofield’s mother and sisters?”

“Both sisters are already in protective custody in Newark and San Francisco. His mother is in a nursing home in Delray Beach. I sent Riptide Team out of Miami to guard her. We’re running background checks on every employee and patient at the nursing home. As soon as we can get a trusted gerontologist on-site we’ll move her to a secure facility.”

“And the shooter? The woman?”

“Nina Snow, assistant professor of infectious diseases from Johns Hopkins. Top marks, clean record. Considering how she ended things, it’s possible she was under similar coercion. She’s single and we’re working to locate family. Bug is coordinating the background checks.”

“That’s a lot of resources.”

“Yes. And if this continues to escalate we may be forced to rely on other agencies, and that opens us up to all sorts of potential complications.” He paused. “Tell me again what Scofield said to you. About the river of blood.”

I closed my eyes and found the words. “‘They said that if the rivers didn’t run red with blood, then the blood of my family would run like a river.’”

“Yes. That troubles me.”

“All of it troubles me. The phrasing doesn’t match the rest of what he said. He was clearly quoting, or attempting to quote, something that was said to him. It has a distinctly biblical structure to it. Rivers running red with blood. You’re going to need a different kind of specialist to sort that out. Not my kind of job … I’m just a shooter.”

Church glanced briefly at a flight of gulls flapping across the iron gray sky. “Walk with me, Captain.”

We walked toward the cliffs in the red glow of the dying sun. I hunched into my coat and kept taking sips from the coffee, mostly to let the steam warm my face. If Church felt the cold, or cared about it, it didn’t show. I’m not sure if I found his iron stoicism admirable or loathsome. It made him seem inhuman. He said nothing for five minutes, letting me sort through my shit.

Finally, he said, “That was hard.”

I said nothing.

“I contacted Dr. Sanchez and brought him up to speed. He thinks I’m a monster.”

I grunted, and he cut me a brief look.

“Do you need an apology for this?”

“Would you give me one if I did?”

“It’s unlikely.”

“Then, no.”

“Do you feel used, Captain?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think that it was unfair of me to put you into this?”

I stopped and waited for him to stop and face me. “Let’s cut the shit, Church. They don’t hire nice guys to do what we do, but I’m not interested in putting a Dr. Phil spin on this. Do I hate that I had to do it? Sure, who wouldn’t? Do I wish it had been someone else in there? Fuck yeah; I’d rather be with Megan Fox on a topless beach in the South of France. But I’m not. I’m here, and I was the right man for the job. Sucks to be the truth, but there it is.”

He studied me for a slow five-count, then nodded and turned. I fell into step beside him.

“One last question,” he said.

“Sure.”

“When you were in there … was that the Killer or the Cop?”

I had never told him that I had disparate personalities floating around in my head, but I knew that prior to hijacking me into the DMS he had his people hack my psych records. Rudy still wanted to skin him for it. I didn’t like it any more than Rudy did, but given the nature of the extreme threats we face, I could understand it. To a degree.

“The Cop.”

He nodded. “Glad to hear it.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. The coffee tasted like vulture piss, but I drank it anyway.

After a moment, he said, “Tell me what we know now that we didn’t know before we got here.”

“We know the Seven Kings are behind this and the London Hospital. I’ll be mighty damned surprised if they didn’t do Area 51 as well.”

He nodded.

I said, “We know that the Kings’ point man, the Spaniard, was here in Scotland as late as this morning. If I had to guess, he oversaw the Hospital thing by turning dials on Plympton and maybe some others at the Hospital and then he came here to get this in motion. This took time, so he must have made multiple trips to London and here. We might get lucky with airline records and whatever boat service brings people out here.”

“Yes. I’ve got Bug on that already. What else?”

“We know that he works on a pattern.”

“Tell me.”

“He picks people who not only have families but who are absolutely devoted to them. People willing to kill others to prevent harm from coming to their own. I know I’d kill to protect my brother, his wife, and their kid, but I wouldn’t blow up a hospital to do it. No, that’s got to be a specific kind of person. Snow seems to be the exception, so we can’t discount the possibility that she was more ‘agent’ than ‘victim.’ The question is how the Kings are identifying people who are vulnerable to this kind of coercion.”

“Employee records can be hacked,” Church suggested. “We do it all the time.”

“Sure, but would that kind of thing be inside an employee’s records? I mean, imagine asking that question on a performance review: ‘Would you release a virus capable of creating a global pandemic to keep your kids safe?’ Pretty sure we would have gotten wind of that.”

He nodded.

“So, maybe these guys are accessing psych records. We need to look for commonalities there, see if they’ve used the same therapist, or therapists in the same network. There has to be a link to how they’re getting this kind of info.”

“I asked Dr. Sanchez to coordinate with Bug on the proper search arguments. What else?”

“They like backup plans. They had three people here. Grey, Scofield, and Snow. Probably the same thing at the Hospital. Unfortunately, that screws the math even more when it comes to employee psych profiles. Three people of that kind in the same place. I might be able to buy that at the London, but not in a place like FIRE. Too small. That’s weird unless somehow they were seeded here. We need to look at transfer records, too.”

“Hugo Vox can help with that. He’s the top security screener in the country, and he owns a number of employment agencies for this kind of work. He may be able to determine how the Kings are working the employee profiles.”

“Good. Set it up. One more thing we know.”

Church cocked an expectant eyebrow.

“We know they plan well in advance, which means we are way behind the curve here. God knows how many other events like these are cocked and locked.”

“Yes.”

