The Savior's Game (The Daniel Byrne Trilogy Book 3)

by Sean Chercover

  “And by ‘they,’ you mean ‘they’ the plutocrats? You think a secret cabal of plutocrats conspired to assassinate Bob Marley?”

  “Well, duh,” said Pat. “Don’t you read history?”

  “How do you square this world view with working for the Foundation?” said Daniel.

  “It’s like what Jacob said in Liberia: There are no good guys in this game. There’s only bad guys, and less bad guys. I work with Carter Ames because he’s one of the less bad guys.”

  “Why play the game at all?” said Daniel.

  Anger flashed in Pat’s eyes. “Because, Mr. No More Collateral Damage, the game will be played with or without me, and somebody’s gonna win. Foundation sure as hell ain’t pure, but those authoritarian movements on the rise? They’re financed by the Council. Billions of dollars, dark money shifted ’round the globe, funneled to ultra-nationalists, fanatical religious groups, terrorist cells, you name it. And Conrad Winter’s parting gift to the world? He’s pushed the Middle East from manageable instability to utter chaos. Yemen, Syria, it’s all falling apart.”

  Pat took one last hit off the cigarette, ground it under a heel, and looked square at Daniel. “I told you not to join the game. I told you you wouldn’t like what you learned. But now that you know, how can you sit on the sidelines?”

  Dana Cameron’s warning flashed in Daniel’s mind. A devastated city, more than a thousand people dead, caused by him. He still had no idea where, or when, or how he would cause it, or how to stop it.

  He said, “I just don’t want any more blood on my hands.”

  Pat said, “You play the game right, you hurt some people, you get blood on your hands for true, but you help more people. Like Carter always says, it’s the math of the thing. But you don’t play the game at all, even more people get hurt because you wanna pretend you don’t know what you know so you can go on enjoying your privileged life. That don’t seem so morally pure to me.”

  They stood on the rooftop in silence for a minute.

  Then Daniel said, “Full marks for honesty, I’ll give you that.”

  Pat’s expression softened. “You’re my brother and I love you, whatever you do. Hell, I’ll even come to San Diego—which, for the record, is maybe the dumbest decision you’ve ever made—just to watch your back. Noah may not be able to see you, but every time we pass through an airport, every time we rent a car, we’re on camera. And Drapeau can tap into the surveillance web just like the Foundation can. We could use the Foundation’s resources, and the grudge you’re holding against Carter ain’t helping.”

  Daniel nodded. “I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, we won’t be flying into California. I booked us to Las Vegas. We’ll pick up guns there and drive to San Diego.”

  “That’s clever,” said Pat. “Just the kind of clever that’ll get you killed one of these days.”

  Daniel said, “Even if I went to Carter for help, how do you think that would play? I tell him Lucien Drapeau serves a malevolent demigod named Noah who rules a universe called Source, where people can spot-travel and manifest shit out of pure intention—a universe that’s fundamental to ours, maybe even creates ours. In fact, Source may be the only reality and Earth is just a dream we’re having. He’d have me locked up with Jay Eckinsburger.”

  “Nah, he wouldn’t. Look, your uncle thought God was talkin’ to him, right? That Blankenship kid in West Virginia thought he was possessed by Satan. Your baby-mama thought the CIA was beaming voices into her head with microwaves or whatever. They were all wrong; it was just their way of giving context to the flood of information from AIT. So Carter would take it as that, and try to tease out whatever it is AIT is telling you.”

  Daniel looked back to the gilded Saint Michael vanquishing Lucifer, after Lucifer decided he would no longer submit to the authority of God and tried to topple God from his throne.

  The work of men who strive to become gods.

  It was something the voice in Kara’s head had said when they were in Norway. At the time, it described the work the Council was doing in Liberia and South Carolina—creating a designer plague, trying to harness the power of AIT and use it for themselves. But didn’t it apply to Noah as well, trying to reshape Source in his own image and tolerating no dissent?

  Daniel looked at Pat, said, “Is that what you think? That these trips to Source are just my brain’s way of giving context to AIT?”

