Relentless

by Jonathan Maberry

  “It is.”

  “Bullshit,” I said. “I’ve been in the field for years. Never saw you line up to enlist.”

  Toys sipped his wine, then shrugged. “Does it really matter?”

  I sipped some beer. “No.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  Ghost finished his sausages and gave a contented sigh. But his eyes were constantly drifting between me and the bathroom and back again.

  Toys cleared his throat. “So, do we talk about the elephant in the room?”

  “No,” I said, “we don’t. The last thing I ever plan on doing is to have a heart-to-heart with you.”

  “Heaven forfend,” he said. “But I was referring to what you’re doing, not why or how.” He finished his glass and set it down. “Look, Ledger, I truly don’t give a tinker’s damn about you. I mean that from the heart.”

  “Thanks. The feeling is deeply mutual.”

  “However,” he continued, “you’re out here shaking the pillars of heaven. You think you’re damaging the Kuga operation? Come on. You could kill fifty of their scientists and they’ll hire a hundred more. This is a war you can’t really win.”

  “Maybe it’s not about winning,” I said. “Ever consider that?”

  “Yes, I have,” he said. “And you almost certainly think it’s about revenge. About payback, but here’s the simple truth—you can’t destroy Kuga’s empire. His network is too big, and by all indications, it’s largely self-sufficient. I truly believe that even if you literally cut the man’s head off, the organization would keep running for years, maybe decades. Any power vacuum you create will be filled, and the machinery of international black marketeering will continue. Because it isn’t based on any ideology that could go in or out of popularity with a regime or party change; the nature of what he does remains stable. He’s not philosophical and, god knows, not religious. Neither he nor Santoro are any species of zealot. They are businessmen, no different in substance from Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, Big Oil, or the gun lobby. They will always remain as global constants, and nothing you, Church, or anyone can do will stop that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Sure, let’s see. And in the meantime, you’re pissing them off without crippling their operations or even slowing them down.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do, actually,” said Toys. “I have plenty of contacts among the people who play this game for a living. I won’t call them friends, but they are former business acquaintances of the Seven Kings and Sebastian Gault. People who are never named in news stories and who continue to do business even when the countries they live in are at war with someone else. Business does not stop. Ever.”

  I drank my beer and tried not to believe what he was saying.

  “This isn’t just about doing damage,” I said.

  “Then what is it? No, let me guess … you’re trying to be such an irritant that Kuga will send Santoro out to swat you, and that will give you a chance to kill him. What’s that make it? Third time between you two?”

  I said nothing.

  “Even if you kill that evil little Spanish prick, so what? It’s not going to bring your family back.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “It won’t.” Toys leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “But it might make you lose the family you still have.”

  That hurt. That one went all the way to the bone.

  When I didn’t say anything, Toys leaned back, took the bottle from the cooler, and poured himself another glass.

  “We don’t like each other,” he said, “but we have more things in common than you believe.”

  “Apart from the fact that we both love Junie?”

  “Apart from the fact that, despite better judgment, she loves us?” He smiled and shook his head. “No. Not that.”

  “Then what?”

  “Darkness,” he said.

  INTERLUDE 13

  THE PAVILION

  BLUE DIAMOND ELITE TRAINING CENTER

  STEVENS COUNTY, WASHINGTON

  TWO MONTHS AGO

  Eve sat on the sixth level of a set of bleachers, watching as the twelve Fixers known as the Righteous went through a knife drill. They wore the latest generation of spider-silk and graphene body armor, which allowed them to duel with sharpened knives. The armor was only vulnerable to cuts and stabs where it was necessarily thinner at the inside of the elbows and knees, undersides of the upper arms and armpits, and the neck. There was no real way to protect areas of flexibility from any kind of weapon. But they had also been trained to move and change angles to reduce the likelihood of injuries to those spots.

  Santoro watched with a keen eye, lips pursed, fingers steepled together over his heart. He had not said a word in nearly forty minutes, and Eve was beginning to get nervous. Her fingers were knotted together on her lap and squirmed like a cluster of snakes.

  Then a bell rang and the partners stopped, exchanged forearm bumps, and sheathed their weapons. Spiro—known now as Cain—barked an order, and the twelve lined up and stood at parade rest. Sweat ran down their faces, but they were not breathing hard. Not as badly as they had when this phase of training began. Eve was a brutal taskmaster, but she also made sure they were properly fed, got all their shots, and received massage and physical therapy. The Righteous had been in great shape to begin with, but now they were incredibly lean, tough, healthy, and powerful.

  Santoro sat back and was silent for a few moments.

  Then he placed his hand atop hers.

  “You have done excellent work here, my daughter,” he said. And kissed her on the cheek. “No father has ever been prouder of a daughter than I am of you.”

  Eve buried her head against his chest and began to sob.

  CHAPTER 76

  THE SLAAK ROTTERDAM

  ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

  Michael Augustus Stafford checked into his hotel, carried his own bags up, and locked himself into his room. He immediately opened his laptop and contacted Dingo, the head of Kuga’s computer team.

