“Well, fellows,” she said, coming over and shaking their hands, “welcome to the Pavilion.”
“Happy to be aboard, ma’am,” said Top.
“Yeah. This place looks tight,” agreed Bunny. “Love the layout. Done right.”
“Oh, we do our best,” said HK, “and I think you’ll be even more impressed once you see what we have under the hood.” She gave them a broad conspiratorial wink.
“Who’s your friend?” asked Top, nodding to the younger woman at her side.
The other woman was a slender blonde in her early twenties. Very fit, very pretty, but not at all nice to look at. There was a reptilian coldness in her eyes, and her lips were compressed into a tight red line. She wore camo pants, an olive drab T-shirt, no jewelry, and had a leg brace around her right knee. A Glock 19 was tucked into a low-slung holster, and she had a leather sheath strapped to her left leg from which the handles of three slim throwing knifes protruded. Her pale hair was pulled back into a ponytail so severe it looked painful. And although there were no lines at all on her face, there was an ancient glower in her eyes.
Top and Bunny had to fight to keep all reaction from their expressions. They knew her. They’d seen her in surveillance photos and videos.
“This,” said HK, “is Eve.”
Bunny offered his hand, but Eve stared at him as if he were doing something rude and inappropriate. He withdrew his hand without comment.
In his ear, Top heard Scott Wilson say a couple of very crude four-letter words. Then Doc Holliday said, “It’s a good thing our dear Outlaw can’t see this. He’d have a goldurn coronary.”
Top tapped his button.
“Eve is here overseeing one of our projects,” said HK, beaming with pride and good humor.
“Oh?” asked Top.
But HK did not elaborate. Eve stood beside her as if she’d been cut and pasted into the moment. She ignored the two big men and mostly ignored HK and instead seemed to look inward into her own thoughts. The energy she radiated was odd and unpleasant. She fidgeted, and her hand kept absently touching the handle of her pistol.
Bunny nudged his suitcase. “Is there someplace we can put this stuff? Maybe take a shower and get a hot meal?”
“Oh, of course,” said HK. “Where are my manners?”
She led them to one of the buildings used as a bunkhouse. Eve came with them but remained aloof and apart, not even bothering to look at either of them and clearly tuning HK out completely. They were put in a large, nicely appointed two-bedroom suite, with king beds, soaker tubs and showers, a small dinner table, a big couch, and a massive wide-screen TV.
“No cable out here,” she said, “but there are a few thousand DVDs in the rec hall. And if there’s something playing in the theaters you like, just ask and we can get a screener.”
“Cool,” said Bunny.
“Not that you’ll have much time for watching movies,” laughed HK. “We have a lot in store for you fellows.”
“Like what?”
“Drop your bags, and I’ll give you a quick taste before dinner. How’s that?”
“That,” said Bunny, “would rock.”
They went outside, found a golf cart, and HK drove the four of them to the far side of the compound—an area that proved much larger than they had first thought. There was a cluster of buildings that were actually linked to a larger central structure. Top noticed that Eve began to brighten and become more visibly focused as they entered the building. This, for whatever reason, was clearly important to her.
Once they went inside, Top and Bunny found out why.
Despite the rather mundane exterior and the rustic setting, the interior was at the bleeding edge of advanced technology. There were racks upon racks of combat exoskeletons, and unlike the stripped-down model Top glimpsed in Texas, these were complete, with structural armor to protect the drivers, belt-fed machine guns, rocket launchers, and other gadgetry that was so exotic Top didn’t know what it was.
“Pappy,” said a very excited Doc, “do a slow turn and let me see everything.”
There were dozens of the exosuits, each hung on a rack that approximated the dimensions of a person. And, Top saw, each rack was different, suggesting that these machines were designed to the specs of individual users. That was not good. Not at all.
Along another wall were racks of rifles and handguns, some of which were augmented with different kinds of high-end scopes, personalized trigger mechanisms, and variations on standard designs. On the opposite wall were racks of backpacks. Top recognized some as a new generation of flamethrower, but the others looked like they were built to deliver other payloads. Perhaps RPGs or other heavy explosives.
“Oh, lordy, lordy,” said Doc. “We are way up the brown smelly river, and not one of us has a paddle.”
No joke, thought Top.
This was not any kind of mercenary training camp. This was a base for staging an all-out war.
Staging, and maybe winning it.
Beside him, Eve was smiling like a little kid on Christmas morning.
CHAPTER 63
THE DARKNESS
I came back to myself.
Slowly.
As if from a far-off place.
No, not as if. No. That’s wrong. I came back from a far place, no doubt.
Very goddamned far.
One minute, I was lost inside the darkness, inside my broken head.
Then I was sitting with my back to a wall.
Covered in mud.
Blood everywhere. On my hands, on my clothes, in my hair, in my mouth. I looked over at Ghost, and he was soaked with it, too. I had to look for a long time to assure myself he was breathing. Then he twitched and whined softly, the way he does when he’s dreaming of pain.
I turned and spat my mouth clear and kept spitting until the spit had no lingering traces of pink. My knuckles were torn, and I had aches in places I couldn’t connect with incidents that might have caused damage.
