Then Toys dropped the pistol onto the tile floor.
“I’m damned,” he said.
Without another word, he turned and walked through the house and out the front door.
Vox refilled his glass and drank.
He stared at the bank account log-in on the screen, seeing a smeared version of it through the hot tears in his eyes.
Beneath his skin he could feel the changes, feel the tissues moving and adapting.
He drank the Scotch.
“Fuck you,” he said aloud.
And reached for the bottle.
Chapter Thirty-Five
The Hangar
Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn
June 15, 1:30 a.m. EST
The president of the United States was ten feet tall.
Even seated behind his desk in the Oval Office he was a giant, towering over Mr. Church, who stood with his hands clasped behind his back. The giant plasma screen in the Hangar conference room had flawless fidelity and except for the disparate scale, the president might have been there in the room.
“I wish I had more encouraging news, Mr. President,” said Church. “However, we are still assessing the intelligence brought to us by Captain Ledger.”
“I have to admit that I’m disappointed. I expected more. I expected to hear that you’d at least confirmed the location of all seven of the devices.”
“When I learn to perform actual magic, Mr. President, I will make sure you receive the memo.”
The president said nothing. With anyone else from the president of Russia to his own chief of staff he would have fired back a retort and fried them. Instead, he cleared his throat.
After a moment, Church said, “We have, in fact, established probable locations on four of the devices. There is a high probability that the one in Rasouli’s photo is located in or near the Aghajari oil refinery in Iran. There is a slightly lower but still actionable probability that the other three are at the Beiji oil refinery in Iraq, the Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia, and the Toot oil field in Pakistan. DMS teams are en route to those locations. When and if we get locations on the other three I want to do a coordinated and simultaneous soft infiltration of all seven. We should get the best JSOC teams in the air.”
The Joint Special Operations Command included many of the nation’s elite teams, including Delta and the SEALs.
“What about the device here in the States?”
“We need to remain at our highest state of readiness without doing anything that sends a signal. Not to our allies, not to our enemies, and not to the world press. At this point we don’t know if there is a device on U.S. soil, and if there is we have no idea where it might be. It could be a red herring, or it could be real, we don’t know. So far there are no hints on Rasouli’s drive beyond a possibility of our unknown enemies targeting oil fields.”
“We have a lot of oil fields, Deacon.”
“I am all too aware of that, Mr. President.”
The president sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. “I want to hang Vox’s head on the Capitol building spire.”
“Get in line,” said Church dryly. “But as much as we both want to see that happen, we don’t know if Vox is our enemy in this particular game.”
“He steered Rasouli toward Ledger.”
“Yes, which means that our only source of information about a potentially catastrophic situation came about because of that.”
“I hope you’re not suggesting that Vox has had a change of heart and now wants to help us avoid an act of terrorism. You couldn’t sell that on a soap opera.”
“I believe you know my take on Hugo’s patriotism.”
“Then what is his role in this?”
“He is a trickster and manipulator. If he delivered a workable cure for cancer I would look for an angle. If he’s helping us then he has a way to profit from that.”
“Enemy of my enemy?” suggested the president. Church shrugged.
“Unknown. Now that we know the scope of his treachery as the head of the Seven Kings, we know that he has more friends in the Middle East than he has here. Iran would be in that family.”
“So… he could be helping Rasouli,” ventured the president. “If this is a real threat to Iran’s oil fields, then Vox could be using us to help an ally.”
“Yes. That’s likely, but it doesn’t mean that it’s Hugo’s only motive.”
“I’m putting a lot of trust in you and MindReader, Deacon. We have to find those nukes. We can’t allow a single device to detonate.”
“We may not have a choice, Mr. President. I believe that it would be prudent to begin working on how to manage a crisis based on a variety of worst-case scenarios.”
“I just had that conversation with State. No matter where a bomb goes off it creates a different political nightmare. At this point it’s impossible to determine which worst-case scenario is actually the worst. On one side there’s the risk to civilian populations, on another the risk of contamination to the oil fields is considerable. And the political fallout, pun intended, could cripple us in the region.”
“I wish Captain Ledger had been able to record that conversation. We’d be able to haul Iran before NATO and the world and hang them out to dry for consorting with Vox. They would have to back down on their nuclear program-”
“Which would be nice,” interrupted Church, “but it would still leave us with seven possible nukes in place, and no one to blame.”
“We can blame Vox and the Seven Kings.”
“We could,” said Church dubiously, “but we would be guessing. That might sharpen focus or distract it entirely. Guesswork doesn’t put our true enemy in the crosshairs.”
The president looked at his watch. “I’m heading to the Situation Room now. We’ll conference you in. Two minutes.”
“I’ll be here,” said Church.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The Kingdom of Shadows
Beneath the Sands
June 15, 10:01 a.m.
