The King of Plagues

Chapter Thirty-seven

Prebble’s team gave me a lift to Heathrow. It was a silent trip except for some murmured condolences for the losses suffered by the DMS. We were all in mourning. The final death toll from the Hospital had been released.

Four thousand, one hundred, and sixteen people.

That was eleven hundred more than had died in the fall of the Towers. Add to that the body count from Area 51: 79 people on the research and development team, 26 support staff, 8 from the Nellis Air Force Base Military Intelligence Team, 6 members of Lucky Team, 9 men and women from Area 51’s on-site security team, and the 2 members of Echo—130 all told. Add Plympton’s wife and daughter, Charles Grey and his family, and two dead in the fish tank and the total was 4,253 dead in less than two days.

Those numbers were full of broken glass and splinters. You couldn’t touch them without bleeding.

I sat in one of the padded seats on the chopper with Ghost’s head on my lap and stared inward into some of the empty darkness in my head.

I wished that Grace was with me.

God Almighty, Grace … why aren’t you here?

I closed my eyes and tried not to scream. Inside my head the Warrior was ramming the point of his knife into the ground over and over again, teeth bared in a feral snarl of unrelenting bloodlust. The Modern Man was hiding somewhere; he just couldn’t deal. I wanted the Cop to emerge, to assert his cool control, but for the moment he was silent, and ugly winds blew across the darkness of my inner landscape.

I dozed for a while, but my dreams were nasty and I woke to the sound of my phone buzzing. I flipped it open.

“Do not tell me there’s been another attack,” I said by way of hello.

“No,” said Mr. Church, “but here’s a twist for you.”

“Hit me.”

“Jerry Spencer and his team found the body of Trevor Plympton in the subbasement of the hospital.”

“Killed by the blast?”

“Hardly. The debris kept him fairly intact, but it is clear that he had been systematically and comprehensively tortured.”

“Ah, Jesus …. Were they able to fix the time of death?”

“Best guess is two to six hours after the deaths of his family. Well before the bombs went off.”

He let me process that for a moment.

“That is a twist,” I said, “but it tells us something. It straightens the logic.”

“Tell me.”

“If Plympton had been coerced into bringing the bombs to work and setting them up for fear that something bad would happen to his family, he might have snapped. He might have killed his wife and kid and then gone to work to maybe stop the bomb.”

“Why kill his family?” Church asked.

“Because he was about to betray the extortionists.”

“Why not go to the authorities?”

“Plympton told us why in his note.”

“‘They are everywhere,’” Church quoted.

“Yes, and he believed that to the point of killing his wife and daughter in order to protect them from worse treatment at the hands of the Seven Kings.”

“So, who killed Plympton?”

“Good question. We know from Fair Isle that the Kings had several agents in place. They clearly used the same setup here. So we’re back to what we talked about on Fair Isle, that the Kings have a way of identifying certain psychological profiles within their target facilities.”

There was silence at both ends of the line as we each thought about all the things that were wrong with that.

“It smacks of too much inside knowledge,” said Church.

“Way too much.”

“Let me work on that end of things,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ve arranged for a specialist to liaise with you. Dr. Circe O’Tree. She’s an analyst who specializes in the social, religious, and historical justifications for terrorism. She’ll join you on the flight to the States.”

“Good. We can use the help. But … where do I know that name from?”

“I doubt you watch Oprah, so I’ll venture that you saw her latest book in the stores. The Terrorist Sophist.”

“That’s it. Looked interesting,” I said. “Should have picked it up.”

“Pick it up in the airport,” he suggested. “It’s useful stuff. Dr. O’Tree works for Hugo Vox out at Terror Town, though she’s been in London for the last two months working in security logistics for the Sea of Hope. Her track record for intuitive leaps and Big Picture perspective checks is remarkable. I tried to recruit her for the DMS, but she declined.”

“Why?”

When he didn’t answer, I said, “She sounds like a sharp cookie. I’ll try not to embarrass the home team.”

“That would be nice,” Church said dryly. “Last thing before you go. We have the first lab reports from the Hospital fire. They’ve found residue consistent with a large quantity of automobile tires. They were apparently stored on the top floor of the Hospital in several rooms that had been roped off, ostensibly for plumbing repairs. Hospital officials have no explanation for that, and they believe that the tires had to have been brought in very recently. We can presume that Plympton and/or others working for the Kings brought them in within the last twenty-four hours before the fire.”

“Why? To increase the toxicity of the smoke or special effects?”

“That’s Spencer’s take. There are a number of ways in which a pall of darkness can be spun into a political or religious statement. And it may tie in with what Dr. Sanchez learned at Graterford. That’s a good topic to run by Dr. O’Tree.”

He disconnected.

I chewed on that for the rest of the flight to Heathrow. Gus Dietrich had arranged for an aide to be there with my suitcases. I ducked into a bathroom and changed out of the BDUs and into a light traveling suit.

Ghost, looking like a tortured martyr, went into the cargo hold in a big box. Even when I gave him his favorite toy — a well-chewed stuffed cat with DR. HU stitched on its chest — from the looks Ghost threw me you’d have thought I’d just whipped him with a chain.

Did I feel guilty as I kicked off my shoes and stretched out my legs in first class? Could I imagine his piteous whines as I sipped my first glass of Jameson?

Yeah, but I dealt with it manfully. I finished the drink in two wheezing gulps, ordered a second and took a slug, then rested the glass on my thigh. My eyes started drifting closed and I didn’t fight it.

“Captain Ledger—?”

I fought the urge to heave out a frustrated sigh as I cranked open one eye. “Yes?”

A woman set a briefcase down on the adjoining seat. She was very likely the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in real life.

“Mr. Church told me that you’d be aboard this flight,” she said. “I’m Dr. Circe O’Tree.”

I stared up at her and for a moment I forgot all about death and destruction. I also forgot that I’d buckled my seat belt, so when I tried to stand and shake her hand I jerked to a halt and spilled my whiskey all over my crotch.

Smooth.

Chapter Thirty-eight

We both looked at the dark stain spreading on the front of my trousers.

“Well,” I said, “I guess there’s no way I’m going to make a bigger jackass of myself than that, so we can go on the assumption that everything else will be less of a disappointment.”

Circe O’Tree arched an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know. We have a long flight ahead of us.”

Damn.

She was average height, but beyond that all other uses of the word “average” went right out the window. Circe had a heart-shaped face framed by intensely black hair that fell in wild curls to her shoulders. She had full lips, high cheekbones that a model would have sold her own offspring for, and a set of heart-stopping curves. The brown of her eyes was so dark that the irises looked black. I figured her for Black Irish with a dash of Greek. She wore a tailored tweed skirt and jacket over a sheer white blouse. She wasn’t dressed to show off, and there wasn’t a hint of flirtation in her smile, so this was all on me. I could blame it on being caught off-guard. Sure, that sounds good.

“Mind if I sit?” she asked.

“Please,” I said, fumbling for what few manners I had left.

She sat and laid her briefcase on her thighs and tried not to smile at the whiskey spill. When the cabin attendant saw the mess and — God help me — tried to dab at it with a cloth, Circe turned aside and bit her thumb to keep from laughing.

I yanked out the tails of my shirt to hide the damage. The attendant, red faced and flustered, brought fresh drinks, a new whiskey for me and a Coke Zero for Circe.

“So,” I said, “want to start this over again? ’Cause really I’m not as much of an imbecile as evidence might suggest.”

“I try not to hold first impressions against people.”

“Thank god for that. Can we try those introductions again? You are—?”

“Do you want the full name or the one that fits my driver’s license?”

“Give me the whole enchilada. I’ve got time.”

“Circe Diana Ekklesia Magdalena O’Tree.”

“Yikes.”

“I have a complicated family history.”

“No kidding.”

“‘Circe’s’ easier.” She held out a hand. She wore rings on most of her fingers and a silver band of Celtic knots around her thumb. Her grip was strong, the way a woman’s is, without affected delicacy or an attempt to prove herself by trying to crush my bones. I noticed that there was a line of callus running from her index finger to her thumb. Shooters get calluses like that. Her trigger finger was the only one without a ring. File that away.

“Captain Joseph Edwin Ledger,” I said. “Joe to my friends.”

“Nice to meet you, Joe.”

“You hold any rank?” I asked.

She shook her dark hair. “Just the degrees. M.D., couple of Ph.D.’s, bunch of master’s. I was a world-class nerd.”

“What fields?”

“It’s a mix. Archaeology, anthropology, physics, psychology, and medicine with a specialty in infectious diseases.”

I whistled. “Weird mix.”

“Less weird than it appears. I’ve always known that I wanted to work in the threat assessment field. Counterterrorism and antiterrorism. The physics and medicine help me understand the specific nature of the WMDs we might face; the archaeology and anthropology give me a lot of cultural perspective. And the psychology allows me to crawl inside the heads of freedom fighters and political extremists.”

“Makes sense, but you must have started collecting degrees in grade school.”

Her smile abruptly dropped about twenty degrees. “Are you going to tell me that I look too young to be so smart?”

“Uh … no. My comment was meant to convey appreciation of your accomplishments, not to condescend.”

Circe said nothing. Insecure and a bit touchy. File that away, too.

“Church said you were in London for the Sea of Hope thing. I just got the skinny on that yesterday.”

“And—?”

“And what?”

“Most of you people seem to think that it’s an extraordinary waste of security resources and probably an overall waste of time.”

“‘You people’? What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Military types. Covert-ops types.”

“Ah. You mean male types. Sorry, Doc, but I wasn’t going in that direction. If you want to hear what I actually think, try asking it without the challenge.”

She sat back and appraised me for a moment, but it was hard to tell what conclusions she was drawing. She said, “Okay, so what do you think of Generation Hope?”

“No bullshit?”

“No bullshit.”

“I think it’s long past due, and I’m encouraged to know that the project was conceived by the next generation. The current generation in power — on both sides of the aisle — spend too much time with their heads up their asses playing partisan politics and not enough time planning for the future. I don’t like the grasshopper viewpoint when it comes to issues that affect the whole world. That said, I think the Sea of Hope is about the best target I could think of for a terrorist attack, so providing top-of-the-line security for it makes a lot of sense.”

Another long moment while she fixed those dark, calculating eyes on me.

“Okay,” she said. “Points for that.”

“Gosh, thanks.”

Circe gave me a charming smile. “We’re not going to get along well, are we?”

I laughed. “Actually, I kind of hope we are. I’ll behave if you will.”

She shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

That bought us a few seconds of awkward silence. I waited for her to fill it. She didn’t, so I caved and asked, “You’ve worked with Church before?”

Something flickered in and out of her eyes and she brushed a nonexistent piece of debris from the leather cover of her briefcase. “Once or twice.”

“He speaks highly of you,” I said.

“Does he?” she said distractedly. Her eyes drifted down to her hands for a moment, and I couldn’t tell if she was being evasive because her history with Church was awkward or because she was intimidated by the thought of him. She wouldn’t be the first person in a power position who got moody and introspective when Church’s name was mentioned. There was something about Church that made you assess everything from how clean your fingernails were to how many sins were left unconfessed on your soul. After a few seconds she raised her eyes and looked at me.

“It might be useful if you brought me up to speed on what you’ve learned,” she said. “Mr. Church said that you’re already forming some useful theories …?”

“Don’t yet know how useful they are,” I said, “but here goes.”

I told her everything that had happened since Church called me yesterday. The jet was far out over the Atlantic by the time I finished. While I spoke she took a lot of notes on her laptop.

The story hit her pretty hard and her eyes were wet. “Fair Isle. That encounter with the little boy—”

“Mikey,” I said.

“Mikey. That must have been very difficult.”

“Harder for him than me.”

“No,” she said, “I don’t think so. He’s past it now; he’s out of it. You have to carry it around with you.”

“It’s part of the job, Doc.”