  Pat said, “I already told you. I actually think we are livin’ in a dream, just not a good one. Maybe Source is real, maybe not. But maybe Earth ain’t real, either. And what difference does it make? Like you said, brother, we all gotta surf the wave.”

  27

  San Diego’s waterfront sparkled under the midday sun. Daniel and Pat walked along the jetty outside the Marriott Marquis, pleasure boats lining docks in the marina to their left, the Pacific Ocean beyond. The place was alive with color and movement. Tourists with selfie sticks posing before palm trees, couples canoodling on park benches, tattooed dog walkers walking designer dogs, a septuagenarian hippie on roller skates skating lazy figure eights along the pier.

  Pat shot a look at the yellow roses clutched in Daniel’s hand. He said, “After you take out Drapeau and fix Noah’s wagon, you gonna be a doctor’s husband in San Diego?”

  “Could do,” said Daniel. “I hear there are sometimes job openings for doctors in Barbados, too.”

  “Dream big, my brother,” said Pat with a wide grin.

  As they crossed the park to the hotel entrance, Pat pulled a pack of gum from his pocket. “Not cinnamon, I promise. Minty fresh.”

  Daniel popped a piece from the pack. “Thanks.”

  The lobby was all modern air-conditioned luxury. Daniel and Pat walked through the reception area and past the open bar, navigating around business travelers and well-heeled tourists.

  Pat said, “You seem a little nervous,” as they reached the elevators.

  Daniel pressed the Up button. “I’m about to see the pregnant mother of my child and ask her to consider the possibility that we might raise that child together, maybe even spend the rest of our lives together. And then I’m gonna say, ‘But I can’t really hang around right now, because Bad Guys, so we’ll have to continue this conversation by voice-mail until I get shit sorted.’ How do you like my chances?”

  “Dude, you brought roses. Chicks dig that shit. ’Course, they shoulda been red, but—”

  “Wait,” said Daniel.

  “I’m kidding. The flowers are fine.”

  “No, something about this place is wrong.” Daniel looked past Pat, across the hall and into the open bar, and immediately saw what was wrong. “Guy at the end of the bar, red curly hair. Looks like a guy I saw in a photo with Drapeau—café in Barcelona.”

  “Looks like, or—?”

  “I’m not sure.” Daniel’s peripheral vision told him the redheaded man was now looking in their direction. “He’s looking.” The man stood quickly from his barstool and strode away, just shy of breaking into a jog. “He’s making tracks.” Behind Daniel, the elevator door opened.

  Pat said, “I’m on him. You get Kara,” and headed after the man.

  Daniel stepped into the elevator. A man in a suit started to get on with him. Daniel put his hand over his mouth, looked at the man, and said, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “I’ll get the next one.” The man backed out and the doors closed. Daniel tossed the flowers, pulled the pistol from his belt.

  The ride up gave him time to wonder if he’d overreacted. Millions of men have curly red hair, and it was the hair that had caught Daniel’s eye. He compared his memory of the man in the photo to his more recent memory of the man downstairs. Size and build were similar, but also average. Both had pale complexions, as do most people with that shade of hair. The photo had been taken from a different angle and the man had worn mirrored sunglasses, so comparing facial features was difficult. Not a lot else to go on. The man downstairs could very well just be a random redhead with a sud
den attack of the trots, in a hurry to get to the men’s room.

  And a pistol was decidedly less romantic than roses.

  Daniel glanced down at the flowers on the elevator floor, but he didn’t pick them up. The elevator pinged and the doors opened and a gloved fist slammed into Daniel’s mouth.

  A lead-filled leather sap glove, and the blow landed with professional force, snapping Daniel’s head back and splitting his lip. The world went dark for a second, while a kettledrum echoed around his skull. He felt himself stumble back but stayed on his feet. His vision returned blotchy and he pivoted to fire, but Lucien Drapeau was fast with his feet and kicked the gun from Daniel’s hand.

