“As soon as you’re all in position,” he said, “I’ve sent the cleanup code, but we haven’t got confirmations from all the devices. There’s a chance that the quake might have damaged some or buried them under so much debris that the signal can’t get through. I want each of you to go through your sectors, locate those devices, and either detonate them from a safe distance, or if that doesn’t work, then transmit the deactivation code and retrieve the faulty device. Bring any remaining devices back here.” He paused. “If you are cornered or caught, you know what you have to do.”
They nodded. All of them wore leather motorcycle jackets that were laced with special explosive compounds. No one was to be taken alive. Even Valen and Ari had identical jackets.
“If all of your devices are clear, then follow your orders. Park your bikes, place the jackets over the gas tank, and once you’re at a safe distance and are sure you’re not being observed, activate the detonation sequence. After that, go back into the crowds near any crisis site. Be visible. Make sure you’re seen helping friends and neighbors. Volunteer at shelters.”
They nodded. None of them asked a question or made a comment as they turned to file out.
“Christ on the cross,” said Ari once they all left. “Remind me never to play poker with those sons of bitches. You can’t read a thing on their faces. Worse than freaking robots.”
“They’re soldiers,” said Valen weakly.
Ari answered that with a derisive snort. “They better do their damn jobs,” he groused. Since getting back from the restaurant, Ari had become increasingly moody and uneasy. Visibly nervous.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Valen.
Ari flinched at the question and even shivered. “Oh, hell … I don’t know, brother. I think we should cut and run, you know? We did our bit. Hell, they said on the news that the president was nearly crushed to death in the Oval Office. Kind of a shame if he was. I love that motherfucker.” He went to the window and looked out as if expecting to see a squad of Secret Service agents about to storm the hotel. “I want to get the hell out of here.”
“So do I,” said Valen, and for a moment they studied each other. A whole conversation seemed to be taking place without words.
“We had a run of good cards,” said Ari, “but luck doesn’t always hold.”
A good run of cards. That made Valen think about sitting aboard the Suicide Kings offshore from where everyone they worked with lay dead. Murdered, or by their own hands. All because of them. Because of their “good luck.”
Aloud he said, “We have to oversee the cleanup.”
“Let those robots do it.” He went over to the bed and picked up his motorcycle jacket. “We’re the executive level. Why are we putting our asses on the line like this?”
“Because those are all the agents Gadyuka had in the area,” said Valen. “And because I told her we’d oversee the cleanup.”
Ari shook his head. “You really have been drinking the Kool-Aid, haven’t you? Are you really that willing to die for the cause?”
Valen shook his head and took the jacket from Ari. He opened it and showed him the lining. “I deactivated the switches and removed the thermite. Unless you blow yourself up trying to retrieve a broken machine, you’ll be fine.” He handed the jacket back to Ari.
“Well,” said the Greek, a slow smile forming on his face, “it’s nice to know that you’re not completely out of your mind.”
Valen turned away and began changing his clothes. He did not reply to Ari’s comments. He’d told enough lies already.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
ON THE ROAD
WASHINGTON, D.C.
I tried to take Aunt Sallie to a local hospital, but everything was crowded. Even though she was critical, there was a flood of others with massive wounds from the earthquake or from fighting. I could have pulled rank, flashed credentials, and gotten her a bed ahead of a mutilated five-year-old girl, or a pregnant woman who was in danger of losing her baby and her life, or …
Well, you get it. And Calpurnia estimated the quickest triage and treatment time, based on the hundreds being brought in to all ERs, was two hours and sixteen minutes. So, I made a judgment call and prayed Aunt Sallie and Mr. Church would understand.
“Calpurnia,” I yelled, “what is the closest hospital that can handle a stroke victim?”
“Johns Hopkins University Hospital.”
My heart sank. That was in Baltimore. It was a hundred miles away.
“What are my chances of getting Aunt Sallie there in time?”
“I’m monitoring her vitals, Cowboy,” said the computer. “She has a forty-six percent chance of survival if you leave now.”
“Shit.”
“She has a twenty-one percent chance if you take her to a local hospital under the current conditions.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” I said, and punched the steering wheel. “Plot me the best route.”
I threw the car into gear and hit the gas.
“Route is computed,” said the AI. “I will adjust streetlights as we go to allow for maximum posted road speed.”
I did not drive at the maximum posted road speed. By the time I was on the highway I was punching along at 140.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Doctors were waiting with a gurney before I had the engine off. Calpurnia made all the right calls, and the right specialists were on deck. Maybe Church had been on the phone, too. It would be like him.
I handed Auntie off to the experts and told them what I could and explained that my vehicle had an onboard medical triage system and that all details were being uploaded to the Johns Hopkins servers. That got me some strange looks, but the doctors and nurses there are too professional to blink, and they are always out on the cutting edge of technology, so they accepted it and thanked me and took her away. She was still alive.
Still alive.
My back suddenly flared, and I canted sideways against the intake nurse’s desk, hissing with pain. Ghost gave a single bark of alarm.
“Sir,” said the nurse sharply, “are you hurt?”