She shifted to study me, eyes narrowing again. “Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Blowing it off as if it’s nothing? You watched a little boy die a horrible death today. You had to use him in order to do your job. Are you going to sit there and tell me that it’s just another day at work? What, you did that and now you can clock out and watch the in-flight movie?”

I sighed. “What should I do? Break down and cry?”

“It would be a little more human.”

“Sure … and I’ll probably get around to that. I’m not that kind of macho. But at the same time, how would it get me through the rest of today? People I know have died today. I killed two people yesterday and someone else today. I want to hunt down the people responsible for what’s going on and kill them. Would disintegrating into tears get me through any of that?”

“You live a difficult life, Captain.”

“So does a nurse in a charity ward. It’s all relative, and the name is ‘Joe.’”

“And the loss of your men?” she said. “You must be devastated.”

“Sure. Granted, I’ve been away and didn’t really know them, but they wore the uniform, so anyone in the field is going to feel the loss.”

She nodded. “Funny, most professional soldiers who said something like that would come off sounding like a bad actor in a cheap action film. You don’t.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“It’s more typical of the kind of person Mr. Church tends to hire for his teams. He needs tough men and women, and granted there will always be a bit of the tough-guy catchphrases being tossed around, but most of the people I’ve met have a deeper level.” She cut me a sideways look. “And no, Captain Ledger, that is not in any way a flirtatious remark.”

“I never for a minute thought—”

“Yes, you did,” she said, but she said it pleasantly. Or so I thought. “Of course you did.”

“No, really, I—”

She held up a hand. “Okay, let’s throw some cards on the table so we can move forward without stepping on eggshells. Fair enough?”

“Yes?” I said dubiously.

“I work at T-Town, which is about ninety-nine percent men, and all of them either are alpha personalities or think they are. That said, what we have here is the standard dynamic for sexual tension. I’m moderately good-looking, I have big boobs, and I get hit on by everyone from the pastor of my church to baristas at Starbucks, and by every single guy at T-Town except for my boss and the range master. I don’t blame them and I don’t judge them. It’s part of the procreative drive hardwired into us, and we haven’t evolved as a species far enough to exert any genuine control over the biological imperative. You, on the other hand, are a very good-looking man of prime breeding age. Old enough to have interesting lines and scars — and stories to go with them — and young enough to be a catch. You probably get laid as often as you want to, and you can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times women have said no to you. Maybe — and please correct me if I’ve strayed too far into speculation — being an agent of a secret government organization has led you to buy into the superspy sex stud propaganda perpetuated by James Bond films.”

“My name is Powers,” I said. “Austin Powers.”

She ignored me and plowed ahead. “We’re in the middle of a crisis. We may have to work closely together for several days, or even several weeks. Close-quarters travel, emotions running high, all that. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not spend the next few days living inside a trite office romance cliché. That includes everything from mild flirtation to sexual innuendo and double entendre and the whole ball of wax.”

She sipped her Coke. The ball landed in my court with a thump.

I leaned back and smiled.

“What?” she asked.

“I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to hear this.”

She was flustered by that for almost a full second.

“You agree?” she said guardedly.

“Agree? While you were talking I was doing a little mental preflight check and, yeah, I had every typical male reaction in the book. Eyes, boobs, legs, the works. And you’re not ‘moderately good-looking’; you’re a fucking knockout and you know it. Or you should know it if you have a mirror. So yeah, I get that attraction is part of the proliferation of the species. And from a purely observational point of view I’m guilty as charged. No question,” I said. “And no apologies.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“I’m as male and horny as the next guy. Maybe the next four guys, and sure, that’s the alpha-wolf drive-to-breed gene firing on all cylinders. Good call. On the other hand, you pointed out that I’m a professional of the kind Mr. Church hires. Not only don’t I think with my biceps or trigger finger; I don’t think with my dick.”

Circe considered that, nodded.

“One more thing,” I said. “Despite the hardwired urges, I’m also not on the market. I’m letting my heart take a long vacation. It might even retire to a cave.”

“Broken heart?” she probed. “Someone dump you?”

I almost let her off the hook, but I actually respected her for her candor. “No,” I said. “The woman — the extraordinary woman — with whom I was in love died.”

Circe’s lips parted, but she said nothing.

“She died on the job. If it wasn’t for her, you and I couldn’t be here having this conversation because the whole damn world would have gone to hell and, yes, in a handbasket.”

I could almost hear something go clunk in her head as a couple of disparate pieces of information fell sharply into place.

“Oh my God,” she said softly. “Grace Courtland? You were the one she was in love with?”

I nodded.

“Did Church tell you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Grace did.”

That hit me like a punch between the eyes. “Grace told you about us?”

“No … not really. She told me that she was starting to fall in love with someone. Someone … in the DMS. I … I thought she meant Mr. Church.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it; a single bark of shocked laughter burst out. “Church?”

“That’s funny?”

“Funny weird, not funny ha-ha.”

We sat in silence for a moment. I sipped my whiskey and hoped for a nice midair collision.

“As initial encounters go,” I said, “this is a doozy.”

“Where does it leave us? Except literally and metaphorically out to sea?”

“If we’re adults, it means that we can start with a clean slate, a fair mutual understanding, and a shared agenda.”

She smiled. “I like that.”

We shook on it.

“Now,” I said. “It’s your turn.”

She gave me a half smile, kind of a “you asked for it, buster” look, and then told me all about the Goddess.

Interlude Twenty-six

Toys tried to catch Gault’s eye, but he was deep in conversation with the King of Lies. They were laughing. In the two weeks since they’d come to the castle, Toys and Gault had grown wary of each other. Gault had thrown himself into the world of the Kings and the Goddess with his whole heart. Toys walked more circumspectly around the fringes, playing the role of Conscience for protective cover but generally feeling trapped.

You, my friend, he said to himself, are in a right pickle.

Suddenly the room went silent and all eyes turned as the door to the chamber opened and Eris came in. She wore a white dress, long and tailored, and although the cut was simple and the design plain, on her it looked like a regal gown. Everyone stood. Each King, each Conscience, got to his feet, and as Eris walked across the room they all bowed.

Not wanting to stand out, Toys bowed as well. As he did so he imagined how good it would feel to slip a knife into her kidney. Do goddesses bleed like ordinary mortals? he speculated darkly.

Eris ascended the throne on the raised dais, then waved everyone else to their seats. They sat like obedient dogs, Toys thought. All except the American, who took his time.

In this lighting, in this setting, Eris looked ageless and beautiful and more regal than anyone else Toys had ever met in the flesh. And he’d met most of the crowned heads of Europe. Everyone beamed at her in a way that Toys thought looked truly … worshipful. That was the only word that fit.

It troubled him.

The King of Famine got to his feet. “Goddess … we are complete again. We are Seven.”

“Seven is the sacred number.” She looked at Gault. “Do you know why?”

He shook his head like a man in a dream. “Tell me ….”

A wicked smile played over Eris’s lips. Toys thought that it was half virgin, half whore, and thoroughly corrupt.

Eris raised her arms as if in invocation. “The world was made during seven days of Creation, and it will end when the Seven Seals spoken of in the Book of Revelation are opened. The number seven is key to every religion, every path to spirit. Look into the sky and behold the seven-starred constellation of Saptarishi Mandalam representing the Seven Sages.”

“Seven upon seven mysteries!” intoned the group.

“The Virgin Mary experienced seven joys.”

“And endured seven sorrows,” the Kings replied.

Toys saw that Gault’s lips were moving. He could not know this information — Gault was a lapsed Presbyterian — but it was clear that he wanted to participate, even to the point of trying to speak a litany to which he had never before been privy. Toys was sure that Gault was unaware that he was doing it, and that alone was frightening, because Gault was always aware. His perception was the thing that had always defined him. Now, in the space of seconds, he had descended into ritual behavior. Cult behavior.

Toys wanted to grab him, slap his face, and drag him out of this madhouse.

“There are seven heavens in Islam and seven fires in their hell,” said Eris.

“Heaven and hell,” said the crowd. “Linked by seven doors.”

“The Jews know this truth,” said Eris. “God told the Israelites that they would displace seven peoples when they entered the land of Israel.”

“Hail the power of Seven!”

Eris spoke of seven dimensions and sets of seven gods and demons in a dozen religions. She named seven dates as the key moments on which history turned, and the seven secret families who brought Europe out of the Dark Ages. She spoke of sevens in astronomy and physics, geography and philosophy. Her voice rose to a screech as she spoke of seven as a core number in sacred mathematics, naming it as the fourth prime number, a Mersenne prime, a double Mersenne, a Newman-Shanks-Williams prime, a Woodall prime, a factorial prime ….

Toys could feel the pull of the magic she wove, and it took every ounce of his will, and every splinter of his hate, to keep from being swept away by it all.

Everyone else was completely caught up in it, their faces aglow with fanatical light. None more so than Santoro, who looked like he was having a long, slow, and very powerful orgasm as he stared at the Goddess.

The only other person in the room who did not look like he had been transported by the Goddess was her son, and when Toys looked across the room he saw the American looking directly back at him. And he was smiling. It was a small thing, a tiny curl of the lip that betrayed a subtlety at odds with his bombastic personality. As Toys watched, the American flicked a look at Eris, then rolled his eyes in a “can you believe this bullshit?” expression, then smiled again at Toys.

No one else noticed. The others were with Eris in a completely different place.

Toys risked the smallest of reciprocal smiles, and the American gave the tiniest of nods. Then the King of Fear turned his face away and pretended that he, too, was enraptured by the Goddess.

Eris turned to Gault and whispered, “Now, my newest son and King, tell me a secret known to the King of Plagues. Tell me a secret of Seven.”

Everyone turned toward Gault and Toys almost reached out to touch him but could not make his hand move. The moment — every bizarre part of it��was unreal and alien.

Gault licked his lips and blinked, but his eyes remained glazed.

“Whisper truth to us,” coaxed Eris.

And Gault said, “There are seven types of viruses in the Baltimore classification. Double-stranded DNA viruses; single-stranded DNA viruses; double-stranded RNA viruses; single-stranded RNA viruses, positive sense; single-stranded RNA viruses, negative sense; positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that replicate through a DNA intermediate; and double-stranded DNA viruses that replicate though a single-stranded RNA intermediate.”

When he began speaking his voice had the flat intonation of a student repeating information from a textbook, but with each new type of virus he named his voice became more thoroughly charged with emotion. With passion.

“Jesus,” whispered Toys, but nobody heard him as the Kings and the Consciences and the Goddess broke into cheers and applause. And even though it felt like lifting bricks instead of hands, Toys made himself clap, too.

“And,” said Eris, raising her hands to heaven, “there are Seven Kings. Speak, that the world may know!”

The American reached for his wineglass and raised it. In his booming bass voice he cried aloud, “I am the King of Fear!”

The Israeli did the same; but crying, “I am the King of War!”

And the Russian: “I am the King of Famine!”

The Saudi: “I am the King of Lies!”

The Italian: “I am the King of Gold!”

The Frenchman raised his glass. “I am the King of Thieves!”

All eyes turned to Sebastian Gault. The glaze in his eyes changed as Toys watched. It no longer spoke to a mindless vacuity but to an intellect that was as deep as pain and as precise as torture. Gault lifted his glass and stared for the briefest of moments at the contents; the wine was as dark as welling blood. He looked from it to the Goddess on her throne.

“I am the King of Plagues!” He yelled it. Fierce and wild, full of pride and hubris and hatred.

Eris smiled. “The world belongs to me and I sanctify and bless you, my seven glorious Kings. Let those who oppose our will perish in torment. This I say before you all!”

“The Goddess!” they all screamed.

Then the Kings drank, and the Consciences drank with them. Even Toys, against his own will, fumbled for his wineglass and sloshed some bloodred wine into his mouth, though it burned like acid in his throat.

Chapter Thirty-nine

Circe told me about the Goddess and the hate crimes inspired by her online postings.