Blood smells like copper and tastes salty. It tastes wrong. I’ve walked through lakes of it since joining up with Church’s goddamned crusade, before enlisting in this endless damned war. Professionally, I was indifferent to the smell and the sight of it. Personally, though?
I’d never enjoyed spilling it, touching it, smelling it, or tasting it.
Until recently.
A shiver chopped its way through me.
I wondered if this was how vampires were born. Not from a bite or a curse but out of some maniacal need to assure oneself of complete domination over the enemy to the point where the blood in their veins is the wine of victory.
Was I becoming that kind of monster?
I was bathed in blood. I knew that I’d swallowed some—there was that nausea in the stomach you get from nosebleeds, when you swallow your own blood against your will. I’d swallowed it … why? I couldn’t remember. Was it an accident of being in physical line with the hydrostatic release of an artery I’d opened with bullet or blade? Or had I gone even deeper into the arms of the Darkness and actually drunk it? Was it some kind of ritual undertaken by my deepest need for revenge—to not only end the lives of my enemies but devour their essence and by doing so tie their damnation to my own?
I closed my eyes for a moment and tried to convince myself that there was still more of me in here than there was that new aspect. It was another round in a fight that’d begun in that basement lab in Croatia.
The room around me was unfamiliar. An office in a building somewhere. I did not at that moment know where. Not the building, not the town, not the country. My memories of the last several weeks were in my head, but there were chains looped through the door handles and big shiny locks. I kept telling myself that it was a good thing that I lacked a key and could not remove those chains and open those doors until this was done. Until it was Santoro’s blood boiling in the pit of my stomach. His and Kuga’s.
But that was a lie. I’d put those chains there, I clicked the padlocks into place, and somewhe
re in my fractured soul, I had the key.
CHAPTER 64
TWILIGHT
I wandered through the building.
It was a laboratory. And that poked a stick into a beehive of memories. But it wasn’t until I found a desk with preprinted envelopes that I realized where I was. Van Dijk Biomechanica in Rotterdam.
I stumbled around until I found a bathroom and stood looking at myself in the mirror. If someone had used a hose and sprayed me with red paint, that’s how I’d look. Except this wasn’t paint.
There was a sound, and I turned to see Ghost standing behind me. Nearly as soaked as I was. His eyes were wild, and he bared his teeth.
At me.
Flash images of things we had both done exploded in my mind.
“Ghost,” I said, and my voice was not my own.
I staggered to the sink, turned on the spigot, and washed my face and then my mouth, gargled with the water, spat it out, did it again, and again. Then I drank handfuls of it.
I turned back to my dog. He’d inched closer, and the primal wolf still glared out at me from his eyes.
“Ghost,” I said again. This time, I recognized my own voice.
So did he.
Ghost rushed at me, whining piteously, jumping up, pushing me back against the wall, pushing his head at my hand, needing me to pet him. Needing me to be me.
I sank down onto the floor and pulled him close. He kept licking my face. The only part of me not painted with blood.
“It’s okay,” I said softly, kissing his head over and over again. “It’s okay.”
I’d lied to him so many times before, so many times recently. Right now, though, I felt as if I meant it. I hoped it was true.
CHAPTER 65
THE PAVILION
BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER
STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON
Top and Bunny sat with a dozen other new recruits and watched something straight out of a science fiction movie. It was no comfort at all that the two of them had seen earlier prototypes of the exoskeleton tech. Rather the reverse, because most of what they’d known coming into this was the pervasive belief that this level of sophistication was five to ten years down the road.
Not right now.
And not rolling out with a major nation’s flag stenciled on the hood. This was true radical combat science. Top wished he could actually have a conversation with Bunny, and another with Wilson and Church. Doc, too. And the content of that conversation would likely include calling in an air strike.
One end of the hall was clear of all spectators and was set up as a target range. Though it was an odd one. There were targets of various sizes, each done as a cutout of people—singly and in groups, and vehicles ranging from police cars to armored personnel carriers and even a tank. All fashioned from metal and wood, but with stacks of lumber and cinder blocks behind them to give the targets resistance. There were also a few dozen pepper-poppers—metal silhouettes lying on the floor but attached to high-tension springs that would cause them to stand up very quickly. From where he was sitting, Top couldn’t quite make out what the pepper-poppers were intended to represent. As for the standing targets, most were stationary, but several were on wheeled platforms that were in turn attached to a complex pulley system rigged at floor level. A small group of technicians with laptops sat off to one side, close to the targets but behind thick bulletproof polymer shields.
In all, Top counted 18 vehicles and 110 simulated human targets.
Very pretty young women, all wearing abbreviated versions of Pavilion uniforms that showed off long legs, deep cleavage, and muscular rumps, walked around the room handing out gun-range ear defenders. Top accepted one from a woman young enough to be his daughter. Her smile was bright, but there was a glazed, drugged look in her eyes. She also had a lot of makeup caked on her cheek beneath one eye, and Top thought it might be hiding a bruise.
HK walked out onto the training floor. She wore a wire mic headset and beamed a great smile, clearly as happy about all this as was Eve. For her part, the younger woman sat on a nicely padded chair—one of a pair—someone had brought in for her. The other chair was empty.