  “Tell me you have something for me,” he said as soon as Dingo answered.

  “Maybe,” said Dingo, who began the answer to every question that way.

  Stafford had to control his temper, but even so, his words came out tight. “Please be specific.”

  “There are four possibilities,” said Dingo. “There were six, but I eliminated one because I hacked the hotel’s lobby cameras and the dog was the wrong size. And the other got cut because the hotel wasn’t big enough. You said only big hotels, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of the remaining four, I could only get into one lobby cam, and the dog’s about the right sight but the coloring’s off. Don’t know a thing about the other dogs.”

  “Give me the four names.”

  Dingo provided the names. Stafford considered them and said, “Eliminate the Hotel New York.”

  “Sure, but why?”

  “Says he’s from America. Ledger would never be that obvious.”

  “Maybe he’s being just that clever,” suggested Dingo.

  “No. Cut him from the list. I’ll check the other three.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you run deep background on those three men?”

  “Maybe.”

  Stafford hung up on him.

  CHAPTER 77

  ROTTERDAM MARRIOTT HOTEL

  ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

  I sat very still.

  “Touched a nerve, have I?” asked Toys.

  “You’re about to touch the pavement when I throw you out the damned window.”

  “I’ll pencil in two minutes next week to be afraid,” he said. “Look, mate, I’m not here for a male bonding exercise, and this isn’t bloody group therapy. I think Church let me come looking for you because I know more about personal darkness than you do.”

  “You think so?”

  “I effing well know so. Seriously, you want to match sins with me? I was a fucking criminal, a terro
rist, and a murderer.” He paused. “Am a murderer. That didn’t change with my job description. And, sure, you went all American Psycho on those lab techs in Croatia, but as far as I’m concerned, boo-fucking-hoo. You did some damage in South Africa and in Italy. Cry me a river. You killed a bunch of right bastards. Sure, without mercy and maybe with a grin and a hard-on. Who knows and who cares? If we’re measuring guilt, then my dick is way bigger than yours.”

  “This conversation is surreal,” I said.

  “I’m just getting warmed up.”

  “No,” I said, “you’re not. You’re done. We’re not having this conversation. Not now or ever. We are not friends, Toys. If you want to be the bigger Big Bad, fine. Enjoy. Sins are relative, and mine are … are…”

  I actually could not finish my sentence because I could feel—literally feel—the Darkness rising inside me. It was like bile and vomit and sickness taking form inside me. If I were a more religious person, I’d think I was possessed. And maybe I was. Whatever it was, there was nothing natural about it.

  And I think Toys caught a glimpse of it. Maybe it was a look in my eyes, maybe it was something else. Junie said he was empathic. It’s possible she was right.

  We drank.

  Ghost got up and went over to stare into the bathroom. I heard a low growl, but then he came back, hopped onto the bed, and fell asleep beside me.

  “Well, then,” Toys said, “let’s shift the conversation, shall we?”

  “Gladly.”

  “Have you found anything that’s of actual use?”

  I had to think about that for a couple of minutes. Partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to trust him. Partly—or maybe mostly—because I was just coming back to myself, and could I trust that? Was this a lull between my own psychological storms, or the falsely calm eye in the hurricane that was the Darkness? My gut told me that I was in no way on solid ground. The Darkness had taken hold on me for weeks. Why should I have any faith that it was simply letting me go? It’s not like there was a breaking point where it lost its hold or I broke free.

  Frankly, I don’t know why I came out of it as far as I had.

  “How do I know you’re not gaming me here, Toys?” I asked. “How do I know that you’re here with the blessing of Mr. Church?”

  He studied the golden depths of his wine. “You could call him.”

  I shook my head.

  Toys sighed, set his glass down, took out his wallet, and removed a black metal American Express Centurion Card, looked at it for a moment, and then flipped it at me. I got a hand up in time to catch it.

  The card was in the name of George Harold Sisler. It almost made me smile. Gorgeous George Sisler was one of the all-time greatest baseball players. Started out in 1915 with the Saint Louis Browns—the team that became the Baltimore Orioles—and retired in 1930 from the Boston Braves. During his career, he established a .340 lifetime batting average over those sixteen years in the majors, stole 375 bases, and had 200-plus hits in six seasons. My grandpa had Sisler’s 1921 baseball card, which he handed down to my dad, and my dad to me. It was in my office at Phoenix House, along with framed cards of Rafael Palmeiro, Davey Johnson, Cal Ripken, Mike Mussina, Roberto Alomar, and others.

  “Put your thumb on the centurion,” suggested Toys.

  AmEx cards have a picture of a Roman soldier on them. Very lantern-jawed and stalwart. I placed my thumb carefully over the image and watched as the card changed color from black to black and orange. The Orioles team colors. When I turned the card over, I saw that the standard credit card text was gone, replaced by a single word written in what was Church’s distinctive flowing hand.

  FAMILY

  I grunted and put the card on the table.