“Okay,” I said, “that lines up with what we’ve gotten from Plympton’s note, Dr. Grey, and that fruitcake Nicodemus. You’re the expert on symbolism and we’re ass deep in it — so what the hell are we looking at? And, just a heads-up, if you say that you don’t know I’m pretty much going to throw myself out of the plane.”

“Don’t kill yourself just yet. Between what you have and what I have, we may actually have something here.”

“But—? You say that, but you have ‘but’ written all over your face … and, yes, I am fully aware of how that sounds, so please pretend I didn’t say it.”

Circe smiled. She had a good smile and so far I hadn’t seen very many of them. “‘But,’” she said, leaning on it intentionally, “the scope of it is so … big.”

“Mr. Church said something today. He told me that sometimes a war is so big and yet so subtle that all you can hope to do is catch glimpses of it as it moves through your life. I don’t like to accept that, but I’m beginning to think he’s right.”

She nodded. “That’s the nature of a terrorist organization. They’re more like an online virtual community. They don’t physically exist in any one place. There are some here, some there, … and most of them don’t even know each other. Not on a real level.” She chewed her lip and considered. “Let’s look at this one piece at a time.”

“Hit me,” I said.

“The Hospital fire. After looking through all of the employee lists, all of the programs and services, the research highlights, et cetera …, there are two things that stand out. The first is the scope. It’s big. So big you could call it ‘epic.’ No one will be unaware of it, and that kind of scope adds weight and authority to any subsequent message by the perpetrators.”

“Right. A terrorist who blows up a hot-dog cart isn’t taken as seriously as one who knocks down the Twin Towers.”

“Exactly. Second point is that we are finding out information about the Kings. I would like to think that our side is simply so smart that we’ve been able to compile information very quickly, but—”

“But,” I cut in, “information is being handed to us. Deep Throat, Nicodemus, the confessions of Plympton, Scofield, and Grey …”

She nodded. “And the Goddess posts.”

“So, we’re being fed this stuff? Why?”

“It speaks to the interpretation of the events. It shows us, the good guys, the size and scope of our enemy’s plan. Another way to interpret an ‘epic’ scale is ‘biblical.’”

“They want us to see this as something off-the-scale?”

“Sure. It reinforces their mystique.”

“How does that help them?”

“If they are not tied to a specific religion like Islam or Christianity, or a political ideology like democracy or communism, then their message won’t carry the same weight.”

“I get it,” I said. “By building the mystique of a secret society acting out the orders of a goddess but by using elements of existing religions, they make us see them as ancient, powerful, and mysterious.”

“It’s window dressing,” she conceded, “but it works.”

I nodded. It really was working.

“Moreover,” Circe continued, “they are also raising the bar. 9/11 gouged a scar into everyone’s psyche. The only way to one-up that was to go bigger. Blowing up Windsor Castle or Parliament would have been big, but a hospital has more emotional punch. It sends a very clear message: There is no one safe from the Seven Kings. No religion, no race or national background, no age, no gender. The Kings are willing to kill babies and old people. They are saying that they are not afraid of anything. They are saying: ‘We are above you and your laws. We are, in fact, your Kings.’ The presence of a goddess suggests that the action of the Kings is mandated by a higher power. Based on what Nicodemus said, the Goddess transcended the older ‘version’ of God by embracing more aspects and combing them to become who she now is. ‘Become’ is the key word. We see that a lot in cases of transformative megalomania and sociopathy. A person ‘becomes’ something higher through ritual acts that include sacrifice.”

“Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon,” I said. “Serial killers do that.”

“Killing is proof of dominance over ordinary life as well as the pathway to ascendency.”

“Nice. What about the black smoke?”

“Yes. That makes no sense except as a symbol. I saw it from my hotel room. It was extremely thick, and the TV reporters kept saying that it looked like night over the Hospital. If we didn’t have Nicodemus’s comments to go on, then we might have been fumbling around with metaphors. He mentioned the Ten Plagues of Egypt. He fed us the connection.”

“Look, I mostly ducked out of Sunday school to play baseball, so can you give me the Cliffs Notes version of the whole Ten Plagues thing?”

She smiled. “Moses and his brother, Aaron, confronted Pharaoh to ask that the Israelites be allowed to leave Egypt. He refused, so Moses appealed to God, Who in turn taught Moses some magic. Stuff like transforming his staff into a serpent and causing or curing leprosy. Unfortunately, the Egyptian court magicians were able to duplicate most of the same tricks.”

“So the Ten Plagues was a pissing contest?”

“I’m not sure biblical scholars would agree with that interpretation. It was supposed to prove the power of the One God over the many gods of Egypt.”

“Politics,” I said, and she nodded. “So, Plague of Darkness. What’s the skinny?”

Circe tilted her head back for a moment, accessing memories, then recited: “That’s Exodus, chapter ten, verses twenty-one and twenty-two: ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days.’”

“The black smoke from the burning tires didn’t cover the whole land and it didn’t last for three days.”

“Right, but keep an open mind. Most scholars believe that much of the Bible is metaphor.”

“Okay. And you said something about the Nile turning to blood.”

“‘And the Lord spake unto Moses, Say unto Aaron, Take thy rod, and stretch out thine hand upon the waters of Egypt, upon their streams, upon their rivers, and upon their ponds, and upon all their pools of water, that they may become blood; and that there may be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood, and in vessels of stone.’ Exodus, chapter seven, verse twelve.”

“That talks about the water itself turning to blood.”

“Metaphor,” she said, holding up a scholarly finger. “Metaphor. If an airborne strain of Ebola escaped and reached mainland England, people would start bleeding out by the tens of thousands. Blood would flow like a river, or as close as you would want to get.”

“Damn,” I said. “What are the other plagues?”

“They vary in type and severity. If the Kings are using weaponized versions of them, we’re not seeing them unfold in the same order. The third and fourth were plagues of gnats and flies. The fifth was a terrible disease that targeted the Egyptians’ livestock. Cattle, oxen, goats, sheep, camels, and horses. The sixth was a plague of boils on the skins of Egyptians. During the seventh plague fiery hail fell from the sky and thunder shook the land. The eighth plague was locusts and the ninth plague was total darkness, so that’s the London Hospital. The tenth was—”

“Whoa, whoa!” I said. “Did you say locusts?”

She looked alarmed. “Yes, why?”

“Christ!” I leaned close. “Area 51. Son of a bitch!”

“What do you mean? They use a bomb to destroy—”

“Metaphor, Doc,” I said. “The R and D team out at Area 51 was working on a brand-new stealth fighter-bomber. The craft’s designation was Locust FB-119.”

“Locust …?” Circe’s dark eyes widened. “Oh my God ….”

Interlude Twenty-seven

In the days following the “Ritual of Seven” Toys kept to himself. When asked, he said that he was meditating on the mysteries of the Goddess. The others actually accepted that as a valid answer, which both amused and appalled Toys.

The only person on the island that he could bear to be around was the American. All interaction between them had so far been wordless eye contact during Kings meetings. However, on the way to a planning meeting Toys found himself in the elevator with the King of Fear.

The American smiled like a grizzly. “How are you settling in?”

“It’s a bit much at times.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

The American studied Toys for a few seconds, and the genius mind behind the oaf was clearly there in his eyes. “If I were a betting man,” said Fear, “I’d put the whole wad on the fact that your King doesn’t really know the first thing about what goes on in here.” He tapped Toys with a thick finger. Not on Toys’ head, but over his heart.

Toys didn’t dare respond to that. He smiled as the elevator descended into the heart of the island. Then, apparently apropos of nothing, the American said, “You know, some people don’t think that Judas was a traitor.”

Toys blinked at him in surprise. “What—?”

“Some people think he tried to keep Jesus from fucking up a good thing.”

The elevator stopped and the doors opened silently.

Before the King of Fear got off, he turned and said, “Some people need to be saved from themselves. Even Kings and goddesses.” He chuckled. “Funny old world.”

Interlude Twenty-eight

Whenever her cell phone rang Amber Taylor’s heart spasmed as if she’d been stabbed in the chest. She wished she could have set a special ringtone for him, but there was no way to know which number he would use. Once the man called from Amber’s home. Another time was from her daughter’s cell. When Amber later asked the girl if she had lent her phone to someone else — a stranger or someone she knew — the girl said no, it had been in her school locker all day. That had been one of the worst moments since this whole nightmare began. True to the man’s threats, he and his people seemed to have total access to Amber’s life. Nothing and nowhere was safe. That’s what he had told her that first time.

Nothing and nowhere.

“You and those you love are only safe as long as we allow it.”

“We.” Such a horrible word, filled with dreadful and unlimited potential. Who were “we”? How many of them were there? Would the police even be able to make arrests? Based on what evidence?

You and those you love are only safe as long as we allow it.

Amber Taylor feared her own cell phone. She feared his call. Any call. If she dared, she would have thrown the phone into a culvert, let it sink into the muck and filth where it belonged. But she knew that she could never do that. He would never allow it, and the punishments for any infraction of his rules had been clearly outlined to her. The memory of those terrible photographs was always right there behind her eyelids, cued up on her mind’s internal audiovisual projector.

Her cell rang just as she closed the door to her three-year-old BMW and Amber jumped so badly she missed the ignition keyhole and dropped her keys. Amber dug frantically into her purse and found the phone on the third ring. She checked the screen display. Wolpert. She sighed in relief and sagged back against the seat. Cathy Wolpert was her best friend and neighbor.

Smiling in anticipation of a manageable crisis — probably something else about the wedding plans for Cathy’s daughter — Amber flipped open the phone.

“Hi, Cathy—”

“Hello, Mrs. Taylor,” said the man with the Spanish accent.

His voice was quiet, polite, but it grabbed her by the throat and throttled the air out of her world.

“Oh, God!”

“Not quite,” said the man. “But close.”

“Are my children all right? God … you didn’t touch them—?”

“Shhh,” he soothed. “Shhh now. Emily and Mark are fine. I can see Emily right now. Such a pretty little face in that tiny school bus. Her new braces are quite nice. She wears them well.”

“Don’t—”

“Isn’t it nice that she doesn’t try to hide them behind her hand when she talks? Not even when she smiles. She’s very self-possessed for her age, don’t you think?”

“Please,” Amber begged. Her voice was already raw, as if she’d been screaming. “Please don’t hurt my babies.”

“Why would I? You haven’t done anything that requires that they be hurt, have you?”

“No!”

“So why would I let anything happen to them? Unless you demand that I act, then none of us will touch a hair on her head. Or Mark’s head. That is our agreement, yes?”

“Yes.” Tears boiled from the corners of Amber’s eyes and fell like acid down her cheeks. “Why are you doing this?”

The man laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh, and the sound of it made her cringe. The laugh was unspeakably ugly. Deep and filled with a knowledge and delight so dark that it threatened to burn the light out of the clear morning sky.

“Mrs. Taylor,” he said, “do you know why I am calling you today?”

“Y-yes.”

“You knew that this day would come. I told you that I would make this call.”

“Yes,” she whispered hoarsely. “When?”

“Today,” he said. “Right now.”

“But … my children … I have to—”

“No, Mrs. Taylor, you only have one thing to do. We are watching your children. We are waiting for you to do what you have promised to do.”

“I need to know that my babies are safe!”

“That’s up to you. If you do this, then I swear to the Goddess and by all of her works that I will not harm them. When this is over for you, it will be over for them. They will live to grow up and grow old and put flowers on your grave.”

“Please don’t make me do this ….”

“Or,” he said softly, “you could spend your remaining years putting flowers on their graves. That is … if you could ever find where they were buried.”

Amber tried to shout at him, but her voice broke into splinters of fear and grief and tears.

He hung up, but Amber heard him whisper something as the connection was broken. A single word.