  The doors closed and the elevator started down and Daniel’s vision was still blurred, but now training and the will to survive took over. He managed to get hold of a wrist as a blade swung into view and he turned into Drapeau, pivoting, guiding him into orbit, locking the wrist past the point where it was designed to bend so the knife clattered to the floor. But Drapeau knew how to counter, pivoted, broke the wrist lock, and introduced a knee into Daniel’s kidney and a hammer fist to the neck that Daniel almost avoided.

  Daniel bounced off the back wall and the doors opened and Drapeau grabbed his arm and hauled, sending Daniel sprawling to the floor of the hotel lobby. People screamed and the elevator doors closed, taking Daniel’s gun.

  But instead of renewing his attack, Drapeau turned and ran, pinballing off several hotel guests on his way out the door.

  Daniel scrambled to his feet, spat blood on the floor, and gave chase, determined not to lose sight of the assassin. He had no doubt Pat would take care of the redheaded man.

  Drapeau sprinted through the little park, hurdled a bench, and turned north along the jetty. Daniel should’ve been slower—he’d sustained more damage in the fight—but rage was a powerful drug and this man had come after Kara and the baby growing inside her, and Daniel steadily closed the distance between them as the chase continued along the wharf, away from the hotel.

  Drapeau ran down a pier that jutted out from land and dead-ended twenty yards from shore. No other people on the pier. He hadn’t really been trying to get away, Daniel realized. He knew Daniel had sustained more damage, and neither had a weapon now, and he’d drawn Daniel here, away from the crowd.

  It didn’t matter.

  Daniel followed, entering the pier and slowing to a brisk walk, just as Drapeau reached the end. Drapeau stopped and turned to face Daniel.

  Daniel kept walking.

  Drapeau took off his jacket, draped it over a railing.

  Daniel kept walking.

  The assassin spread his arms to encompass the wide world. He said, “You know, all this? It’s just a dream. You’re about to die trying to protect a dream.”

  Daniel kept walking.

  Drapeau took a fighter’s stance, inviting Daniel’s approach. He said, “At least you’re gonna die in your sleep. Isn’t that what most people want, after all?”

  Daniel lunged and the other man sidestepped and kicked at his knee, but Daniel slipped it, got inside, and drove an elbow at the man’s sternum. Drapeau stepped back and regained his balance, then launched a kick that Daniel managed to parry. Then a hammer fist that made glancing contact with Daniel’s cheek.

  Drapeau was very good, but Daniel was good and angry, and got in a solid counterpunch before Drapeau pivoted and went for a throw. Daniel managed to grab fistfuls of the man’s shirt and went with the momentum. Both men tumbled off the pier and splashed into the ocean.

  The world became tiny swirling bubbles and salt water, the two men clawing and scratching just below the surface, kicking against the weight of sodden clothes and shoes, kicking at each other, but Drapeau had the advantage, and he grabbed a handful of Daniel’s hair and pushed him down, and the world dimmed but Daniel hung on, because if he was gonna die, this asshole was sure as hell gonna die with him.

  Daniel’s chest screamed for air and he fought against drawing water into his lungs, but he was slipping now, muscles starved of oxygen, losing strength, and—no more if—he knew he was going to die.

  The memory of being waterboarded in a hot cinderblock room in Monrovia flooded his mind, and then he remembered Kara’s joy at seeing him alive and he knew they could’ve had a happy life together if only Dana Cameron had been able to teach him enough to beat Noah, but Cameron was dead and now Daniel would die and Cameron was Digger and Digger had worn a T-shirt and the T-shirt had said—

  Wake Up!

  Daniel broke the surface, gulping air. He turned toward the shore to see Elias crawling up onto the beach and kneeling on the sand, coughing up water, the seaside town rising behind, white stucco and terra-cotta roofs bathed in golden, magic hour sunlight.

  Daniel stared up at Noah’s tower in the distance. He’d done it. He’d dragged them across to Source.

  The surf was calm, and Daniel was close enough to stand and wade the rest of the way in, hitting shore as Elias struggled to his feet and began backing away from him, stammering.

  “You—you—you . . .”

  “I woke us up,” said Daniel. “You should’ve left Kara alone.”

  “I didn’t hurt her, I swear. She didn’t even know I was in the hotel—I’m telling the truth. She’s probably still in her room. You—you can go see her.”