  It was a design cooked up by Doc Holliday and not yet in use by any RTI field team. The message could only be read by the person whose thumbprint was encoded, and even then, only if the thumb was warm and had a pulse. None of that cutting off someone’s thumb and using it or making a latex cast of a stolen print.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  We looked at each other.

  “And this is the part where you start telling me utterly fascinating things,” said Toys dryly.

  “Okay, sparky,” I said. “Buckle up.”

  CHAPTER 78

  THE PLAYROOM

  UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

  NEAR VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA

  Kuga walked through the rooms of his mansion, and the look on his face drove his servants into hiding and made his Fixers snap to attention and avoid eye contact.

  He went into his study and slammed the door. Then stood glaring at it for fifteen seconds before he opened it and closed it again, softly this time.

  The place was very quiet. No women at the pool. No Santoro—he was down in Texas. No one of enough seniority to open up to. He went over to the wet bar and mixed a tall whiskey and soda, not caring that it was a moral crime to use forty-year-old scotch in any kind of mixed drink. Kuga drank half of it, added more whiskey, and slouched into a leather chair.

  His phone rang, startling him, and when he saw who was calling, it gave him two seconds of apprehension, then it made him smile. He punched the button.

  “Sunday,” he said.

  “Mr. Kuga,” said the salesman. “How are you doing? Or should I guess? None of my agents have reported finding Joe Ledger’s head on a pike, so I can imagine how frustrated you must be.”

  Spooky son of a bitch, thought Kuga, though he didn’t dare say it out loud.

  “No,” he said.

  “And your man Stafford?”

  “Just got off the phone with him. He says he’s getting close.”

  “What’s that old expression? Close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades.”

  “Yeah, yeah. What’s happening with plan B? You had me get that stuff from Oslo—Ledger’s hair and blood samples from the evidence lockup. I drop a shit ton of money on that because you promised me you could spin some kind of voodoo bullshit, but all I see is him charging around smashing up my labs, killing my people—very goddamned important people, I might add. You know what I’m not seeing? I’m not seeing any reports about Ledger going psycho and shooting up a school or tossing grenades into a crowded restaurant. You know what else I’m not seeing? Ledger either in handcuffs or on the news because he blew his damned brains out. I’m not seeing that shit at all.”

  “Give it time,” said Mr. Sunday.

  “Yeah, well, fuck you with ‘give it time.’ He’s endangering the goddamned American Operation.”

  “Which, I am reliably informed, is going well. There is not a flicker of talk about it on the net. And clearly no one in the States knows or the whole event would have been canceled. Take a moment and pay attention to the fact that you are doing this very, very well.”

  “And you’re changing the subject to hide the fact that you either fucked up or lied about being able to do this.”

  There was a soft chuckle at the other end of the call.

  “What the hell is so freaking funny?”

  “You are, my young friend. You really don’t appreciate the way in which this world is wired, do you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, nothing,” said Sunday airily. “Just more of my—what did you call it? Voodoo bullshit, I believe. Adorable.”

  “Stop being so cryptic, and stop being a smart-ass,” growled Kuga. “I’m trying to run a business here, and you are jerking me off. How do I know what you’re doing isn’t making things worse?”

  “You don’t.”

  “I want Ledger out of the equation, and I want to know for certain the American thing is not on Church’s radar.”

  “Did I say you weren’t?” Sunday snorted. “You’ll always be on his radar. He probably has toilet paper with your face on it. And if he ever catches you again, he won’t send you back to prison. No, my boy, he’ll personally cut your throat—Santoro’s, too—and piss
on your graves.”

  “Well, gosh … thanks for the cheer-up call. Really made my day.”

  “Hush now,” said Sunday soothingly. “No, what I said was that it is apparent that he is unaware of the G-55 matter. And there is almost no time left even if they do find out.”

  Kuga chewed on that for a moment. “From your lips to … well, to whoever’s ears,” he said grudgingly.

  Sunday got a big laugh out of that. Kuga sipped his drink.

  “Don’t give yourself an ulcer,” said Sunday after a moment. “I told you that I was playing my own game on Ledger, and I am.”

  “How? You don’t even know where he is.”

  “I don’t need to know,” said Mr. Sunday.

  And the line went dead.

  On impulse, Kuga decided to call him back, but just sat there staring at his phone. There was no record at all of any recent calls from Mr. Sunday.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, and when he lifted his drink to his lips, his hand shook so badly that some of it spilled on his shirt.

  CHAPTER 79

  BILDERBERG PARKHOTEL

  ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS

  Stafford went to a quiet corner of the lobby and called Dingo.

  “Checked the guy here,” he said. “It’s a no go on the first one. Have you gotten anywhere with the background checks on the other two?”

  “Maybe.”

  “For god’s sake, Dingo…”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay. Both of the other guys look good. Hilton and Marriott. Both have emotional support dogs rather than seeing eye.”

  “And…?”

  “The guy at the Marriott has a good Facebook page, and it looks legit. Definitely not Ledger in all the pics.”

  “That can be faked.”

  “Sure, but there’s a lot of them, going back like eleven years. The time it would take to build all that phony history … man, that’s weeks of Photoshop alone.”