“Delicious …”

Chapter Forty

Top Sims found his team waiting for him clustered around a big black Tactical Vehicle in the main garage. The TacV looked like an oversized SUV, with a bulked-up back bay filled with weapons and equipment. Each of the team — DeeDee, Khalid, and John Smith — affected a posture of cool disinterest. A passerby would have thought they were waiting for a train. Only Bunny stood apart, hands in his pockets, head down, staring at the concrete between his feet.

The team nodded to Top, who returned the nod and headed over to talk with Mike Harnick, the chief mechanic at the Warehouse. Harnick was leaning on the hood writing on a clipboard and he looked up and smiled as Top approached.

“How we doing, Mike?”

“Black Bess is good to go. The extra armor adds weight, so I put a sixty-gallon tank on it.”

“What’s that extra weight do to the speed?”

Harnick shrugged and patted the hood. “She’ll get to about eighty and that’s it, but she’ll drive straight through a wall, and nothing short of an RPG is going to dent her.”

Top clapped him on the shoulder and then walked over to where Bunny stood.

“How you doing, Farmboy?” Top asked.

Bunny shrugged.

Top stepped closer. “We lost people before.”

“In fights, Top. Not like this.” Bunny shook his head. “When I was incountry in Afghanistan and Iraq we lost a lot of guys. During the surge, hunting the Taliban in the hills. I collected a lot of dog tags and folded a lot of flags. But this … it’s like someone just swatted them off the planet. They never saw it coming, never even had the chance to go down swinging.”

“It’s the way cowards fight, kid,” said Top. “They don’t have the numbers and they don’t have the balls to come at us in a straight fight, so they plant bombs. They don’t care who dies. It ain’t war. There are no rules, no ethics, no mercy, no honor. That’s who we’re fighting these days.”

Bunny turned to him, and Top could see that the young man’s eyes were puffed and red. Top would never mock him for those tears, and neither would anyone in the Warehouse. But Top knew those tears burned.

“That’s the point,” Bunny said harshly. “They’re blowing up buildings all over the world and they won’t stand up and fight. Fuck, man, I don’t know who to hate.”

Top nodded. He felt it, too. The anger, the rage, was there in his chest, a self-perpetuating and self-consuming ball of heat that had nowhere to go.

“I need to get into this fight, Top,” Bunny said. “I need to get into it or I’m going to have to walk away from it.”

“Well, guess what, Farmboy? We just got orders to drive up to Philly and rendezvous with Cap’n Ledger.”

Bunny gave him a sharp look. “The captain’s back?”

“Yeah, and he’s already chasing this like a hound dog. Got into some shit in England. Cap’n put three of ’em down.”

Bunny straightened. “Does that mean we know something?”

“Don’t know what we know, but when were you ever around Cap’n Ledger when the bad guys weren’t trying to take a shot? Ain’t a good place to stand if you want to be safe, but if you want to go hunting in Indian Country, then saddle up.”

Bunny sniffed and let out a breath, blowing out his cheeks and stretching his big arms until his shoulders popped. “Okay, then. If he’s in it, then I’m definitely in it.”

Top slapped him hard on the shoulder as they walked over to the SUV.

Khalid stood by the rear passenger door and had overheard the conversation. “We’re all in it now, big man,” he said. “They drew first blood.”

John Smith leaned against the rear fender, a plastic coffee stirrer between his teeth. He nodded.

“Then it’s their ass,” said DeeDee. “Let’s bring the pain.”

She held out her fist and took the bump from Bunny and then the others.

They piled in with DeeDee driving and Top riding shotgun. The TacV was armored and stocked like a rolling arsenal. It also had Sirius radio uplink and DeeDee dialed it over to Classic Blues. The song that was playing as they rolled out of the Warehouse was Robert Johnson’s “Hellhound on My Trail.”

They took that as a sign. Or maybe a credo, because they were the Hellhounds.

Interlude Twenty-nine

Toys touched Gault’s arm just as they were about to enter the Chamber of the Kings. “Sebastian,” he said, “please consider what you’re about.”

Gault smiled, but it lacked warmth. “Oh my God, will you stop with this bullshit? You’ve been whining about this for weeks now.”

“It’s my job to give you a perspective check, don’t forget.”

“It’s not your job to advocate small thinking.”

“Oh, please, that’s not—”

“Besides, since when did you become squeamish?”

Toys stepped back and folded his arms. “Squeamish? Is that what you think?”

“Pick a better word, then. ‘Timid’?”

Toys felt the blood drain from his face. “Oh … be careful now, Sebastian,” he said softly.

Gault stepped toward him so that their faces were inches apart. “I’m going to tell you for the last time, Toys … stop pushing me. Learn your fucking place.”

With that he turned and swept into the chamber.

Inside, the other Kings were on their thrones, their Consciences by their sides. The screens on the walls showed charts and maps or ran with lines of carefully gathered intelligence. Eris sat on her throne, a magazinethin laptop on her thighs. She had half-glasses perched on her nose and Toys thought that for the first time she looked closer to her age.

Here’s hoping you have a stroke and die, you bloodsucking hag, he thought.

When Toys and Gault were in their seats, the King of Lies stood. The Saudi was dressed in a European suit, his beard trimmed short, and he wore no ghutra on his head. It made him look like a different man, and Toys wondered if the longer beard was indeed part of a disguise.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I trust you’ve all had a chance to read through the preliminary report prepared by Plagues? Yes?” He looked around, saw general nods, and continued. “Gold has reviewed the financial requests and informs us that the overall cost for this operation is three percent higher than anticipated, but I think we can all agree that it will be worth the investment of those additional millions.”

More nods.

“The next phase is twofold. The logistical phase will be jointly managed by Fear and Gold, for all of the obvious reasons. The Goddess and I will continue to oversee the disinformation program. Goddess?”

Eris raised a hand to acknowledge the applause. Toys glanced at Gault and saw that he was fairly glowing with pride and lust. The fool. Toys cut a look at the American and saw that his hands barely touched as he pretended to applaud.

Lies then introduced Gault, who stood to a renewed wave of applause. He bowed to Eris and then stood silent for a moment, his dark eyes drifting from face to face around the table, waiting as the chamber gradually fell into an expectant silence.

“I’ve reviewed all of Kirov’s work,” began Gault, “and although I hold my predecessor in great esteem, there were some serious flaws in his theories. The short version is that some of the science is simply not going to work. We can push the boundaries of science, but we cannot break them. Not yet, anyway. I know this comes as a blow, because for years now the frontiers of paleomicrobiology have been crumbling as scientists like Professor Kirov hammered away at them with innovative ideas and radical research. But it is the nature of science that some experiments do not succeed even when most of the evidence seems to lead toward success.”

No one applauded that comment. A scowling King of War said, “Kirov assured us that this would work. He was ready to take a team to Egypt to harvest the bacteria or virus or whatever it was from the tomb of the Pharaoh’s son. Our whole campaign was built around his recovering and reactivating that disease. Now you’re telling us that it was all a waste of time? We’ve invested considerable time and funds into this venture.”

“With respect, Brother War,” said Gault with a placating smile, “that is Kirov’s problem. He may have been overenthusiastic when crafting that plan, since much of what he promised was based on speculation, not on research.”

Toys found himself crossing his fingers under the table. If Gault had hit a dead end, then there was some chance that he was not going to destroy himself with another harebrained plan.

“Kirov’s theory was that the Death of the Firstborn was a communicable pathogen. That much he had already proven to be incorrect. His secondary approach was to then create a new pathogen or mutate an existing virus to target only firstborn children and use that against the children of the Inner Circle. It’s bold, it’s ballsy, but it’s equally flawed. There is nothing genetically unique about firstborn that would open a selective door to a designed pathogen. Granted, crafting such a disease would have been beautiful, and though it would have contributed to the desired goal of overlaying science with religious mystery, it simply cannot be done. To labor on it is an exercise in futility, and a costly one at that.”

“Then we are going to come up short on our campaign,” said the American, smiling faintly and cutting a look at the Goddess. “We’re screwed.”

“No, my brothers,” Gault said with a smile, “we are not. If science has taught us anything it’s that a way will open. When one form of treatment fails, we often learn enough from its failure in order to design a more effective protocol. Observation and compensation are key to scientific advancement.”

Eris smiled. “Tell them,” she purred.

Gault leaned his palms on the table. “The answer lies within the phenomenon of pain. Our desire is to hurt the Inner Circle. Hurt them so deeply, so profoundly, that they will be crippled. Unable and unwilling to make another move against us. That is the true task.”

The Kings and Consciences turned slowly to look at one another, and there were many thoughtful nods.

“Kirov had the right idea, but not the right plan. I have a better plan,” Gault continued. “One that allows us to use everything we’ve already done. The disinformation campaigns through social media and the Internet, the manipulation of extremist cells, and the whole culture of modern terrorism. But it adds an element of coercion that has only been touched upon before.”

Toys noticed that Santoro sat up straight at the word “coercion” and his lips wriggled into an unpleasant and hungry smile.

“My esteemed brother the King of Fear has the resources to bring this program to fruition. With his vast network of contacts, and with the tactical genius of Rafael Santoro, I believe we can get my program up and running in under a month, which would allow us to complete it according to the same timetable as Kirov’s plan.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, followed by questions from everyone at once.

Toys used the commotion to lock eyes with the King of Fear. The American looked briefly furious, but he covered it by slapping on another hearty smile. However, he must have felt Toys’ eyes upon him, because he turned and gave him a very brief but definite wink.

“And now, my brothers,” said Sebastian Gault, “here is how we will do it.”

Chapter Forty-one

I called Church. “You’re gonna love this, Boss,” I said, and told him about the plagues, including the almost certain connection to the Locust bomber.

He said, “It’s a short list of people who knew about that project. I’ll talk to the President. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. I’d like you to make a video.”

“Is this going to be one of your attempts at humor?”

“No. This is serious, and it might help us head another Kings event off at the pass.”

“Tell me.”

I did. He listened and then disconnected without comment. It’s always a Hallmark moment with him. You always feel like your call is the centerpiece of his day.

As I tucked my phone away, Circe said, “You think there will be more Kings attacks?”

“Don’t you?”

“Sadly, yes. But it may not be in what could be called an ‘ordinary way.’”

“Meaning?”

“Apart from the calls to violence, a lot of the Goddess posts are hints that her cult is part of an ancient belief system that is only now revealing itself. By incorporating references to other goddesses, she’s essentially borrowing their history. Hijacking it and claiming it as part of her legacy. If the Goddess is part of the Seven Kings organization, and I think we both agree on that, then the Kings might not actually have to commit seven more acts of terrorism. They can find some that have already happened and retroactively claim that they were responsible. I mean, it wouldn’t take much to suggest that 9/11 was the rain of fire and ash plague.”

“Maybe. Time frame is off.”

“Maybe not. Take the Plague of Frogs. Unless the Kings already have a target in mind that has a frog connotation, like the Locust thing with the bomber, they could claim that the frog extinction is their doing.”

“Wait! What? When did frogs become extinct?”

“What planet are you living on?” she said with exasperation. “Toads and frogs are dying out in huge numbers. It’s well documented. There have been TV specials. Of course, the science tells us that it’s because of pressure from the expansion of agriculture, forestry, pollution, disease, and climate change.”

“How would that have major PR punch for the Kings? I mean, I don’t want to see Kermit take a dirt nap, but … these are just some frogs, right? How’s that work in a biblical way?”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “Neanderthal.” Aloud she said, “The die-off of amphibians could be a sign of possible future damage to other parts of the ecosystem, because frogs and toads are especially vulnerable and thus are the first to disappear. Also, a mass disappearance of amphibians would create broken links in the food chain, and that would definitely have an adverse impact on other organisms. If the Kings were to hijack this, it would elevate the public perception of them as unstoppable and possibly supernaturally powerful.”

