He opened his top desk drawer and removed a package of vanilla wafers, carefully opened the package, selected a cookie, took a small bite, and munched quietly.
Then he began making calls. It was a long list, and not all the people he called were the ones he needed to warn. For some, it was easier to call one of his many friends in the industry—in various industries—to ask if they could help watchdog the innocent. With others, however, particularly those with whom he had once worked, it was more direct to call them. They had the skills to take care of themselves; however, Church told them to expect couriers who would deliver credit cards with no spending limits, passports in several different names, and other documents that would allow them to shelter in place, or bolt and run.
He was at that desk for hours. Going through the papers recovered in Croatia, scrolling through decrypted computer files. Seeing frequent mentions of AO but never with enough context to give it meaning. So far, even Nikki Bloom couldn’t find enough to build a supposition. And yet everything in him made him believe this was something of great importance.
The feeling that he was not seeing the forest for the trees.
Outside, the world sank into the deepest part of the night. Starlight painted everything—the forest, the other buildings, the beach, the moored boats, and the rolling waves. It also traced the outlines of dozens of black birds huddled in the branches of the trees. Hundreds of them, and of at least eight species. Church had noticed them beginning to gather shortly after Christmas. Some were migratory birds that should long ago have flown south. It was Church’s habit most mornings to go outside with a bag of bread and toss it around so the birds could eat. But that would be hours from now. The night birds were in their trees, pretending to sleep but not selling the lie. He could feel them watching.
As he worked, Church wondered where Joe Ledger was at that moment. He had a general sense of location, but no specifics. Those details would be scraped off the ground in Ledger’s wake.
He wondered what was going on in Ledger’s broken heart and in his furnace of a head.
He wondered how much damage all this was doing to an already dangerously compromised individual.
He wondered what the price tag would be when it was all over. And how big an amount he’d be adding to the deep debt already stacked against his own immortal soul.
CHAPTER 35
VAN DER VYVER BIOMEDICAL ASSOCIATES
JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
The man staggered away from the burning building.
He tripped and fell twice. Again. And finally stopped trying and sank slowly to his knees. Everything in front of him was darkness.
Everything behind him was hell itself. Long fingers of bright orange flame clawed at the sky, tearing apart the midnight clouds.
The man knelt there, panting, gasping for clean air in a soiled world. A big white dog stood nearby, his coat speckled with blood, eyes bright, muscles trembling. All around them both, in every tree, the night birds watched with black and unreadable eyes.
The man looked down at his hands and for a twisted moment thought he was wearing red gloves. But then the truth punched him in the face, in the heart.
The blood-spattered dog came over slowly, cautiously, and stopped beside the man. Then pushed at him with its muzzle as if urging him to get up. To run.
The man shook his head and began furiously scrubbing at his hands, but one bloody hand could not clean the other. He caved slowly forward until his forehead touched the dirt.
“God,” he begged, “help me…”
But it was not a divine hand that pulled him up, forced him to stand, made him run when the banshee sirens filled the air. It was no clean hand at all that saved him.
It was the colder hand of darkness. Sure, and steady, and inexorable.
The man and the dog vanished into that endless black of night.
PART 3
WHERE NIGHT BIRDS FLY
Before you embark on a journey of revenge,
Dig two graves.
—CONFUCIUS
Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.
—PAUL GAUGUIN
CHAPTER 36
FREETECH RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OFFICE
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Junie Flynn did not expect the call to go through. It hadn’t the last dozen times she’d phoned, and it was becoming apparent to her that Mr. Church was dodging her calls. That annoyed her. Partly because it seemed beneath the man’s dignity, and partly because it was unkind. If it had been anyone but Church, she’d have thought he was being cowardly.
But Church surprised her by answering on the third ring.
“Miss Flynn,” he said, then corrected it. “Junie.”
She didn’t ask him how he was or what was new. This wasn’t social, and she got straight to it.
“Have you heard from Joe?”
“Junie…”
“I’m using the scrambler,” she said.
“My answer would be the same regardless,” said Church. “No. He has not been in touch.”
“It’s been so long,” she said, trying to keep both heartbreak and fury from her voice, and aware that she was failing in both cases. “It’s been weeks.”
“Yes,” said Church, “it has.”
“What are you doing to find him?”
“Everything that we can.”
“Can I have a real answer instead of a pat one?”
“Junie, listen to me. I know you’re scared. Terrified. So are all his friends.”
“But—”
“Let me finish,” said Church gently. “We are looking. We have many of our allies looking. I have my entire network on the alert.”
“How do you even know he’s alive?” she demanded.
There was a pause. “For the same reason you know that he is. We would know.”
Junie closed her eyes against the tears that wanted to fall. The tears that fell regardless.
“Please,” she said, “find him. Help him.”