It took a lot of effort not to yap at her like a cranky shih tzu. Five or six different caustic expressions warred to be the first one out of my mouth.
“I’m fine,” I said in a voice that sounded so false that it was like bad comedy. “Just lost my balance.”
Her wise eyes scanned me but then read something in my expression and did not pursue. Instead she nodded toward Ghost. “Is he the patient’s service dog?”
“No,” I said through gritted teeth as I pulled an ID wallet out of my pocket and showed her a badge. “I’m with the Department of Homeland Security and he’s my dog.”
Despite the badge she looked skeptical, but her phone rang before she could say anything. She answered, listened for almost fifteen seconds, then frowned and looked at me again.
“Are you Captain Ledger?”
“Yes. Why?”
The nurse held out the phone. “It’s for you.”
I took the receiver, expecting it to be Bug, but it was Church.
“Captain,” he said, “this will be quick. First, thank you for getting Auntie to the hospital. I have specialists on the way.”
“I figured.”
“Right now, though, I need you back in the field. I know you’re injured, but we are resource poor. Can you manage it?”
“Yes,” I said without even asking what it was first.
“Something is happening back in D.C.,” he said. “A series of small but unusual explosions. We’ve been tracking them via drones and by hacking into feeds from news helicopters and other aerial surveillance. No one else has pegged them as anything more than additional damage from ruptured gas lines or other damage related to the earthquake.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“Nikki has been running pattern recognition on them and she’s seeing a clear pattern. The expl
osions have been occurring in a wide ring around the Capitol. Too perfect a circle around the epicenter of the quake. Police and firefighters are too badly stretched to be able to check it out. And Sam has virtually emptied the Warehouse. Everyone down to the janitorial staff is on the streets helping with the rescue operations. I’ve sent him in, too, because there are curious gaps in the ring of blasts. It may be that the devices, whatever they are, have been disrupted by the quake. Some may have misfired.”
“What do you need from me?”
“Go back to D.C. Sam can’t check out all of the unexploded bombs, if they are indeed bombs, and if they are there at all. We can give you probable locations of two of them. Sam is checking out three others. If these things are somehow tied to what’s happened—either the earthquakes themselves or the violent behavior of the people, then we need to identify what kind of technology this is. My guess is that they are involved and the explosions are part of a post-event cleanup. We don’t want a clean sweep. All of the details will be sent to Calpurnia. Go.”
“I’m gone,” I said, and ran for my car. As best I could, with Ghost having to slow down to keep from outrunning me.
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
DRIVING IN MARYLAND
When I got to the car there was a pigeon drone sitting on the hood. It had a small package attached to its metal legs that, once opened, proved to be a new earbud kit, complete with booster pack. A gift from Sam. Nice. I put it on.
I let Calpurnia do some of the driving while I dug out the first-aid kit and shot myself up with enough painkillers to keep me from crying like a newborn, but not so much that I fell asleep at the wheel.
Ghost gave me a subtle whuff, reminding me that, why yes—food would be most appreciated. I had nothing. He sat there looking wistfully out the window as we passed McDonald’s and Burger King.
Calpurnia is a learning computer, so she adjusted her driving to the way I’d driven from D.C. Meaning, she became reckless and drove too fast. I thoroughly approved.
En route, I caught up on the intel about Washington, D.C. The miles melted past and yet somehow it felt as if I wasn’t traveling fast enough. When I looked out at the cars on either side of the road, they seemed to be traveling from normal places to normal places as if the world wasn’t falling apart. How is that even possible? I’ve seen it in a thousand places around the world. People going through a Starbucks drive-through half a block from a fatal shooting. Happy kids on swings in a playground near where Echo Team had stopped drones filled with weaponized Ebola. A couple old guys playing chess in the park half an hour after EMTs took a stabbing victim away. There is a reset that happens, and I suppose it needs to happen. When something horrible happens, it really physically only happens in that spot; the rest of the world still turns, still goes on with its day.
Along the way I got a briefing. When you’re not driving, the inside of the windshield turns into a computer monitor with an intense high-def 3-D screen. The first face to pop up was that of Doc Holliday.
Doc also brings with her some geeky-cool heritage. She is the great-granddaughter of the actual John Henry “Doc” Holliday, the noted gunslinger, dentist, and gambler who accompanied the Earp brothers to the shootout at the O.K. Corral. Apparently, the historical Doc Holliday had an affair with Mary Katherine Horony-Cummings, a prostitute known as Big Nose Kate.
Doc’s a character. She is the actual definition of larger than life. She’s a six-foot-one-inch natural blond—I think—whose raw energy and obvious intelligence dominate nearly any room into which she strides. She doesn’t walk—she strides. Doc walks forward with such purpose and confidence that people get out of her way and walls cringe for fear that she will plow through them. She has big hands, big eyes, big hair, big boobs, and big lips that part for frequent big smiles. Think of Dolly Parton on growth hormones. A borderline cartoon character who loves playing it up. She flirts with everyone—male, female, potted plants. It doesn’t matter to her. Not sure I’ve ever heard of her going out with anyone, but she goes after life with an enormous and infectious passion and a tongue firmly in cheek. However, it was the fact that she has a mighty damn big brain that Church hired her away from DARPA to run the Integrated Sciences Division of the DMS. She was brought in to replace the supergenius Dr. William Hu, and from the talk around the watercooler, she’s exceeded expectations. The catchphrase that’s begun to circulate is telling: “Glad she’s on our side.”