“Okay,” I said, “I see it. From a propaganda point of view it only matters that the Kings take credit. Anyone who says they aren’t involved has the job of trying to prove a negative, which is self-defeating. I mean, what could the Al-Qaeda do to dispute it? Have a TV debate? Besides, the DMS has already taken out Seven Kings cells that had Al-Qaeda ties. Your 9/11 hypothesis might even be real.”

“God,” she whispered, and her dark eyes went wide.

“At the risk of sounding terribly macho, Doc, I want to find them and shoot them. A lot.”

She nodded. “I’ll load the gun.”

Then something occurred to me. “Hey, didn’t you say that you gave a copy of your Goddess report to Grace?”

“Yes.”

“It’s funny, because she never mentioned it to me, and neither did Church. When did you give it to her?”

“At the end of August.” Circe looked down at her hands. “I tried to call her the next day, but she was already involved in something. I never found out what it was. Then a couple of days later I heard that she died.”

Damn. Bull’s-eye, right in the heart.

I closed my eyes. The whole mess with the Dragon Factory and the Jakobys started on the twenty-eighth. Grace died on August 31. Because of her the world didn’t die on September 1. The ache in my chest was so fresh, so raw, that I wanted to scream. I could see every line, every curve, of Grace’s beautiful face. I could smell the scent of her, taste her lips, feel the solid, lithe warmth of her in my arms.

I felt something warm on my forearm and for a single crazy moment I thought that somehow Grace had reached out of those shadows to reassure me. But when I opened my eyes I saw that it was Circe O’Tree’s hand on my arm.

“I’m sorry, Joe,” she said.

I took a breath and shook my head. Circe moved her hand away, a little embarrassed.

“I don’t think your report was ignored,” I said, my voice a bit thick. “I don’t think Grace ever had a chance to pass it along.”

Circe looked depressed. “God, I would hate to think that we could have somehow prevented this. The Hospital and the rest.”

“Let’s not Monday-morning quarterback it. We’re doing good work here. We’ll get this stuff into MindReader and who knows? We might actually be somewhere.”

Circe nodded but didn’t comment.

I snapped my fingers. “Wait … you said there were ten plagues. River of blood, darkness, frogs, ghats, flies, pestilence, boils, rain of fire, and locusts. That’s only nine. What’s the last one?”

All the blood drained from her face. “The last one is the worst of all. It’s the one that finally broke Pharaoh’s resolve and made him free the captive Israelites.”

“What was it?” I asked, but I thought I already knew, and the knowledge scared the shit out of me.

She recited the passage in a hollow voice. “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt — worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.’”

She paused and watched my face as the horror sank in.

“The tenth plague is the death of the firstborn children of the entire country.”

Interlude Thirty

On the morning of the first of November, Toys walked down to a deck that overlooked a particularly lovely stretch of the island’s rocky coastline. He sat in a deck chair, alone with thoughts that had become increasingly troubled and convoluted.

Toys heard a soft footfall and turned to see that Rafael Santoro stood alarmingly close. Few people were able to sneak up on Toys. Peripheral awareness was something he prided himself on, and he was immediately irritated.

Santoro held two steaming cups in his hands. “May I join you?”

Four or five variations of “go fuck yourself” wriggled on Toys’ lips, but he held his tongue and ticked his head toward the other lounge chair. Santoro handed him a cup and lowered himself onto the chair.

The view was spectacular. The sun had risen above the rippling waters of the St. Lawrence River, red and orange fire igniting from a million sharp wave tips. The rocky edge of the island was marshy, with tall bulrushes through which blue herons picked their way with the delicacy of monks.

Toys cut a covert glance at Santoro, but the little man seemed not to notice. He sipped his tea and appeared to be fascinated by the dragonflies flitting among the reeds. The Spaniard had an interesting face, like one of the medieval saints on the tapestries in the dining hall: high cheekbones, hooded eyes, full lips, and a light in his eyes that suggested a complex inner life. The man’s appearance was so strangely at odds with what Toys knew about him: torture, extortion, terrorism, mass killings, and personal murders so numerous that they were recounted in summary form.

The Spaniard sipped his tea. “Tell me, my friend,” he said softly. “How are you enjoying life as the Conscience to the King of Plagues?”

“So, tell me,” Toys said after a few minutes, “what do I do as ‘Conscience’?”

“That depends on you, and on your King.”

Toys snorted. “I’m still adjusting to the concept of Sebastian as a king.”

“You find it amusing?”

“Amusing? Not in the least,” he said, and that was truer than his tone conveyed. “Though this whole setup seems a bit dodgy. It’s more like a movie than real life.”

“But it is life,” observed Santoro. “The world does not turn by itself. It requires that kings step up to lead.”

“Very profound.”

“It’s true. The Seven Kings have always existed. I speak in the abstract. Before the Kings there were others. Always others. It is a necessary evil, yes?”

“‘Evil’ is an interesting word choice.”

Santoro smiled thinly. “It is evil, by the standards of the sheep.” He gestured with his mug to the unseen lands beyond the sunrise. “But evil is a concept constructed by man, and therefore it is subject to laws and interpretations. If we were subject to the same laws we would have to own guilt for what we do, but we do not acknowledge the laws of any land. We maintain the conqueror’s point of view, which is self-justifying.”

“How so?”

“Tell me: who was more evil, Alexander the Great or Adolf Hitler?”

“Hitler.”

“Ah, but you say that without considering it. Hitler is regarded as evil because he slaughtered millions of people and tried to conquer Europe. By the standards of those who defeated him, he was evil. Alexander tried to conquer the entire world, a process that resulted in a higher percentage of deaths than during Hitler’s war.”

“Hitler tried to exterminate whole races of people.”

“Alexander issued challenges to cities and nations. If they surrendered to him, he let them live, and even preserved their cultures. But if they opposed him, he slaughtered them wholesale. He killed the men and sold the women and children into slavery. How is one more moral than the other? Do you want to debate degrees of acceptable genocide?”

“As a matter of fact,” Toys said, “I don’t.”

Santoro nodded and they watched the sun climb higher. In the glow of the new sun his saintly face was beatific. It troubled Toys and he turned away.

Santoro asked, “Do you feel it’s wrong?”

“Right and wrong is another discussion I don’t want to have.”

“That is as it should be, yes?”

Toys looked at him in surprise. “How so?”

“Well, my friend, if we are to accept that we are conquerors in the purest and oldest sense of that word, and if that means that what we do is governed by rules we set which, by their nature, are outside of the laws of any land, then right and wrong are concepts without substance. They don’t apply to us because they are specific to individual cultures and we are not.”

Toys sighed, feeling himself drawn into the discussion despite his better judgment. “What about basic human rights?”

“Ask the Chinese that question.”

“Pardon?”

“Human rights, as we understand them today, are based upon Western ideals of democracy. These Western values are themselves profoundly bound up with strong individualism, profiteering, and capitalistic competitiveness. The Confucian system does not subscribe to any of those values. There is not a single statement on human rights to be found within the Confucian discourse. Confucianism advocates duties and responsibilities and makes no case at all for individual rights. They believe that they act according to Heaven’s Mandate, in which the ruling body does whatever is necessary for the greater good, even if that means the sacrifice of individuals of the lower classes. Do you follow?”

“Yes. So … you’re saying that human rights are as subjective as any other set of rules?”

“Absolutely, and the subjectivity in question is the perspective of the most powerful. That is why when I kill for the Seven Kings I am not committing murder, nor am I participating in acts of terrorism. Those are subjective concepts, and our worldview is grand. It is our mandate from heaven. As a result, we are above all of that, yes?”

“Just because we say we are?”

“Yes. And because we have the power to enforce our own and particular set of rules.”

Toys looked for the hidden meanings in Santoro’s words, but the man was nearly impossible to read. On one hand, he appeared devious and multifaceted, and on the other, his intent seemed dreadfully straightforward. Toys decided to test the waters.

“What about the people who surround kings?”

“Which kings?”

“Oh,” Toys said casually, “take Jesus. King of the Jews. If laws don’t apply to kings, what’s the trickle-down effect? Do the laws of right and wrong apply, say, to Peter?”

“For betraying Christ?” Santoro gave an elaborate shrug. “He was weak, but he believed, and he recanted his weakness to the point of martyrdom.”

“And Judas?” He pitched it offhandedly, but Santoro’s face darkened.

“That was a betrayal because of personal fear — Judas betrayed Christ into torture and death. His was an unforgivable affront that cannot be redeemed. In my pride and sinfulness I have prayed that I could meet such a man and teach his cowardly flesh to sing songs of worship and praise.” As he said this he touched his wrist, and Toys knew that there was a knife hidden beneath the sleeve.

Santoro smiled and for the first time Toys could see the killer behind the saint. He looked into Santoro’s eyes and saw — nothing. No life, no spark of humanity, no genuine passion. There was absolutely nothing there. It was like looking into the eyes of a monster. A zombie. Or a demon.

Toys nodded as if agreeing to the sentiment, but inside he shivered. He found it curious that there was such a gap in beliefs between Santoro and the American. He’d suspected as much, hence his reference to Judas, but the Spaniard’s reaction was unexpectedly intense.

Not a confidant, then. Note to bloody self.

“What if Judas genuinely believed that Jesus was making a misstep?” he prodded. “I’ve heard a bunch of different theories. One is that Judas may have thought that Jesus was becoming a danger to his own cause and that Judas went through proper channels of the church — the Sanhedrin — to try and head him off at the pass before he got into worse trouble.”

Santoro said nothing. He listened, eyes narrowed, mouth pursed.

“Another theory is that Judas was a bit more ‘Old Testament’ than Jesus and he had him arrested in the hopes that once Jesus was in peril he would be forced to reveal all of his glory and power and kick Roman ass.”

The birds sang for a long time before Santoro answered. He studied Toys, but Toys was too practiced a hand at dissembling to allow anything that he felt to show on his face. He sipped his tea and waited.

Finally, Santoro said, “You ask troubling questions.”

“You asked me about Hitler.”

Santoro nodded, taking Toys’ point. “The question supposes that Jesus was fallible.”

“Are either of us that inflexible that we think that he wasn’t? Or couldn’t have been? After all, Jesus doubted. He lost his cool and trashed the moneylenders outside of the temple. Let’s face it — the whole point of his being here was to be human. To show that if he, locked in flesh and filled with the full roster of human emotions, can have faith and ultimately do the right thing, then so can we. That all falls down if he was infallible.”

Santoro nodded again. “Please do not be offended by this,” he said softly, “but you are smarter than you look.”

Toys gave him a charming smile. “Now why would I be offended at that?”

“I meant it as a compliment. You are deeper than you appear. People are often fooled by you, yes?”

Toys shrugged.

Then Santoro tried to blindside him. “Do you have doubts about what the King of Plagues is doing?”

Toys was expecting it and he kept his expression and body language casual, as if this were just another part of the same discussion.

“Sebastian is as fallible as any other man. I love and respect him, and I would kill anyone to keep harm from touching him. You understand that?”

“Of course.” Santoro’s eyes glittered.

“But I’m supposed to be his Conscience. His advisor. It’s not that I doubt Sebastian,” he lied. “It’s more that I need to make sure I’m doing my job in the way that best serves him and the Kings.”

“And the Goddess,” amended Santoro.

“Of course,” said Toys smoothly. “Sebastian loves her very much.”

“As do we all.”

“So … where does ‘conscience’ play into all this?”

Santoro relaxed slightly. “Conscience is what we choose to make it. The devil on your left shoulder and the angel on your right are slaves to your will.”

“Ah,” said Toys, as if he understood what that meant. And, with a sinking heart, he did. He stood and tossed the rest of the tea into the river. “This gives me a lot to think about, Rafael. Thanks …. I appreciate it.”

And may you have an aneurism next time you’re jerking off to a picture of the Goddess, you great freak.

Santoro inclined his head and sipped his tea.

Toys thrust his hands into his pockets, hunched his shoulders in what he hoped would convey a posture of thoughtful introspection, and headed along the path toward the castle.