The rest of the hall was crammed with more seasoned trainees as well as forty or more Fixers in full Pavilion uniforms. Everyone was armed except the people in the bleachers with Top and Bunny. Excitement rippled through the packed house, and Top saw some of the spectators grinning and nudging one another. Apparently, they knew what was coming and were totally into the moment.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said HK, affecting the big voice and grand gestures of a circus ringmaster. “Welcome to another edition of Blue Diamond Battle Zone.”
It was meant as some kind of inside joke, and it got the expected laugh from the regulars. Eve clapped her hands and stamped her feet on the mat.
“Oh boy,” said Bunny under his breath. “This is going to get weird.”
“Hush now, Farm Boy,” murmured Top.
“We have a full house today,” continued HK. “That’s marvelous. So many of you have been with Blue Diamond since it was acquired by our new benefactors.”
She didn’t give a name, but Top didn’t need one. Everything about this was on a grand scale, and with massive money and tech savvy behind it. Kuga’s name might as well have been in neon lights at the gate. And Top’s heart sank at the thought that this was just one camp. Were there others? Here and elsewhere around the world? If so … how many and where?
“And we have some new members to the Blue Diamond family,” said HK. “Come on, boys and girls, stand up so everyone can give you a proper hello.”
She waved in the direction of the new recruits, and after a moment’s surprised hesitation, the people in Top’s section got to their feet amid thunderous applause. Top felt like a fool, and he felt incredibly exposed. Bunny, for his part, played to the crowd and raised both hands over his head, making the heavy metal horns hand sign and sticking his tongue out like Gene Simmons from Kiss. That amped the applause up a notch, and the other recruits turned and held fists out for Bunny to bump.
When they were all seated again, Top leaned toward Bunny to say something, but the big young man cut him off.
“Don’t even, old man.”
HK pulled the audience’s attention back to her.
“As most of you know,” she said, “we’re ticking down to game time—”
Applause drowned her out for a moment.
“—and that means we are going to light things up like nobody’s ever seen.”
More applause. Actual screams and yells.
HK held up her hand, and the room settled.
“For those of you who haven’t yet seen the K-110s in action, you are in for a real treat.”
“K-110?” asked Bunny, but Top shook his head. They both got their answer a moment later. There was a soft whine of hydraulics, and everyone turned to see one of the exosuits come walking out onto the floor. It had an oddly mincing and delicate gait, almost like the velociraptors from Jurassic Park. But it moved quickly, with only the slightest perceptible lag between the leg movements of the driver and the servo reactions that made the legs move.
The exoskeleton—clearly a K-110, and probably named for Kuga—stepped out onto the floor and turned in a slow, complete circle, allowing everyone to see how well protected the driver was and how fully loaded was the machine itself. Then the K-110 turned another 180 degrees so that it was facing away from the targets. The driver hit a button, and the internal motors immediately powered down, rendering the suit inert.
Immediately, six Fixers wearing a kind of body armor Top had only seen in DARPA reports trotted out onto the floor. They were heavily armed with rifles, handguns, and grenade launchers. The people seated nearest to the K-110 became restive and started to shift away, but HK held up her hand.
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she said, patting the air placatingly. “Have a little faith that we didn’t bring you all here to kill you.”
Tha
t got a laugh from everyone except those at the wrong end of the room. But then the soldiers trotted toward the K-110 and formed two tight lines behind the exosuit’s bulk, the way soldiers did when going into battle on foot behind a tank.
“Everyone take your seats, please,” HK called, and when the crowd was settled, she once more raised a hand. “Danny, give me twenty seconds on the clock.”
A large digital clock flared to life over where Eve sat. Twenty seconds.
“Wonder how many it’ll get,” mused Bunny. “I’ve got a five-spot that says he gets a full third of them.”
HK stepped off the floor and, in a voice filled with joy, yelled, “Let the games begin!”
What happened next was not a game at all.
It was a horror show.
CHAPTER 66
DAWN’S EARLY LIGHT
It took me a long time to get cleaned up. There was a shower adjacent to one of the hot rooms where dangerous biological items were kept. I stripped naked and washed my body until my skin was raw, and washed Ghost until he was a white dog again. The idiot dog liked it. Kept wagging his tail.
Then I had to find clothes.
The only choices were between a dead security guard and a scientist. The scientist’s pants fit; the guard’s shirt almost fit. I covered it with a white lab coat from a closet. My shoes were leather, and they rinsed clean enough.
I put my weapons and equipment into a gym bag and the data files I’d stolen into a briefcase. Wearing dead men’s clothes, I left the building. On the way out, a man crawled out of a side room on his hands and knees, his clothes stinking of urine and feces. He saw me and screamed, then scuttled back into the room.
I fished for his name. De Vries.
A sudden crushing desire to kill him punched its way through me. The Darkness did not want to let go. Ghost began barking furiously, and I forced myself to turn away and continue making my way toward the front door. The Darkness faded. Maybe for once it was glutted. Or maybe the spell was broken. I didn’t know and was afraid to even think too much about it.
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