We walked in silence for another minute. “What’s my next step?” I asked. “I’d like to head back to London and—”

“No. Childe tells me that word’s gotten around that you killed two London cops and put another in intensive care. A formal statement has been issued by the commissioner that these three were part of the terrorist cell responsible for the bombing, but—”

“But some cops aren’t going to buy that. Shit.”

“I don’t think there’s anything more you can do here, Captain. You’ve done very good work. You’re booked on a flight to the States.”

“Area 51?”

“No. You’ll land in Philadelphia and meet up with Dr. Sanchez. He called me while you were in the lab. I think we can say with certainty that Nicodemus is involved.”

Church told me what had happened during Rudy’s visit to Graterford. It didn’t make me want to dance and sing.

“This guy is pretending to be — what? A prophet?”

“Unknown, though from the description Dr. Sanchez gave, Nicodemus is either pretending to be demonically possessed or suffering from an unusual form of multiple personality disorder. So far Nicodemus’s references are distortions of biblical references. Old and New Testament, as well as the Apocrypha.”

“Lots of psychos read the Bible, especially in prison. He could be pulling stuff out of his ass to jerk our chains.”

“And he mentioned the Goddess.”

“Which ties to the Spaniard,” I said, and he nodded.

“And Nicodemus mentioned the ‘Elders,’ but there wasn’t enough context to infer a meaning. Most likely it’s a reference to theProtocols of the Elders of Zion. There were Internet references to that via some posts by the Goddess.”

I asked what that was and Church explained about the early-twentieth-century propaganda.

“World’s full of nuts. How’s that tie into this stuff?”

“Unknown. Could be part of a plan to foment religious violence, or it could be simple misdirection. We still need to understand where these clues are supposed to take us.” Church paused. “And there were a few other things he said.”

He told me the rest, about what Nicodemus had said as he was being led out.

“He actually said that?” I demanded. “Nicodemus referred to a friend of Rudy’s who had ‘lost the grace of the Goddess’? ‘One who walks with ghosts’?”

“Yes,” drawled Church. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Dr. Sanchez was badly shaken by those comments. However, the remark that I find most significant is the one about the river of blood that was supposed to sweep you away. It ties into what Scofield said, but it was clearly directed at you.”

“Yeah. That’s a real ass-biter.”

“What do you think of it?”

I cut a look at Church. “If you are asking if I think this Nicodemus character is getting messages from the spirit world, then no, I don’t. I wasn’t swept away by a river of blood. We stopped this from happening. To me it says that he knew that I was going to be here and something about me personally. Grace’s death, the name of my dog. Shit that could be found out. But he didn’t know that things were going to spin our way on this.”

Church smiled. It was a rare thing for him to do and it wasn’t at all a friendly or happy smile. The Angel of Death might smile like that. “Nicodemus said that to Dr. Sanchez before I even picked you up at the Plympton crime scene. How would anyone know that I was going to assign this mission to you?”

The wind howled past me for a long time. Ghost whimpered slightly, but I couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or his canine senses had caught the specters on the wind that we humans could not see.

We started walking again.

“I also received a call from our informant,” he said.

“Deep Throat? What did he say?”

Church told me. “On the surface the conversation appears to flow normally, but I’m sure there was a code in there. A clue. One line stands out: ‘They want to break the bones of their enemies and suck out the marrow.’ I told him that it didn’t seem helpful and he insisted that it was. So we need to add the words ‘break,’ ‘bones,’ and ‘marrow’ to our key words and see what happens.”

I nodded. “We’ll sort it out. We still have a lot of resources we can throw at this. No matter what it takes, we’ll find them.”

He half-turned and studied me. “What makes you think so?”

“We have to,” I said. I was aware of how that sounded.

Church let a little time pass before he replied.

“I don’t want to preach cynicism, Captain,” Church said, “but if you stay in this game for any considerable length of time you may experience an enlightenment that is akin to what the national consciousness of America went through between the end of World War Two and the end of the Vietnam War.”

“What, a loss of innocence? I just shot someone, Boss, so I think—”

“No. The epiphany was that there are some wars you can’t win. There are some wars, in fact, that are so big and yet so subtle that all you can hope to do is catch glimpses of them as they move through your life.”

I looked at him.

He shrugged. “This has that feel to it.”

“What … Are you saying you don’t think we’ll catch them?”

“We don’t even know who they are, Captain. We’re miles from certain knowledge of any kind. Even the things we’ve learned today could be carefully seeded misdirection. This is the nature of the War on Terror. Sometimes there is no face, no name, no target for us to point a gun at. It can be disheartening and daunting, and the frustration of it has forced a lot of players out of the game.”

“But not you,” I said.

“Not me.”

“Why not?”

Church didn’t answer that. Instead he said, “The darkness is all around us. Very few people have the courage to light a candle against it.”

“I’m not that kind of idealist.”

“Nor am I. We are of a kind, Captain, and neither of us is holding a candle against the darkness. Like the unknown and unseen enemy we fight, people like you and me, we are the darkness. In some ways we are more like the things we’re fighting than the people we’re protecting. Granted our motives are better — from our perspective — but we wait in the shadows for our unseen enemy to make a move against those innocents with the candles. And by that light we take aim.”

“Is that all we are?” I asked. “Hunters in the dark?”

“Isn’t it enough for you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want that to be all that I am.”

Church nodded.

We stared out to sea, watching as the thickening clouds were underlit by the setting sun. The colors were intense. Dark reds and hot oranges. It looked like the whole world was on fire.