  “Oh, I will. But you’re never putting her in danger again.” Daniel let the rage build inside him, and he knew Elias could feel it, too, just as Daniel could feel the fear growing in the other man. “And you’re not gonna die in your sleep, Elias. You’re gonna die wide-awake.”

  Daniel focused all his anger, bearing down on it, directing it to the very place where Elias stood, and the sand began to shimmer and shine, and the sound of thunder rose from below.

  Elias held his hands out, palms forward. “No, no, Daniel, you don’t want to do this—you can’t—”

  On pure will and fury, Daniel opened the earth under Elias’s feet.

  The beach cleaved in two and Elias slipped screaming into a black pit and sand poured in after him, the earth consuming him, until his screams turned to silence and the sand settled and was once more a beach.

  When Daniel tried to draw a breath, it caught in his throat. Salt water rose from his lungs and erupted from his mouth, splashing onto the sand, and he remembered he was drowning under a pier in San Diego.

  He closed his eyes and thought back to the water.

  28

  Daniel let out the breath he was holding and filled his lungs again. He opened his eyes. He was not in the water. He was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Lying on the road.

  Had someone hauled him out of the ocean?

  He started to sit up but a stabbing pain in his side reminded him of the fight in the elevator, so he lay back and took inventory. He felt pretty beat up all over, and his left wrist was slightly sprained, but he decided nothing felt broken.

  He could hear a siren, blocks away. Maybe whoever hauled him out of the water had called for an ambulance. Then he heard another siren, from the other direction, and another, and a helicopter above, and then the low horn of a fire engine, and now police sirens in the distance, and at least two more helicopters—

  Daniel caught a flash-memory: just after he’d returned from Source, still in the water off the pier, still grasping handfuls of Drapeau’s shirt, Drapeau floating dead in front of him. Daniel had let go and Drapeau had drifted down as Daniel kicked his legs and broke the surface, gulping air. And when he looked up, he saw a massive wall of water closing in, lifting him up . . .

  He rose to sitting and looked down the street and tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Why was that car upside down? And the other turned over on its side? And palm trees lying across the street, and everything was wet, and power lines down, and windows smashed out of buildings—

  He got to his feet and limped along the road, stunned, struggling to take it all in, navigating around felled trees and smashed cars and overturned newsp
aper boxes, broken glass crunching underfoot, sirens everywhere—

  The sound of a baby crying—

  The sound of a woman groaning in pain—

  A man screaming—

  Another man calling out—

  “Harriet, for God’s sake, where did you go? Harriet!”

  People in shock, cradling broken arms, holding bloody faces, walking through the devastation, aimless, some in silent disbelief, others beyond hysterical.

  Daniel couldn’t process what he was seeing. He searched for the meaning of all this horror, but his mind was processing the input as a series of disjointed images without context and he felt disconnected, like he’d left a large chunk of his consciousness in Source.

  He supposed he was in shock, too.

  He kept on walking, trying to understand.

  There were bodies. Some sprawled in the street, some lying against the sides of buildings.

  Daniel stopped counting after ten.

  Some of the walking wounded were not silent or hysterical, but spoke with hollow, expressionless voices, exchanging with passing strangers what few details they’d learned from emergency workers.

  There’d been an extremely localized earthquake off the coast, generating a tsunami two stories high, a wall of water that slammed into the city. Over eight hundred already confirmed dead, tens of thousands as yet unaccounted for.

  I am in blood . . .

  Daniel stopped walking and tried to place the quote seeping up from memory. It seemed important.

  I am in blood . . .

  Shakespeare. It was from Macbeth.

  I am in blood . . .

  Daniel knew the play well, but he couldn’t remember the next line. He told himself it would come if he stopped thinking about it. He walked in the direction of the nearest sirens. The sirens would lead him to the nearest hospital, and that’s where he’d find Kara. She’d been far above the waterline; she would not have been injured. But she was a doctor, and in a public crisis she would do what good doctors do. She’d get to the nearest medical facility and lend a hand, just as she had in South Carolina.