As he walked, however, he weighed Santoro’s words against the weight of the conflict within his heart. The devil on your left shoulder and the angel on your right are slaves to your will.

The cries of the gulls overhead sounded like the screams of drowning children.

If we were subject to the same laws we would have to own guilt for what we do, but we do not acknowledge the laws of any land. We maintain the conqueror’s point of view, which is self-justifying.

“Yes,” Toys murmured aloud. “Too bloody right we do.”

Chapter Forty-two

Amber Taylor sat like a robot in her office. Her hands were folded in her lap, her fingers like sticks of wet ice. Inside her chest her heart was beating too loudly and without rhythm.

His voice, his words, still echoed in her mind. Do it, he’d said. Do it today or … or …

Today.

She was supposed to die today.

She was supposed to kill today.

She would never see her babies again.

She would have to trust that they would keep their word and leave her family alone. He promised they would. If she did what they said. If she became a murderer.

He had made her swear. On the lives of her children. On the lives of her babies.

Amber slid open her top desk drawer and stared down at the horrible weapon of destruction that lay there among the pens and paper clips and pushpins.

A ring of keys.

They lay there, pretending innocence, looking like nothing. Keys to the lab, to the vault. The keys were right there. No one would think twice if she picked them up, walked out of her office, walked down the line of cubicles to the elevator. Took it to the basement. Opened the door to the lab. And the one to the vault.

The rest was a security code, and that was in her head.

Simple actions. Each one easy. Each one unobtrusive. So easy.

After that …

God.

Nothing existed beyond that thought except horror. Amber Taylor closed her eyes and prayed. She had not been to church since her husband died. Not even to take the kids. Religion and God were as dead to her as Charlie.

And then …

Something happened that had she possessed any faith she might have thought was divine intervention. But Amber lacked that belief, that optimism.

And yet.

There was a sound. Five beeps from the PA system and then a voice: “This is a security alert. This is a security alert. All employees are required to turn on your intranet. There is a critical news bulletin from Homeland Security. All employees are required to watch this bulletin. It will be broadcast in real time in sixty seconds. This is not a training exercise.”

The message repeated.

Amber blinked several times, unsure of what she was hearing. On the third repeat it logged in: Homeland Security.

Her hands lifted by reflex, her icy fingers making the necessary keystrokes, logging on, pulling up the intranet.

The screen changed. First black and then the red, white, and blue eagle shield of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Then the shield dissolved into a man seated in what looked like an airplane seat. He was big, blocky, in his sixties, but he looked strong. Dangerous. Amber could recognize dangerous. He wore tinted glasses, but she knew that if she could see his eyes they would be fierce.

“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Dr. Bishop, director of special medical services for the United States Department of Homeland Security. You are all probably aware of the tragic event that occurred in London two days ago. The world press has called this an act of terrorism, and so it is. But it is far more than that. The security at the London Royal Hospital was compromised by two or more of the employees at that facility. Those employees did not, however, do this out of choice. They were coerced. A group of terrorists made threats against the families of these people. These threats were as terrible as they were insidious. As a result, good people were forced to do terrible things.”

Amber’s hands contracted to fists.

“And while this recent act of terrorism did not occur on United States soil, the investigative divisions within Homeland Security believe that there is a strong possibility that some Americans may be victims of the same kind of coercion. Coercion that could lead to further heinous acts.”

“I am speaking now to employees in hundreds of private companies and government facilities. If you are watching this video you are employed in a critical area of viral research, energy, health sciences, or defense.” If you have been approached by people who have asked you, or attempted to force you, to do something that could lead to harm to others and damage the safety of your community, I urge you to act. If you have been threatened, or if your loved ones have been threatened, you must make the correct and courageous choice. You must contact the authorities. I know you have been told that to speak out will bring harm to your family. I know that you are afraid. Probably terrified. However, you cannot believe or trust these people. They will not keep their word. They will attempt to harm those you love even if you do what they want. Do not destroy your own life, the lives of your friends and colleagues, and, most important, the lives of your family by believing the threats of cowards and criminals.

“There is a toll-free telephone number and an e-mail address at the bottom of this screen. Use them today. Use them right now to contact me and my team. We are ready to act immediately. We will protect you and your family. And with your help, we will stop these criminals before they can hurt other families.”

There was more. At least Amber thought so, but her mind refused to process it. She sat there in her chair, alone in her office, at the monitor that was flanked by framed pictures of Emily and Mark. All she saw, however, was the telephone number.

Tears burned in her eyes.

The keys were still in the drawer. The world still turned.

“God …,” she whispered.

Chapter Forty-three

We landed under a sky so bright and sunny that it seemed like it was intended as mockery with all that was going on. As Circe and I hustled out of the gate we were met by one of the junior DMS agents from the Baltimore office, a red-haired kid named Riordan, waiting for us at the departure gate. He nodded to me, but he was looking at Circe. I glanced covertly around. Everyone was looking at Circe. Her face was neutral and I wondered if the attention was an ego boost or a total pain in the ass.

“You supposed to be our driver?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, sir. Delivery boy. Mr. Church said that you wouldn’t want a driver.”

“Nope.”

He held out a set of keys. My own keys. “Your Explorer is parked outside. My partner is getting your bags and arranging for your dog to be transported to the curb.”

He said all this to me but was still looking at Circe.

“Get her bags, too,” I said, leaning on the tone of voice enough to snap him out of his love daze. After Circe described her bag and the kid went away, she looked at me and laughed.

“What?” I asked.

“Alpha wolf bullies young pup.”

“Oh … stick a sock in it, Doc.”

She was still laughing as we stepped out into the December wind. Fifteen minutes later we were on I-95 and heading north.

Interlude Thirty-one

Chapter Forty-four

Amber Taylor left work without notifying anyone. She stole someone else’s red winter coat from the staff room. She put on sunglasses and wound a scarf around her face, pulled the hood up, and slipped out through the delivery dock. She walked quickly to the parking lot, got into her car, and drove as fast as she could to her children’s school. She was careful to obey all traffic laws, however. She did not want to get stopped by the police. Not yet, and not now. During the short drive to the school she obsessively checked the mirrors for any sign of a car following her. She saw nothing, but she knew that did not prove a thing. Except for that day the Spaniard came to her to ruin everything and to show her the pictures of the things he called angels, she had never seen anyone. And yet she knew they were watching. They were probably watching right now.

Her stomach felt like it was filled with rusted nails. She popped the glove compartment and took out the large bottle of TUMS EX that she always carried. It was the fifth bottle she had gone through, the extra-large container. She ate six of them while she picked her way through traffic to the school.

When she pulled into the school parking lot the kids were playing in the big concrete yard. A game of tag in one corner, ball in another. Emily stood talking to three of her friends and Mark sat on the steps nearby reading a comic book. Spider-Man. Mark loved comic books. Emily was already reading chapter books, and with her mind she would graduate soon to Young Adult novels.

God, Amber thought, let that happen. Let my babies grow up. Help me keep the monsters away.

She pulled to a stop as close to the school-yard gate as possible and left the engine running as she did a slow surveillance of the area, turning in the seat, craning her neck, looking at every person, every face. None of them looked like it could belong to the face of the man with the Spanish accent. No one looked like they could be one of them. Everyone looked ordinary.

She sniffed back tears, then tapped the horn.

Emily looked up first and smiled. She waved. Amber got out of her car and hurried into the school yard.

“Come on, honey; we have to go.��

“You got a new coat!” said Emily.

“Yes. Say goodbye to your friends. Mark! Come on, honey. Grab your things.” She hustled them to the car, belted them in, got in, and locked the doors. Then she left the parking lot, turned left, and drove like hell toward home.

As she drove, she made a single phone call to a number that was burned into her mind.

Chapter Forty-five

We got off of I-95 and started picking our way across northeast Philadelphia.

Ghost sat in the backseat and laid his head on the storage bin that separated the front bucket seats. He was still mad at me for putting him in the jet’s cargo hold and probably wouldn’t warm up until I bribed him with food. So, I went through a McDonald’s drive-through and got a couple of Filet-O-Fish sandwiches and an order of fries and gave them to Ghost.

“Is that good for him?”

“He likes fast food.”

“Two sandwiches and fries? What, no Coke?”

“Hey,” I said, “he’s only a dog.”

She stared at me as if I was a lunatic. Fair call. Then she turned and watched Ghost wolf down the fried squares of fish, mayonnaise, buns, and all, and then he settled down and ate the fries more slowly.

“I’ve never seen a dog eat French fries one at a time.”

“He’ll share if you ask nice.”

Ghost looked up as if he understood that comment and regarded it as heresy. He placed one paw over his fries and gave Circe a steely stare.

“Bon appétit!” she said, and turned back. “I’m more of a cat person.”

I was both. I had a marmalade tabby named Cobbler back at the Warehouse, but it didn’t seem to be the right time to bring him up. So we drove in silence for a while.

My phone rang. Church.

“Change of plans,” he said curtly. “You won’t be picking up Dr. Sanchez. He’ll come to meet you in Jenkintown. Echo Team is also inbound to the same destination.”

“Christ, don’t tell me there was another attack,” I growled. Circe turned sharply at those words.

“Not yet,” he said. “Your video message idea seems to have borne fruit. A woman named Amber Taylor has barricaded herself and her children inside her house. She called the number we gave during the broadcast. She says that a man with a Spanish accent told her that he would kill her children if she did not do what he said.”

“Son of a bitch. What did he want her to do?”

“To release fleas into the Philadelphia subway system.”

“Fleas infected with—?”

“Take a guess.”

“Oh, shit.”

He gave me the address. I immediately shifted into the fast lane and put the hammer down. Ford Explorers aren’t exactly sports cars, but mine had been given the DMS version of the Police Interceptor package adapted for an SUV. I stamped down on the gas and the Explorer shot forward, the needle climbing to a hundred and then past it.

“Joe, what’s wrong?” demanded Circe, bracing her feet and gripping the support handle bolted to the frame.

“You know history,” I said through gritted teeth. “If you were looking at a worst-case scenario of a disease transmitted by fleas, what would it be?”

“Yersinia pestis,” she said without hesitation, and then the implications of my question and her response caught up to her. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the color drain from her face.

Yersinia pestis. A bacterium that can take three primary forms when spread from flea to humans. Pneumonic, septicemic, and bubonic.

Plague.

Chapter Forty-six

I drove past the Taylor house without a pause, circled the block, and drove past again. I checked out each of the cars parked on the street and didn’t see anyone sitting in them. All of the plates were local. No pedestrians.

Amber Taylor lived on West Avenue, just off of Route 611. A blue BMW sat out front. Right color, make, and plates.

“Are we going to wait for your team?”

“No,” I said. “I want to talk to this woman ASAP. If the Spaniard leaned on her, then we may have our first solid lead. We can’t risk waiting … but it’s your call if you want to stay here or—”

“I’m going in,” Circe said in a tone that brooked no argument.

“Fine, Doc, but remember that this is a criminal investigation.”

“Yes, yes, and you’re the alpha. Get a grip, Joe; this isn’t my first time in the field.”

She said it with a lot of conviction, but I thought she was lying. I was pretty sure that this was her first time out of the world of “what if.” Even so, I kept my mouth shut on all the ways I wanted to reply to that. I took my Homeland ID case out of the glove box and looped the lanyard around my neck. We got out and I checked the street again. Nothing moved except the breeze through the December trees. I let Ghost out of the back. There was a case in the back marked with a rubber stamp of a blue old-style British police telephone box. In the TV show Doctor Who it was called a TARDIS, a kind of time and space ship. In the real world it was the box of special ultra-high-tech doodads provided by Dr. Hu and his team. I opened it and stuffed a few gizmos into my pocket.