The King of Thorns stretched out a pale hand to accept the cell phone offered by his fourth son. Grigor’s fingernails, thick and dark, curled around the slender phone, trapping it in his palm like a tiny mouse caught by a spider. He was familiar with phones, but he did not care for them. All they possessed was sound. No smell, no taste. With a small sneer of distaste he put the phone to his ear.
“Yes.”
“Grigor,” said Charles LaRoque, “Your knight failed.”
“Failed?”
“Yes, and I am very disappointed,” said LaRoque in a waspish tone. “I was led to believe that the knights were more capable than this. A simple hit on a single target. Perhaps I should have hired someone who understands his profession.”
Grigor’s fingers tightened on the phone. Cracks jagged their way through the plastic cover.
“How did it happen?”
“Who cares how it happened? It happened. He failed. You failed, Grigor, because you chose the knight. You chose someone who apparently could not complete a simple mission, and now we have a potentially catastrophic situation. His body is still at the target site.”
“I-” began Grigor, but the Scriptor cut him off.
“Don’t humiliate yourself with excuses, Grigor. Clean it up and complete the assignment. Do not disappoint me again, I’m warning you.”
The line went dead and Grigor lowered the phone from his ear. He regarded it with hooded eyes as if by looking at the device he could see the weak, doughy face of the new Scriptor. His white fingers curled around the phone until they formed a fist. There was a screech of protesting metal and plastic, and then Grigor opened his hand to let the mangled pieces fall.
Silence washed through the darkness for several moments.
“Nothing ever changes, does it?” asked Hugo Vox.
Grigor turned. Vox stood at the foot of the dais, a glass of Scotch in his hand. In the year since he had first met the former King of Fear, Vox had dwindled from a bombastic fat man to a ghost. His flesh was as loose as his clothe
s, and there were dark circles under his eyes.
“You heard everything?”
Vox nodded. “Charlie’s old man treated you like dog shit and so did his grandfather. How the fuck did you put up with it this long?”
A grunt was Grigor’s only reply.
“Are you going to do what LaRoque wants?” asked Vox.
“Yes,” said Grigor.
The American nodded. “Because you want to, not because you have to, though. Am I right?”
Grigor gave that a single nod.
“Good,” said the American. “That works for us.”
Grigor made a slight gesture and one of his aides came hurrying out of the shadows. Grigor spoke to him in the language of the Red Order-a language Vox had learned well enough over the last year to catch the gist of Grigor’s orders. The aide bowed and scuttled away.
“It will be so delicious to hang him by the heels and let his blood rain down. I would not even drink it. I would let it pool upon the ground and then piss in it.”
“I like the way you think,” said Vox, “but we need him alive for a little while longer. Him and Rasouli.”
“Why? All we need now are the codes.”
He gestured to a small device that lay on a brass table beside his throne. It was a converted satellite phone that had been rebuilt with Vox’s own scrambler technology.
“Everything’s in motion, Grigor,” assured Vox. “A little more patience, a couple of tweaks, and then you can start your revolution and crack the pillars of heaven.”
The King of Thorns glared with red hatred into the shadows. “I wonder sometimes if I can trust you, Hugo.”
“You can definitely-” Vox suddenly doubled over as a ferocious coughing fit tore through him. He spat out the whiskey and reeled, catching himself on a stone wall as the coughs racked his wasted frame. The coughing fit lasted a whole minute during which Grigor did nothing except observe with a faint smile of amusement on his lips.
Vox tore a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to his mouth as the last deep coughs shook him. When he removed it the center of the cloth was stained with a few drops of blood. The scent of it perfumed the air.
“God,” he wheezed. “Goddamn it…”
Grigor traced the contours of his own mouth with the tip of a black fingernail.
“What does it feel like to be so weak? To be sick?”
Vox glared up at him from beneath knitted brows. “Fuck you.”
The King of Thorns laughed.
“You’d better step up the goddamn treatments,” rasped Vox, “because that scrambler isn’t worth shit without the access code, and without that scrambler you and your bloodsucking freak show of a race are going to remain slaves for the rest of time. So wipe that shit-eating smile off your face and find out where that asshole Dr. Hasbrouck is. I need my shots.”
The smile on Grigor’s face faded only a little as the echoes of Vox’s words bounced off the cold stone walls of the caverns. “The doctor says that you’d never survive the last round of treatments.”
“You better pray he’s wrong, Grigor.” Vox spat onto the floor. The sputum was dark with blood. “If I die then all your dreams die with me.”
Part Two
By the Rivers Dark
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Golden Oasis Hotel
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 10:02 a.m.
Ghost and I made it down to the hotel’s basement laundry without being seen by anyone. I opened the back door and listened for commotion or sirens. There were none. I was right-no one had heard the fight and the shot was either silenced or fired from a great distance. It felt a little weird to me, even after everything I’ve done, that such a traumatic and dramatic moment could go unnoticed by people a couple of floors away. It makes you wonder about all of the ghastly things that happen every day all around us.