Doc brought a bunch of her own science with her and has used the apparently limitless finances and resources provided by Church to go further. Like Hu, Doc is a multidiscipline scientist. Her background is in physics and engineering, but she knows enough about medicine, genetics, chemistry, and other fields to be a forward-thinking—and, let’s face it, devious—manager for our team of top experts. When she popped onto the screen, she was smiling as if it was a sunny day and all was right with the world.
“Howdy, Cowboy,” she said. “Boy, do I have some fun stuff to tell you.”
INTERLUDE TWENTY
THE SUICIDE KINGS
THE PACIFIC OCEAN
TWO NAUTICAL MILES WEST OF VALPARAISO, CHILE
TWO YEARS AGO
They sat on deck chairs and watched a city die.
Ari thought about the money they were going to make after today. Buyers would be lining up to kiss his ass. Valen was thinking about how much damage he was going to do to his soul if this all worked. If the machine did what he and Ari thought it would do.
Gadyuka had pressed them for a practical demonstration in a place where there was no possible connection to the politics of the United States or Russia. Other players within the new party were already at work with different tools. Computers, the Internet, and social media. None of them were likely to draw blood. He couldn’t contribute to the New Soviet without bloodshed.
Ari looked at his watch. “Any second now.” When Valen did not respond, Ari sighed and shouted, “Turn your fucking hearing aid on, you deaf son of a whore.”
Valen winced. “No need to yell. It’s on.”
“This is going to be beautiful,” Ari murmured. He wore a shit-eating grin and his eyes were glazed from drink, pot, and some small pills he popped when he thought Valen wasn’t looking. “Any … second … now…”
There was a sudden flash of green.
It was not the green flash of the kind seen at sunset in Key West and other resort spots, and it was not a firework burst. This was soft, deeper, and it seemed to pulse upward from beneath the rolling waters, as if a great light bulb was turned quickly on and off, there and gone.
“Beautiful…,” breathed Ari as he grabbed his crotch and gave it a squeeze.
“Here it comes,” said Valen. His own emotions were hovering between dread and excitement. They had never tried the machine out like this before. Gadyuka and the senior party members needed proof that the millions of dollars invested were going to pay off. They wanted proof. They wanted headlines. Valen was sure they would get at least that much.
The sea suddenly changed. It wasn’t another flash of green. Instead, the sea seemed to darken as if tons of octopus ink had been discharged into the waters, and there was a strange stillness that lasted nearly a full minute. Then the seabirds all launched themselves off the gently rolling waves and into the air, crying out in alarm as they rose high, fleeing from sea and land for the protection of the empty air.
Valen picked up a pair of binoculars, adjusted the focus, and studied the water and the beach. The same agitation as on the surface of his champagne was stirring the waters between their boat and the shoreline, except everything was on a massive scale. The rollers disintegrated into tens of thousands of spiky wavelets which grew and grew, spitting seawater up at the flawless blue sky. On the beach the sand rippled, too. Slowly at first, and then in shivering waves that seemed to march from the waterline up the beach to the rows of trees and shrubs that separated the tourist beaches from the rocks. People were getting to their feet, standing by their beach chairs
or on their blankets. Dozens stood in the shallows, with the water dancing erratically around them.
“This is going to be big,” said Ari, and despite his growing horror at what they were doing, Valen felt his pulse jump.
Suddenly the sandy beach seemed to explode as geysers of water and sand leapt up and showered the tourists. It was impossible to hear the screams two miles out, but he could see the open mouths, the panic in body language. People running or caught in frozen moments of shocked indecision.
“Ni-i-i-ice,” said Ari, drawing it out.
“The computer models were right,” said Valen. “Right to the damn minute.”
Valen turned the gain on his hearing aid to full. The sound was there, rolling over the waves toward them. A soft, deep, growing growl, as if the earth itself was being awakened from a long sleep and was not at all happy about it.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Ari. “Look at the frigging hotel. You can hear it come apart.”
It was true. The façade of the big building looked for a moment like an image painted on a screen that was rippling in a variable breeze. Then the big picture windows on the first floor exploded as the frames twisted out of shape. Glass blew outward in glittering clouds. Valen flinched as people fell, slashed to red ribbons. Others staggered awkwardly away, clutching at faces, covering their blinded eyes, trying to slap at their bodies as if the stings they felt were nothing more than biting insects. One woman carrying a baby suddenly caved over it as if she could protect it, but a chunk of masonry leaned out from the cracked wall and crushed her flat.
Valen closed his eyes. Distance was the only buffer for him. He could not hear their cries, or the crunch of their bones. He could not smell their blood. He had no animus toward the people of Valparaiso, and he hoped mother and child had died quickly. He gagged and tasted bile burning the back of his throat. More deaths. More ghosts. So many more this time. Dozens, maybe hundreds. Dead because of him.
Deep Silence Page 22