I petted Ghost, who had caught my nervous tension and was fidgeting. I pointed to the Taylor house. “Watch. Call-call-call.” With that command he would watch the street and then bark like a crazy dog if anyone came within a dozen yards of the front door. The DMS trainer, Zan Rosin, had brought Ghost to a superb level of efficiency, and I worked with him every day to perfect the command and response between us. Ghost had a peculiar habit, though. When I gave him an order he opened and closed his mouth with a wet glup. His way of saying, “Hooah.”

Circe and I cut across the brown lawn and mounted the three steps to the stone porch. All of the houses on the street were decorated for Christmas. I noticed that Taylor’s was, too, but the work was sloppy. Lights strung crookedly, window decorations put up in haste. Circe noticed it, too.

“Nerves,” she said quietly. “Probably trying to fake it for the kids.”

I knocked on the door and waited. Nothing happened, so I tapped again.

“Joe,” Circe said without moving her lips, “the curtain moved, someone’s—”

“I know. Smile and look helpful.”

“Who are you?” a voice demanded from behind the door.

“Federal agents, Mrs. Taylor. Department of Homeland Security.”

“Prove it!”

I held up my ID so anyone looking through the peephole could see it. Then I removed my wallet and showed my driver’s license to prove the name matched. There was a picture in the adjoining glassine compartment. Grace.

“How do I know you’re who you say you are?”

“Do you still have the number you called?”

A pause. “Yes.”

“Call them. Ask for a description of the agent they sent. My name is Joseph Edwin Ledger. My partner here is Dr. Circe O’Tree. Have whoever you talk to describe us.”

“Okay. But if you try to force the door I’ll—”

She cut herself off before finishing the sentence. She didn’t know what she would do. I don’t think she had a gun or she would have threatened us with it. Scared people often do.

We waited. I could hear her speaking to someone, but her voice was muffled. All I could make out was “yes,” repeated several times.

“Okay, they gave me two questions to ask you.”

“Hit me.”

“What is your cat’s name?”

“Cobbler. And my dog, who is watching the house right now, is Ghost.”

“That wasn’t the other question. The man said to ask you what he called you when you first met.”

“He said I was a world-class smart-ass. He’s right, too. I hold several international records.”

I actually heard a short laugh from behind the door.

“Okay … I’m going to open the door.”

We waited and I could imagine the woman taking a steadying breath, trying to muster the optimism to trust the moment. She had her kids in there. If Santoro had done to her what he had done to Dr. Grey, the images of her children as victims of the Spaniard’s knife — as his angels—would be overwhelming.

The lock clicked. I traded a look with Circe. She looked as wired as I felt.

The door opened an inch and we saw a single terrified eye. Bright blue and filled with a kind of profound dread that should never be in any human’s eyes, let alone a parent’s.

“We’re here to help,” said Circe softly.

A tear welled in the corner of that bright blue eye.

“Don’t let them hurt my babies,” she begged.

I smiled — and I don’t know if it was the Cop or the Warrior who shaped that smile — and said, “Not a chance.”

Interlude Thirty-two

“It’s done.”

The Goddess smiled into the phone. “Ah, lovely boy, I never had a doubt. Was it difficult?”

“Toys whined about it,” Gault said, “but it was more than worth it. We’ll be in Cairo in two hours and back there before this hits the news services.”

“Hurry home to me, Sebastian,” Eris purred. “I want you here. In my arms. Inside of me.”

“If I could sprout wings, my love,” he murmured, “I’d already be in the air. Oops, the cab is here. Got to go. I’ll call you when I land in Toronto. Have fun on the Internet.”

“Oh, I will. By this time next month the Inner Circle will be rending their garments and beating their chests.”

“Don’t forget gnashing their teeth and wailing. The gnashing and wailing is such a kick.”

They were both laughing as they disconnected.

Interlude Thirty-three

Charles Osgood Harrington III disliked speaking on the phone. Most of his calls were taken by various assistants and secretaries. His cell phone had a private number given to a very select handful of people. Even his son didn’t have it. Which Harrington considered a good business move since his son, Charles Osgood Harrington IV — known as C-Four to everyone from the police to the national media — was a good-for-nothing waste of time.

So when his cell phone rang Harrington assumed that it was one of that small circle from whom he was always happy to take a call.

“Charlie,” said a breathless voice.

“Carl?”

H. Carlton Milhaus was a very old and very dear friend, and an associate in a number of business deals in the Middle East.

“Jesus, Charlie … have you read your e-mail? The club e-mail.”

“No.”

“Log on, for Christ’s sake. We all got it. Call me later. I think we need to meet.”

Milhaus would not explain, so Harrington switched on his computer and when it was ready he used an ultrasecure log-on to access the e-mail account shared by the twenty-one members of his private club.

Harrington spotted the e-mail at once. The sender was listed as Private. The subject read: To the House of Bones.

Harrington licked his lips and opened the e-mail. It read:

“My god!” Harrington gasped. He reached for his cell and called Carlton Milhaus. Forty minutes later Harrington was aboard his private helicopter, hurtling through the skies toward a meeting with the other twenty members of the Inner Circle of the Skull and Bones Society.

Chapter Forty-seven

Amber Taylor was thirty-five but looked older. Living under the terrible stress of the Spaniard’s threats had aged her, chopped sharp edges into her face and made her look like a refugee from a war-torn country. In a very real sense, I suppose she was.

“Where are your children?” Circe asked as soon as we were inside.

“In the basement playroom,” Taylor said quickly, but as she said it she took a reflexive step to stand between us and the door to the cellar. “They’re watching a video. They … don’t know.”

I glanced around. We stood in a short entry hall. There was a tall faux Ming vase from which a hockey stick, a pool cue, and a baseball bat sprouted. She caught my look. “In case,” she said.

The woman had grit.

Circe guided Taylor into the living room. “Mrs. Taylor,” she said quickly, “we are going to help you. Captain Ledger has his team coming. They’ll be here any minute. They are military Special Forces and they can protect you and your children from anyone.”

Taylor did not look immediately relieved.

“He said that they would know if I left work, or … picked up the kids. Or anything. He said that they were always watching. He showed me pictures. From here. From inside the house—”

“Don’t worry about that anymore. I set up a jammer. They’re not seeing a thing.”

“He’ll know that I did something.” The fear in her voice was like a poison fog that clung to the air around her. I hoped like hell the Spaniard would show up. There were a few things I’d like to discuss with him. And then I wanted to rip his fucking lungs out.

“‘He’?” Circe asked. “Do you mean the man who threatened you?”

“Yes.”

“What can you tell us about him?”

She described what we already knew. A compactly built man wearing dark clothes and a mask, and who spoke with a Spanish accent. The rest of her story echoed the same horrors we got from Grey. Threats, the knife. The photos of the angels.

“How many pictures did he show you?”

“I … I don’t …” She stopped, dabbing at her eyes while she thought about it. “Maybe twelve of each. Women, and children. Six boys, six girls. I … think they were boys and girls. It was hard to … to …” She shook her head.

Circe looked at me with eyes that were fierce and bright and wet. I could imagine the sickness and rage that she felt. Inside my own head I could feel the Warrior start to howl. Even the civilized Modern Man part of me wanted blood.

“Tell me about what they wanted you to do.”

“It was the fleas ….”

Her company was part of a group of companies working on a government-funded project to develop a lasting treatment for Yersinia pestis. Although the plague was rare these days, there were still cases of it, and there was always the risk of terrorists weaponizing a strain. It was the same argument that justified the testing of Ebola at FIRE.

It was hard to accept it and hard to knock it down, because weaponized bubonic plague would truly be a terrible weapon and one that would be easy enough to distribute. Releasing infected fleas into widespread and uncontrolled animal populations, particularly rats, would do it. Antibiotics could be used to fight the disease, but an outbreak would create panic and would be hard to stop once started. Especially if the rats that were infested with the plague fleas were introduced in areas with large homeless and poverty-level populations. Her company was testing the latest strains of the bacteria on rat subspecies found in the subway systems of Philadelphia and New York. There were enough infected fleas at Strauss & Strauss to begin a medium-scale epidemic.

“That’s what they wanted me to do. Go into the lab and take canisters of fleas and then drop one in each of ten stations on the Broad Street Line and ten on the Market-Frankford Line.”

“There would be a fairly long lag time between that and an outbreak,” said Circe. “How would they know if you had done what they asked?”

“They said to release fleas in the staff room. Into coats and gloves, scarves, boots.”

“But you did not do that,” prompted Circe.

Taylor shook her head. “I … almost did.”

“What stopped you?”

“There was a video. From a doctor working with Homeland.”

“Dr. Bishop?” I suggested, and she nodded. Score one for Church.

“They said that once I did that they would know right away.”

“Did what? Release the fleas at work?”

“Yes.”

“Which means that there was someone else at your office?”

“Yes. I got messages sometimes. Little reminders.” She described finding notes with words like “watching” and “everywhere” and some with the kids’ names on them. It was a lot like what Dr. Grey had experienced.

Fresh tears broke from Taylor’s eyes. “He said that no matter how long it would take, they would come after my babies. Can you really keep them safe?”

She was so convinced that her own life was over that she only asked about her kids. It was admirable, but it was also interesting in that from a detached point of view it was clear that her own life meant nothing compared to her kids’ lives. I know that parents will die for their kids, but I believed I was seeing a hint of the precise kind of mental-emotional configuration that had to exist in people targeted by the Spaniard.

I heard Ghost bark once. Short and sharp.

Not a danger warning. I smiled. I knew what that meant.

There was a knock on the door.

I said, “The cavalry has arrived.”

Chapter Forty-eight

“Deacon?”

“Hugo,” said Church. “Do you have something for me?”

“Maybe. I just got off the phone with Marty Hanler. I’ve been trying to get him to join the think tank, maybe kick the group in the ass a bit, ’cause without him the only things they’ve come up with are ‘jack’ and ‘shit.’”

“He won’t leave Margie for that long. Between the surgery and the chemo—”

“I know. But with all that’s going on I thought it was worth a shot. Anyway, he told me something disturbing and I recommended that he call you.”

“What is it?”

Vox told him.

“That’s disturbing,” agreed Church. “Very disturbing.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Captain Ledger is in the area. I’ll have him meet and debrief Marty.”

“Ledger’s back in the game?”

“Yes.”

“Glad to hear it. That boy’s a demon.”

Church did not comment on that. Instead he said, “Circe is with him.”

Vox whistled. “That’s an interesting pair.”

Church made no comment and ended the call.

Chapter Forty-nine

The two people at the door did not look like soldiers or terrorists. They wore long coats and felt hats. Each one of them carried a valise and wore a bright smile.

“Have you heard the word of God today?” asked the shorter of the two, a blonde woman with ice blue eyes.

“Have you been saved?” asked the other, a black man with scars on his face. He handed me a copy of The Watchtower.

“Well, hallelujah,” I said, and stepped back to let DeeDee and Top enter the Taylor household. I checked the street and saw that it was empty. No sign of Echo Team’s vehicle.

As I closed the door, Top said, “We’re parked two blocks over; engine’s running for when you give the word. We have the TacV.”

“Deployment?”

“John Smith’s on the roof of a house down the street. Khalid’s spotting for him. Bunny’s at the wheel waiting on your word.”

Circe and Amber Taylor had come into the entrance foyer.

“Mrs. Taylor, this is DeeDee Whitman and Bradley Sims. They are part of my team and they will be escorting you and your children to a secure location.”

“Just the two of them? He said that they—”

“We have the whole team with us, ma’am,” said Top. He had a deep voice and a fatherly tone. “And at need we can bring a world of trouble down on anyone who tries to hurt you or yours. Count on it.”

She looked into his eyes, searching him, reading him. She must have found something to believe in, because she suddenly threw her arms around his barrel chest and hugged him fiercely. He stroked her hair as she sobbed.

Top inspires that kind of confidence in people. I don’t.

DeeDee stepped aside and touched her ear jack. “Scream Queen to Dancing Duck, how’s the weather?” She listened. “Okay … copy that.”