There were so many things about what had just occurred that I didn’t know where to begin thinking about them. No-that wasn’t true. The goon with the fangs knew about the flash drive, and he seemed pretty damned stunned when I mentioned the nukes. I wasn’t sure how to interpret that. Did it mean that he knew what was on the flash drive but didn’t think either Rasouli had told me or that I’d had a chance to check the drive’s contents? Or was the nuke thing a big surprise to him?
Or did I not yet know enough to ask myself the right question?
Yes, muttered the Cop in my head.
The Warrior was still freaked out about the goon with the fangs. When you spend most of your life training in martial arts, military technique, and the specialized skills of special ops as I have, you come to accept that combat in all of its forms is a science. It’s largely mathematical. If you hit someone in a specific part of the body at a precise angle and with sufficient force there is a predictable response, give or take some necessary variables. The same applies for a wide range of things, from lifting a barbell full of weights to shooting a pistol at a target. For some of this stuff there are thousands of years of trial and error as well as data collection to support what we know. Not what we guess but what we know. When you separate it all from sports or esoteric pursuits, combat is a science. I’ve dedicated my life to that science; if I have a church then that’s it.
However, what I just experienced did not make sense according to anything I knew or believed.
I will rip your throat out and drink your life. The killer’s voice kept whispering that to me.
I pulled out my cell and called Church.
“Go,” he said.
“Boss, I am having a really, really bad day,” I said.
“Are you talking about the devices?”
“Not directly.”
“I’m on with the president. Do you need immediate assistance or can you wait ten?”
“I can wait ten,” I said, “but not eleven.”
“Understood.” Church disconnected.
I sighed. In a very odd and childish way I felt snubbed by Church. I recognized it as a human overreaction to great fear mingled with physical injury. I needed Mommy or Daddy to kiss the boo-boo and tell me everything’s all right. So, yeah, I’m immature at times. Just like everyone else.
I found a cracked bowl and filled it with clean water for Ghost. While he drank, I tried to assess my current situation. It was like inventorying a Kansas trailer park after tornado season. I hurt in so many places I stopped counting. My arms throbbed from blocking his punches and kicks, let alone those spots where his shots had actually landed. When I pulled up my shirt I saw huge red bruises forming; the intensity of color a clear indication of the amount of tissue damage he’d inflicted. Last time I had bruises like that was when I’d taken a pair of heavy-caliber rifle rounds in my vest; the Kevlar had kept me alive but the psi of the impacts had to go somewhere.
Ghost looked up from his bowl, water dripping from his snout. I doubt Shepherds could identify bruises by sight, but his sensitive nose could probably smell the blood seeping through the damaged muscle tissue.
He whuffed and began drinking again.
“Whuff,” I agreed.
I dearly wanted to curl into a fetal position on my couch and sleep until November. Alternately, six shots of Jim Beam and a gallon of beer would work well as comfort food; but I was deep in Indian country, and there were hard miles to go before I had any kind of comfort.
“If you’d gone to the damn FBI academy you could have been politely arresting people between afternoons on the golf course,” I reminded myself. All of my inner voices told me to shut the fuck up.
The coin-operated washers and dryers were full but no one was down there. I jammed the cellar door shut, then I turned on the faucet in the laundry sink and held my head under the cold water for almost a minute. The water that sluiced over my scalp ran red for almost half that time. The cold knocked the pain level down a few notches though, and I could feel my brain reluctantly starting to clear.
My phone rang. Church was early. Sputtering and pawing water out
of my eyes, I pulled my phone and punched the button.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Hello,” she said. “How many brownie points do I have now?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Golden Oasis Hotel
Tehran, Iran
June 15, 10:04 a.m.
“Ah… shit,” I said into the phone.
Violin laughed.
“That was you?” I asked.
Instead of answering she asked, “How badly are you hurt?”
“Why do you care?”
“ How badly are you hurt? ”
I sighed. “Somewhere between trampled by a soccer mob and found dead in a ditch, but… I’ll live. What’s it to you, anyway?”
Violin took a beat before answering, and even then she didn’t answer the question. “You’re lucky.”
I clicked the button to initiate the trace. Not that I thought it was worth the effort, but what the hell. “Lucky? In what way?”
“The knight should have killed you.”
“‘Knight’? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Another pause. “I don’t know if I should be telling you this.”
“Will it keep me alive?”
“Maybe.”
“Then tell me, for Christ’s sake. That son of a bitch nearly tore my head off. You should have seen him. You should have seen his frigging teeth.”
“I have-”
“He had fangs for- Wait, what?”
“I have seen his teeth,” said Violin. “Not that same knight, of course, but I’ve seen their teeth.”
“When? How?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you should not have seen him at all.”
“Meaning that I shouldn’t have and still be alive? Like that?”
“Like that, yes.”
I was quiet for a moment, thinking it through. “What are they?”
She took her time before answering. “I don’t know for sure, Joseph.”
“I think you’re lying to me. And what’s with the ‘Joseph’? Why so formal?”
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