“Yes,” said Church. “Yes…”
CHAPTER 37
LAKE PALESTINE
TEN MILES SOUTHWEST OF NOONDAY, TEXAS
The two men who sat on the top of the picnic table looked like truckers. The taller of the two was a huge slab of a white guy with the sleeves cut off a threadbare denim jacket. His arms were packed with corded muscle and covered with Marine Corps tattoos. He wore jeans, scuffed work boots, and had a pair of mirrored sunglasses pushed high on his short blond hair. He had a long scar slanting downward from above his left eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, and down to his right cheek. Both his canine teeth were gold, and the beer bottle clinked against one of them each time he took a sip.
His companion was shorter and older, but no less rough-looking. A Black man in his late forties, with a heavy silver chain around his neck, handcuff earrings, and a mouth that looked like he never smiled. His head was shaved, and he sported a Vandyke style of goatee, with the salt-and-pepper chin hair coming to a sharp point. He wore a Dallas Cowboys cap pulled low to shade his eyes and slowly chewed on an old kitchen match.
Their fishing skiff was pulled up on the bank, rods sprouting like antennae, an old blue Coleman cooler resting in the boat. There were only a few fishermen left on the water. The news had said the bass were jumping, but no one seemed to be pulling many in. The February sun was hotter than it was supposed to be, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
“I ever tell you I hate fishing?” asked the white man.
The Black man scratched his cheek. “Today or ever?”
“Ever.”
“Yeah. About a thousand damned times.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“So you keep saying.”
They drank beer and watched the boats.
“It’s boring as fuck.”
“So is NASCAR,” said the Black man.
“I never said I liked NASCAR.”
“Wasn’t asking if you did, Farm Boy. I was adding
it to the list of boring sports.”
“Golf, too, then,” said the white man.
“Golf’s okay. At least you get to walk. NASCAR’s sitting on plastic chairs and drinking flat beer. Fishing is sitting in a boat and drinking warm beer.”
“I like beer.”
“Beer isn’t the point.”
They watched the boats.
“Volleyball’s fun to watch,” said the white man.
“You just like to watch girls playing volleyball.”
“Women,” corrected the younger man.
“Women,” agreed the older man.
“And, sure, what’s not to like? All those buff women. Tall, too. Jumping around in bikinis.”
“That’s some grade-A sexist shit right there.”
The white man thought about it. “I guess. Don’t know that I care. I mean about that part. If they were just women jumping around, it’d be all about boobs and buns. But that’s a tough sport. I like the serious players.”
“Uh-huh. And boobs and buns got nothing to do with it, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
The white man shrugged. “I’m not going to lie and say they don’t, but if there’s no skill, then it’s just a meat rack.”
“Uh-huh.”
“No, I … oh, wait,” said the white man, interrupting himself, “I think this is our guy.”
They both turned to watch a blocky man walk toward them. He had Popeye forearms and a face like an eroded wall, and he wore jeans, boots, and a gray nylon windbreaker with a blue diamond symbol on the chest. A billed cap with the same symbol was perched on his wiry red hair. He walked with purpose, his chest thrust out as if with a desire to smash the air itself out of his way. Then he slowed to a stop ten feet away and studied the two fishermen with cold appraising eyes.
He pointed a finger at the younger man. “Are you Redfield?”
“I’m Buck Redfield,” said the white man, putting just a touch of belligerence in it. “Who’s asking?”
The red-haired man smiled thinly. “I’m the guy who needs you to tell me two little words.”
That was the right signal, the opening of a code phrase exchange. The big man named Buck looked at his friend, who nodded.
“I’m Spartacus,” said Buck, giving the proper response.
“I’m Spartacus,” said the Black man.
“And what’s the other thing?” asked the redhead.
“Azure carbon,” said the Black man, completing the code.
The red-haired man’s smile broadened, and some of the tension went out of his shoulders. He glanced at the older man. “You’re Guidry?”
“Marcus Guidry,” agreed the Black man. “People call me Guidry or G. And you are…?”
“Randall Flagg.”
“Real name?”
Flagg snorted but didn’t answer. Instead, he glanced at the boat pulled up on the dirt. “You catch anything?”
Buck shrugged. “A light beer buzz and ten million motherfucking mosquito bites.”
Flagg nodded. “We checked you out. Interesting service records. Good in a fight, the right training, lots of experience, but a little trouble here and there. Buck, you got kicked out of the Marines. Got caught running a sideline in military gear. And, Guidry, you retired from the army before they could retire you for fucking the wrong officer’s daughter.”
“She was of age,” said Guidry, and he punctuated it by spitting over the far end of the picnic table, getting good distance and velocity and without losing his kitchen match.
“What about it?” asked Buck. “You going to lecture us on good behavior?”
Flagg’s smile remained in place, but there was a calculating look in his eyes.
“You’re here because you’re looking to sign on with the people I represent,” he said. “We’re a bit more—and I hate to use this word—liberal in our views about what a man does in his free time. Same for when a man sees an opportunity and wants to make a buck off it.”