“What have you got?” I asked quietly.

“Zips in the wires, Boss,” she said. “A white van just drove past Bunny and turned onto this street.” She knelt and fished something out of her valise. It wasn’t a religious tract. She handed me a tiny earbud and a booster unit. I clipped the booster to my belt and screwed the bug in my ear. “Team on one, Command on two.”

She also handed me three extra magazines and I stuffed them into my pockets. DeeDee had an M4 slung under her coat.

I tapped the bud once. “Echo, Echo, Cowboy on deck. Call signs here on out.”

I heard Bunny say, “Welcome to the jungle, Boss.”

“Sit rep.”

“One white van, two in the front, unknown in the back.”

“Got it,” said Khalid. Smith wouldn’t comment. He hardly ever speaks. “We have two hostiles on foot in the back alley. Hold on. Make that four hostiles. Two heading northeast. Two coming from the west. Van has stopped. Counting hostiles. Looks like the driver and one other only.”

“Six?” complained Bunny. “That ain’t even a fight.”

“Keep it tight, Green Giant,” scolded Top.

“We need someone with a pulse,” I said. “I’m in the mood for a conversation.”

“Hooah,” they said.

I turned to Circe and Taylor. “Go get the kids. DeeDee, go with them. Quick and quiet. Do it now. Just coats and gloves. Don’t stop for anything else.”

I tapped the earbud and called Khalid. “Dancing Duck, did they leave anyone at the van?”

“Negative, Cowboy. Driver and the other are walking along the street. They’re passing your Explorer. Wait; hold on. Shit. The driver put his palm on the hood to feel for engine heat. They’re drawing guns.”

“Chatterbox,” I said.

“Got ’em.”

I hurried to the window and looked out just in time to see both of the men stagger backward and fall into the hedges that lined the street near where I’d parked. Less than a second, two perfect head shots. No sound at all. I couldn’t tell where the shots had come from, but Smith was the hammer of God up to 350 yards.

I turned at the sound of commotion and saw DeeDee herding Taylor and her kids out the cellar door.

“What’s happening? What’s going on?” the kids demanded. Then they saw Top and me standing in the foyer. Top had shed his disguise. Under the topcoat he wore black fatigues, body armor, and belts from which were slung the kinds of weapons most people only see on TV or in movies.

“W-what—?”

I started to say something, but Top Sims brushed past me. He knelt on one knee. “Look, kids. There’s something happening and we’re here to protect you and your mom. I’m a kind of policeman. We all are. We’re going to take you and your mom to a safe place.”

“But … but …”

“There are a couple of bad men in the neighborhood. We need to take care of that, and we will. That’s what we do. But I need you guys to be brave and strong and help us get your mom to a safe place. Can you do that?”

Their eyes were the size of hubcaps and their mouths were little round “ohs,” but they both nodded. Top gave them a warmer smile than anything his enemies would believe him capable of.

“Okay, now this man here is the boss. You can call him Cowboy. That’s his—”

“That’s his call sign!” declared young Mark.

Top grinned and patted Mark’s arm. “Well, look at you! I’ll bet you know all about cops and bad guys.”

“Are there terrorists out there?” Mark asked, his eyes huge with excitement.

“They are bad men,” Top assured him, not using the word “terror.” “But we got that covered, ’cause there are more of my friends outside. We’re all going to get into a big truck and drive away to a nice safe place.”

I turned away and smiled. Top was a dad; I didn’t have any kids. Right then, I’d have gone with him to an ice-cream shop or a ball game.

“Cowboy, Cowboy,” said Khalid, “be advised. Company in sixty. Looks like back and west side. Two and two.”

I tapped the earbud. “Chatterbox … Sergeant Rock’s coming out with friendlies. Keep ’em safe.”

“’K,’” he said.

“Green Giant,” I growled to Bunny, “we’re waiting on you. Bring Black Bess to the front door. Quick and noisy.”

“Rock and roll,” he answered.

To Top I said, “Get the kids into the car. Scream Queen, you’re with me.”

In the distance I could hear the rumble of a heavy engine as the big DMS TacV thundered down the street toward us. Ghost started barking like mad and I knew that he sniffed the hostiles.

“Now!” I yelled, and jerked the door open. Ghost stood at the edge of the porch, craning his neck around toward the back, barking with heavy monster barks. Bunny screeched to a halt and leaped out. The kids — and even Circe — goggled a little at the size of the driver, but he waved them on and opened the back door, fanning a big IMI Desert Eagle over their heads as they ran.

From inside the house I could hear glass breaking as the hostiles smashed their way in through the back door and side window. With the barks and yells and engine noise, they had to know that a rescue attempt was in progress, so they weren’t going for stealth. They opened fire at once, filling the house with hot rounds as they crowded inside, trying to flush us out toward the two men from the van. They apparently didn’t know that they were two head shots past the point where that plan was going to work.

I flattened out against the living room wall behind the couch with Ghost on the floor beside me. I told him to be quiet and ready. He looked ready to tackle Godzilla. DeeDee climbed to the fifth step on the staircase and crouched low.

The hostiles were working in pairs. Two out front, the others a room and a half behind them. Nice combat spacing. We could kill them all, but we couldn’t capture them all.

The first two men rushed through the TV room and into the living room, heading straight for the open front door. We let them pass; then DeeDee and I wheeled around the edges of the wall and opened up on the other two. It was a classic ambush and they didn’t have a chance. We put three shots in each and then spun off of that, closing to zero distance with the other shooters, who were skidding to a stop, scrambling to turn, realizing that they’d been mousetrapped.

DeeDee reached her target half a second before I did, so I got a peripheral view of how she handled him. She used the stock of her rifle to slap his AK-47 wide; then instead of checking her swing and bringing the stock back for a head shot, she continued the circular swing of the weapon and caught him in the face with the barrel. The guy’s nose and upper teeth exploded, but before he could scream DeeDee kneed him in the groin; as he bent forward she knee-kicked him in his broken nose.

The second guy was about my size and he knew that he was too close to use a long weapon, so he tried to slam me across the chest with the length of it. I checked my forward momentum so that his thrust stopped a half inch short. I didn’t have a long gun and didn’t need one. Ghost shot past me and under his gun and hit the shooter teeth first in the crotch. He screamed and tried to club the dog, but Ghost was trained to fight armed men. He released the first bite and jumped up inside the circle of the man’s arms, biting fast and hard, tearing muscle and tendon and cracking bone so fast it looked like the shooter had thrust his arms into a leaf shredder.

“Off!” I called, and that fast Ghost jumped sideways. He crouched and growled, fur up along his spine, mouth bloody, eyes fierce.

The shooter went down in a messy heap and curled into a fetal ball, wrapping his head with his ruined arms. I kicked his gun out of reach.

Outside, the TacV roared away.

I stepped back to offer cover while DeeDee slapped Speedcuffs on the two shooters. One was unconscious, the other screaming.

“Juice him,” I ordered, and DeeDee pulled a syringe from her kit and jabbed it into the screaming man’s arm. It wasn’t painkiller. His eyes rolled up and he passed out, sagging to the floor with a thump. Then she applied a fast field dressing to the critical wounds.

I tapped my earbud.

“Cowboy to Echo. House party is over. Got two sleepy guests.”

“Copy that,” said Khalid. “Area is secure.”

“Green Giant, talk to me.”

“Class trip is away,” said Bunny. “I got six police units inbound to your twenty.”

“Outstanding,” I said.

Khalid showed up at the door and I tossed him my keys. He brought the Explorer over and we loaded the prisoners, moving with haste and only marginal care. We needed them alive. Comfort wasn’t an issue.

By the time the cops converged on the house, we were in the wind, following Black Bess north along Route 611.

Interlude Thirty-four

Sebastian Gault set down his phone and stared at it for a long moment. Then with a growl of sudden anger he swept everything off his desk — phone, laptop, whiskey glass. It all crashed to the floor.

A moment later he was crouched over the debris, brushing ice cubes and broken glass off his phone. He dried it on the front of his shirt and then sat on the edge of the desk and opened the phone. It still worked. He punched a number.

“Yes,” said a soft voice.

“I just heard from Fear.”

“As have I,” said Santoro.

“Do you have a team in the area?”

“There is one very close; I can pull them off of that job and put them on this. A matter of minutes; however, taking action would be ill advised, yes? Things are not—”

“Don’t tell me what things are not, god damn it. I want you to do something right fucking now! And I want it splashed across the wire services. I want everything else wiped off the sodding news by it. Do you understand me?”

Gault’s voice had risen to a banshee shriek.

The ensuing silence was so complete that Gault wondered if Santoro had hung up on him. If that little Spanish prick had, he’d skin him alive.

“Is this also the will of the Goddess?” Santoro asked mildly.

“Yes.”

Another moment of silence.

“Very well,” said the killer, and he disconnected.

Chapter Fifty

We rolled into the Willow Grove Naval Air Station. There were two DMS choppers already on the ground — a burly Chinook and an Apache gunship. Shooters from Broadway Team from the Hangar in Brooklyn had the perimeter secured. I shook hands with Lt. Artie Mensch, Broadway’s top-kick.

“Busy morning, Joe?” he said, offering his hand.

“Same weird shit, different weird day.”

We watched as Top and Khalid guided Amber Taylor and her kids into the Apache. Bunny and John Smith rolled the gurneys with two prisoners over to the Chinook.

Mensch nodded. “We’re taking the prisoners straight to the Hangar. They’re prepping the surgical suite now. Aunt Sallie’s going to want to talk with these boys.” He cut me a look. “You haven’t met her yet, have you?”

“No. Looking forward to it, though.”

He laughed. “‘Looking forward’ to meeting Aunt Sallie. That’s funny.”

“What’s the joke?”

“You’ll know when you meet her.”

He clapped me on the shoulder, whistled to his team, and within a few seconds the helos were sky-high and tilting into the wind to head north.

I saw Circe O’Tree standing beside Black Bess. She looked small and lost, so I headed over to her.

“You did good work today,” I said. “Mrs. Taylor needed someone like you.”

“Someone like me?”

“Smart, steady—”

“And female?” Circe asked challengingly.

“I wasn’t going there,” I said. “You’re a doctor and a shrink. That woman needed that every bit as much as she needed my team of shooters.”

Circe studied me for a moment. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Circe nodded and pulled her winter coat more tightly around her shoulders. She shivered even though the wind wasn’t blowing. She stared at the choppers that were disappearing into the gray December sky. Her face was pale and her eyes had a jumpy quality.

I took a shot. “First time you ever saw someone killed?”

She nodded.

“Hitting you like a baseball bat upside the head, I expect.”

Another nod.

“You want to talk about it?”

She looked at me and shook her head.

“Would food and a whole lot of alcohol help?”

“Yes,” she said flatly, then turned and walked toward my Explorer.

She passed Top without comment. He watched her pass, pursed his lips, and came over to me.

“First time?” he asked.

“First time,” I agreed.

“She’s out from Terror Town, right? I read a couple of her books. Thought everyone out there was a vet of some kind.”

“She is now.”

He grunted. “So … what’s our next play, Cap’n?”

As if in answer to his question, my cell buzzed. I flipped it open.

“Sit rep,” snapped Church.

I told him. “We even have two prisoners en route to the Hangar. They’ll need a few million Band-Aids, but they have a pulse.”

“That makes a nice change,” he said. “For you.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Please extend my appreciation to Echo Team. Excellent work. Have your team refresh and reload there at Willow Grove. I’ll clear the paperwork. They’ll catch up to you.”

“Why? Where will I be?”

“Southampton. You know where that is?”

“Sure.”

“There’s a Starbucks at Street Road and Route 232. You are to meet my friend Martin Hanler. Do you remember him?”

“Yeah, he flew me out to Colorado during the Jakoby thing. Why am I meeting him?”

“He just called me to say that blowing up the London Hospital was his idea.”