They said nothing.
“But here’s the thing,” said Flagg, “all of that is okay when you’re off the clock. But when you’re on the clock, then you don’t break any of the house rules. You keep it zipped, and you don’t so much as pick up a tarnished penny that isn’t yours. That has to be understood and agreed to, or you fellows can go back to fishing.”
Guidry took the matchstick out and considered the gnawed end, then put it into the other corner of his mouth. “I really fucking hate fishing,” he said.
Flagg glanced at Buck.
“Hell, I hate bass fishing most of all,” said the big man.
They all grinned at that. Flagg looked around at the thirty or so pickup trucks parked behind them. “Which one’s yours?”
“Piece-of-shit blue old Ford yonder,” said Guidry.
“You gassed up?”
“Mostly,” said Buck. “Three-quarters of a tank.”
“That’ll do,” said Flagg. He pointed to a sleek black GMC Terrain, the current year’s model. “That’s mine. Follow me.”
“Where we going?” asked Guidry.
“Just follow.”
With that, Randall Flagg walked back to his car, got in, started the engine, and waited. Buck and Guidry exchanged a look, picked up their gear, returned the rental boat, and climbed into their truck. Buck drove, following the SUV onto Route 49 heading north.
Once they were on the road, Guidry tapped a small mole near his left ear.
“You get all that, Bug?” he asked.
“Got all of it, Pappy,” said a younger voice. Both men wore similar tiny earbuds that were designed to fade into the landscape of their complexion and skin type.
“You get a read on him?”
“Well,” said Bug, “he sure isn’t Randall Flagg. That’s the bad guy from The Stand. Old Stephen King book about—”
“I read it. Who’s the guy?”
“I pulled his image from the cameras in your shirt button and ran it through facial recognition. Someone tried real hard to erase him from the net.”
“But…?”
“But, this is me.”
“Stop bragging, Bug,” said Guidry. “Who is he?”
“John Andrew Saxon,” said Bug. “He was a lieutenant in the air force. Opted out in 2012. Minor-league asshole. Four ex-wives and several domestic violence complaints. No charges because the women seemed unwilling to testify. Might have been involved in a gang rape in Iraq, but there’s a reference to a written statement that isn’t uploaded to any military database. Whatever it was, they squashed the charges and expunged most of Saxon’s computer records. MindReader Q1’s able to gather scraps from fragments left online, and some data scars. It’s not much. Bottom line is that he’s a total prick, and that makes him the poster boy for what he does now. Talent scout for the PMC biz. Been on the Blue Diamond Security payroll for nine years.”
“And…?” prompted Guidry.
“And he’s on our list as a possible recruiter for Kuga.”
“He’s a Fixer?” asked Buck.
“Nah, just a scout. He’s exactly who we needed to find, though, and my guess is he’s taking you to either a meeting with someone higher up the food chain, or maybe to a camp. I’ve got buzzard drones in the air tracking you. Just ease back and enjoy the ride.”
“Copy that.” The blond young man flipped his sunglasses down and cruised along fifty feet behind the SUV.
“Bug,” asked Bunny, “we have any word on Outlaw?”
There was a lag before Bug answered, “He’s still out there. We’re still looking.”
That was all he’d say, but it was enough.
“Copy that,” said Top.
They settled back as the miles burned away under their tires.
CHAPTER 38
FLORENCE, ITALY
The man came awake while walking.
That’s how it felt. He had been lost in a nightmare of flight and pursuit, and in that dream, he had been both predator and prey. Now he was awake. Walking down
a street.
He looked around, completely unsure of where he was.
The street signs and store names were in Italian.
But … how?
He fought for memories, found a few swimming away from him in the darkness of his thoughts, grabbed at them. Caught one or two.
His last clear memory was of the burning building in Johannesburg.
Was that a real memory? Were the things he remembered true?
“God help me,” he whispered, choking on the words. Praying that none of those memories belonged to him.
Knowing, though, that they did.
There were too many details for it to be something borrowed from a movie or book, and too vivid—with all five senses horribly engaged—for them to be residue from a dream.
Dr. Gerald Engelbrecht.
The guards and the staff.
The fires.
He looked down at his hands, surprised to realize that they were gripping suitcases. Heavy ones. Cases he did not recognize.
Saw his dog looking up at him. Ghost looked strange. Wrong. Older, thinner. Hungrier in bad ways. The emotional support animal vest he wore was like a bad joke. How could any animal support him emotionally? He was miles past being a train wreck on any emotional level. And … as for his soul …
He looked around, saw a bench across the street, and carried the cases over, laid them on the seat, opened each. Both were crammed with file folders, flash drives, cell phones, and hard drives. Some of the papers were singed. Some were spattered with blood.
How the hell did he ever get them through customs?
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